Abstract
Donald Barthelme’s Snow White redefines gender roles in the 20th century. Barthelme retells the original fairy tale, subverting its presentation of stereotypical gender roles to depict postmodern ideologies, particularly feminism. The male voice and its controlling power, embodied within the original narrative, becomes the lost, weak, and subordinate side of his story. The female voice, repressed by social and cultural principles, is reshaped to represent the free, powerful, and dominant figure in his narrative. This novel’s presentation of Snow White’s characters reflects feminist battles, such as the fight for gender equality and women’s freedom from patriarchal restrictions or sexual objectification. Adopting a feminist perspective, this study investigates Barthelme’s demythologizing approach in Snow White to present his new identification of gender roles. Specifically, this study examines the novel as a subversive reworking of Grimm’s Snow White [the original fairy tale] by analyzing Barthelme’s reframing of Snow White, the seven dwarfs, and Prince Paul. The findings of the study will show how Barthelme’s text offers a feminist critique of patriarchal dominance to the original Grimm’s fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Through a close reading of the text, this study also seeks to highlight the novel’s subversive representation of socially constructed stereotypical male and female roles in the fairy tale to challenge the long-standing gender ideologies conceived by the patriarchal society.
Highlights
Donald Barthelme’s Snow White is a postmodern rewriting of the Grimm’s fairy tale
This study investigates Barthelme’s demythologizing approach in Snow White to present his new identification of gender roles
Through a close reading of the text, this study seeks to highlight the novel’s subversive representation of socially constructed stereotypical male and female roles in the fairy tale to challenge the long-standing gender ideologies conceived by the patriarchal society
Summary
Donald Barthelme’s Snow White is a postmodern rewriting of the Grimm’s fairy tale. As a seminal work of the Sixties; the novel received considerable attention, because of the wide dissemination of fairy tales, especially fiction of the Grimm brothers which continued to be a staple childhood reading for many youngsters even today, but because of its textual and narrative experimentation. Barthelme challenges the social norms associated with the stereotypical roles of men and women His retelling of Grimm’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs alters the presentation of women as being constantly under the thumb of men’s authority and power. This study considers these distinct departures from the original story to analyze the feminist aspects of Barthelme’s construction of Snow White While revealing how this novel employs a counter the representation of Snow White’s passive role under patriarchy in the original fairy tale, the study considers the ways in which Barthelme has subverted the portrayal of the dwarfs to reveal how patriarchy makes victims out of men, too. The study will evince how Barthelme’s Snow White, critiques the patriarchal aspects found in Grimm’s fairy tale to develop an understanding of the ways in which the social norms related to gender roles have been perpetuated through this genre
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