Map of Assemblage: Fluid Identity in Donald Barthelme’s Postmodern “Snow White”

Postmodernist writer Donald Barthelme in his work “Snow White” reimagines the archetypal characters from the Brothers Grimm fairy tales as disenchanted anti-heroic figures. His multiple rewrites of identities such as the princess, the dwarfs, and the prince not only reflect the de-authoritative characteristic of postmodern literature, but also mirror the map of assemblage consisting of molar lines, molecular lines, and lines of flight proposed by contemporary French postmodernist philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, through which Barthelme not only achieves the fluid identity on the subversive lines of flight but also subtly suggests hope and pathways within the micropolitical terrain of the postmodern society.