Parodic Intertextuality in Donald Barthelme's Snow White

Abstract

Barthelme manipulates myth for his own comic or parodic purposes inSnow White. His parody of the genre of a fairy tale, of its mythical status and meaning, does not mean the rejection of fairy tales. In his depiction, Snow White has lost her mythical innocence as a representation of goodness, traditional values and morality as well as the literary tradition a fairy tale represents. Bybecoming vulgar, erotic, anti-psychological, pseudo-intellectual and constructionof clichés associated with contemporary consumer sensibility i.e. eroticism instead of traditional platonic and mythical innocence, indecency instead of politeness, calculativeness instead of honesty; she has become a parodic version of her pretextual ancestor. This parody thus gives a critique not only of the traditional representation of reality, but also of a popular cultureSnow Whiteis representative of,in a contemporary world. In the novel, self-reflexivity is developed by narrator's frequent allusions, reference to and meditations on various works of art, scientific works and subjects. To reveal the fictional nature of the work itself metafictional strategies are used. In providing a critique of their own methods of construction, suchtextsalso explore the possible fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional texts. Barthelme emphasizes Snow White's dissatisfaction through the use of fragmentary composition, self-reflection, metafiction, intertextuality, irony, parody and imagery evoking incompleteness. In most pervasive way, Barthelme demonstrates the bankruptcy of language and literary traditions by parodying well known styles and methods.Thus, he uses parody and other innovative techniques of postmodernism to foreground the subversive and intertextual mode of postmodern novel.