| There are a lot of features in American postmodernist novels which are different from the traditional ones. The thesis systematizes and discusses the new narrative modes and new types of narrative discourse in American postmodernist novels. In narrative modes American postmodernist novels combine non-novel and novel, reality and fiction, science fiction and fiction, serious novel and popular novel, fairy tale and fiction, novel and other art forms. In narrative discourse, American postmodernist novels employ cross-genre irony, direct speech of characters, advertising discourse, author's voice-over, and hypertextual discourse as narrative discourse. Besides, in American postmodernist novels, non-linear narration, intertextuality, parody, fragmentaiion and hypertextuality are the essential methods to employ. The thesis attempts to analyze the postmodernist novels' features of two representative American postmodernist novels- Robert Coover's The Babysitter and Donald Barthelme's Snow While in details. Through these discussions and analyses, the thesis intends to disclose that American postmodernist novels deny traditional novels' internal narrative structure and aesthetic criteria and thus evolve the genre of novel. In addition, the author intends to use the theories of postmodernist novels in the analysis of certain works. The purpose of the thesis is to enrich readers' knowledge about American postmodernist novels and postmodern American society.
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