Donald Barthelme and the Politics of Metafiction: Radicality and ambivalence towards laying the dead father to rest

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  • ドナルド・バーセルミとメタフィクションの政治学: 死んだ父を休ませるためのラディカリティとアンビヴァレンス

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Abstract

In today’s media, post-modern forms and techniques have become common, even mainstream in contemporary literature, television shows, and even commercials. However, what seems relatively normal now was radical and highly experimental back in the 1960s. The original purpose of experimental fiction was not to be colorful and entertaining, but to experiment with and change the established rules of literary representation. By bending and breaking the rules of how narrative forms work, authors forced us to reconsider the methods and practices that we consider normal. This genre is generally referred to as “metafiction.” In this essay, I go back over some of the roots of metafiction, and then take a closer look at one of its most challenging authors,Donald Barthelme. In particular, I will focus on how his novel The Dead Father plays with narrative norms, forcing the reader to face deeper questions about how stories are constructed, how they affect us, and why they are important.

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