Reconstruction Of Postmodern Fairy Tales In Donald Barthelme's Novels

When Donald Barthelme was faced with the western cultural crisis and various social problems in the 1960 s,he chose the way of reconstructing postmodern fairy tales to save the cultural crisis and reflect the social reality,it is not only a new way to face with “literature exhaustion”,but also a new way to awaken readers' ability to think independently,familiar fairy tales are easy to attract readers to read,so as to change the solidified traditional cognition of readers through the experience of deconstruction and reconstruction.In the process of Barthelme's literary creation,the objects of deconstruction are traditional fairy tales and quasi-fairy tales,break them down into tiny fragments,these fragments are rearranged and combined to reconstruct postmodern fairy tales that can reflect the social reality,and finally realize the two-way transcendence between fairy tale world and real world.Barthelme's creative ideas are very complex,he is influenced by existentialist philosophy,Beckett's absurd theatre and postmodernism.Therefore,his creative thoughts often contain both the profound humanitarianism spirit and the distinctive postmodern spirit.He expresses the absurdity and irrationality of the world and the pain and meaninglessness of the life through his unique postmodern writing strategies.He also deconstructs the predecessors' thoughts on the basis of absorbing them,and then reconstructs them to form his own unique postmodern creative thoughts and style.This paper chooses the reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales as the starting point,based on the extensive reading of Barthelme's long and short stories,further screening the works that can reflect the reconstruction thoughts of postmodern fairy tales.Review the historical evolution process from traditional fairy tales to postmodern fairy tales from the vertical dimension,analyze the background of Barthelme's postmodern fairy tales and define their concept;expound the unique spirit of the times and writing techniques reflected in Barthelme's postmodern fairy tales from the horizontal dimension and the creative strategies in the reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales.Combining diachronic research with synchronic research,give a multi-dimensional view of Barthelme's thoughts on the reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales from the perspectives of history,culture,politics,economy and society.In addition,Barthelme had worked as a journalist and magazine editor in his early years,therefore,he has a more profound thinking on mass media and cultural industry and needs to analyze Barthelme's thoughts on the reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales from a multidisciplinary perspective.The research topic of this paper is the reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales in Barthelme's novels,this topic has provided an important basis for understanding the author's novel and unique postmodern creative thoughts.The postmodern cultural crisis and social problems are related to Barthelme's deconstruction of traditional fairy tales and reconstruction of postmodern tales,which not only highlights his uniqueness from other postmodern writers,but also reflects the important significance of rewriting classics and updating fairy tales for rethinking social reality.In the introduction part of this paper,the research status of this topic at home and abroad is summarized,and the research significance,research value and innovation points of this topic are explained.In the first chapter,Barthelme's personal experience and his works are introduced,the works that conform to the research topic of this paper are selected,and the historical evolution process of fairy tales are systematically sorted out,so as to grasp the creation background of Barthelme's postmodern fairy tales on the whole.In the second chapter,Barthelme's postmodern fairy tales are defined and classified,their relationship with traditional fairy tales and quasi-fairy tales,as well as the spiritual characteristics and writing techniques reflected in his reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales are discussed.In the third chapter,Barthelme's specific creative strategies in the reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales are analyzed,including the author's treatment mode of language,plot and characters,reflecting the great differences between postmodern fairy tales and traditional fairy tales in the above aspects.In the fourth chapter,how Barthelme reconstructed postmodern fairy tales that can reflect social reality with postmodern creative strategies on the basis of deconstructing traditional fairy tales are explored,the conflict and dialogue between the traditional fairy tale world and the contemporary real world are formed through the different metaphors of classical images in different cultural contexts.On the basis of the first two chapters,in the fifth chapter,the author's reflection on the cultural crisis and social problems in the reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales are discussed from the perspective of postmodern narrative theory and postmodern aesthetic thought,which has provided a new perspective for readers to read postmodern literary works.Finally,in the conclusion part,the significance and value of reconstruction of postmodern fairy tales are summarized,reflecting Barthelme's thought of postmodernism with humanistic concern.