On The Deconstructive Tendency In Barthelme's Snow White

After World War Two, America society witnessed radical changes, which led tothe appearance and development of postmodernism in politics, economy, society andculture, etc. In American literature, many postmodernist writers emerge as the mainforce. They deconstruct the game rules of contemporary fiction, experiment with newwriting techniques, and take on a playful attitude toward their works.Donald Barthelme, as one of the best-known postmodernist writers, influenceddeeply by the deconstructive movement at that time, makes bold innovations in hisartistic creation consciously. His representative fiction Snow White embodiesdeconstructive features like indeterminacy, fragmentation, decononization bysubverting conventional narrative model and innovating on language structure.Based on the textual analysis of Snow White , and theories of Hassan, Wilde,McCaffery, and Derrida, this paper applies Hassan's theory to identify and discuss thedeconstructive features of Snow White,thus helps us to understand the revolutionaryand subversive nature of postmodernism fiction and chaos and meaning missing in thepostmodern society.This paper is divided into five parts according to Hassan's five deconstructivefeatures:Chapter one attempts to illustrate the indeterminacy feature by analyzing theindeterminacy of plot and points of view.Chapter two attempts to show the fragmentation feature with the fragmentalcontent and form of Snow White.Chapter three elaborates the decanonization feature by discussing decanonizationof Grimm's fairy tale and decanonization of the popular culture.Chapter four discusses the selflessness and depthlessness with the dissolvement ofself and depth.The last chapter elucidates the unrepresentable feature by analyzing the wordplayand language game of the fiction. Barthelme makes language untrustworthy, andcannot present any meaning or reality. Snow White shows distinctive deconstructive tendency which makes it arepresentative piece of postmodernism and also embodies Barthelme's own opinionsto the issues of postmodern lives, such as plural culture and world concern.