Earticle

초록

영어

This paper investigates the important stories of Donald Barthelme: “The Balloon” and “Views of My Father Weeping.” Barthelme’s aforementioned works, which consist of a series of fragmentary little episodes, deal with the splintered world which is characteristic of postmodern image.
In “The Balloon,” the balloon image is used as a device by which to inquire into the nature of indeterminate reality. The balloon ‘hanging there’ eludes fixed meanings, exists inviolate and indefinable, and retains its provisional play in the realm of liberal imagination. In “Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning,” the reader is allowed to get the information about its central character named K. but never possesses a clear picture of his identity. Like the balloon, K. proves to be illusive, undefinable, and even indeterminate.
This epistemological and ontological indeterminacy is much more evident in “Views of My Father Weeping.” Not surprisingly, the story’s narrator finds it difficult to relate the bits of contradictory evidence he discovers. He is not even sure that he can identify his father.
Finally, the story ends with “Etc.” without arriving at any clear picture of his father’s death. All these works demonstrate a characteristic postmodern way of perceiving reality, a perception which amplifies provisional, temporal and eluding aspects of reality. Barthelme has developed the briefer stories with a recognition that his type of minimalism works only in revealing fragmented and indeterminate reality.

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 Abstract

키워드

저자

• 구은혜 [ Koo, Eun-Hye ]

참고문헌

발행기관

간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  미국소설 [마크 트웨인 리뷰]

• 간기

  연3회

• pISSN

  1738-5784

• 수록기간

  1991~2020

• 등재여부

  KCI 등재

• 십진분류

  KDC 843 DDC 813