The Hidden Meaning of Snow White (Part V): The Postmodern Snow White

There is no style more polarizing than postmodernism. Since the 1960s, literary critics have been arguing either for or against this approach — which includes self-reflexivity, fragmentation, irreverence, irony, collage, parody, pastiche, wordplay, frame-breaking, and general skepticism. More broadly, Terry Eagleton defines postmodernism as ‘a style of thought which is suspicious of classical notions of truth, reason, identity and objectivity, of the idea of universal progress or emancipation, of single frameworks, grand narratives or ultimate grounds of explanation’. Everyone agrees that it is a style that reflects the times, but while some interpret it as a pessimistic critique, others see it as celebratory.

These two interpretations (critical and celebratory) are often applied to Donald Barthelme’s experimental novel Snow White (1967). As Robert A. Morace writes: the single most important question for readers of Snow White is ‘to what extent is the novel a surrender to the contemporary culture or a criticism of it?’ Barthelme, who is considered to be the ‘pioneer of American postmodernism’ (Sloboda), uses parody, satire, and irony in ways that mask his true intent (more on that topic here).