Jan 3, 2010

Snow White | Characters

There are no characters as such in Barthelme's fiction. Instead, there are names, voices, words. The characters in Snow White appear shallow, like the characters in a fairy tale. Even their psychologies seem to be lifted from a basic psychology textbook. Snow White, for example, is an updated urban version of the Grimms' Brothers figure, with more than a dash of the Walt Disney animated version tossed in for intertextual (as opposed to psychological) depth. She is known chiefly by her long black hair, which she likes to hang out the window, by her dissatisfaction, and by her longing to...