On Social Reality behind the Absurdity of Barthelme"s The Glass Mountain

Donald Barthelme’s The Glass Mountain is listed as one of the most representative postmodern fictions, but behind the absurdity lies social reality. This essay analyzes it in three different perspectives, i.e. structural, linguistic and narrative perspectives, finding that the fiction closely reflects the social facts, including the disorder of the capitalist system, people’s spiritual conflicts and struggle for peace and order, and the abnormality and indifference between acquaintances, which simultaneously embodies the author's inner poignancy to the existing social reality of the age on the one hand, as well as his sincere wishes for the harmonious and natural social relationship on the other.