Studies in Literature and Language
On Word-Play in The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme
Abstract
The Dead Father (1975) by Donald Barthelme recounts a quite simple story but it won Barthelme a well-deserved reputation; the most significant element for the achievements concerning this novel lies in the writing itself, which represents a splendid application of postmodern writing techniques, especially word-play. In this novel, Barthelme manages to transform the traditional rational language in a playing manner. This employment contributes The Dead Father as a typical postmodern work, which reflects the postmodern society in Barthelme’s eyes and displays prominently Barthelme’s intention and talents to evolve the literary writing techniques. Nothing of the traditional literature is safe from his challenging pen in the context of this novel: words, phrases, sentences or fables are equally dismentaled and deconstructed.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Allen, B. (1975, December 14). Donald Barthelme plays with the eternal trope of fatherhood. Chicago Tribune, F2.
Antrim, D. (1975). Introduction. In D. Barthelme (Ed.), The dead father (pp.vii-x). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Barthelme, D. (1975). The dead father. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
De Saussure, F. (1999). Course in general linguistics. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye. In A. Reidlinger (Ed., trans.), Wade Baskin. Beijing: China Social Sciences Publishing House.
Derrida, J. (2001). Différance. In twentieth century western critical theories by Zhu Gang (pp.208-213). Shanghai: Foreign Language Education Press.
Johnson, A. (1979, March 7). Barthelme’s language to name the unknown. The Christian Science Monitor, 18.
Lodge, D. (1997). The modes of modern writing: Metaphor, metonymy, and the typology of modern literature (p.229). New York: Cornell Univ. Press.
McHale, B. (1987). Postmodernist fiction. New York: Methuen.
McCaffery, L. (1997). Interview with Larry McCaffery, 1980. In K. Herzinger (Ed.), Not-Knowing: The essays and interviews of Donald Barthelme (pp.261-273). New York: Random House.
Maltby, P. (1991). Dissident postmodernists (p.62). Barthelm, Coove, Pynchon, Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
Steiner, W. (1999). Postmodern fictions, 1970-1990. In S. Berocovitch (Ed.), The Cambridge history of american literature (Vol. 8., p.28). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Tyson, L. (1999). Critical theory today: A user -friendly guide (2nd ed., p.253). New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. In G. E. Anscombe (Trans.). New York.
Yang, R. J. (2003). On the new model and new discourse of american postmodern novels. Foreign Literature Study, 55.
Yang, R. J. (2004). On American postmodern novels (p.198). Qingdao: Qingdao Press.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/7069
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2015 Studies in Literature and Language
Share us to: 
Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/sll/submission/wizard
Reminder
How to do online submission to another Journal?
If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:
1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author
Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.
2. Submission
Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.
We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: caooc@hotmail.com; sll@cscanada.net; sll@cscanada.org
Articles published in Studies in Literature and Language are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).
STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE Editorial Office
Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org
E-mail: office@cscanada.net; office@cscanada.org; caooc@hotmail.com
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture 
