The Enchanted Symbol
The Enchanted Symbol
Donald Barthelme’s Perspectives of Meaning of Life in the Glass Mountain
Donald Barthelme was an American writer famous for short stories and fictions. He had been writing in a post-modernistic manner even before the term had been coined. His writings had been considered bizarre and unacceptable by many. In most of his stories, he would employ avant-garde styles and techniques. Sentences were broken, scenes were fragmentized. His language is full of fabricated words and typos. His narration is incoherent. All these could easily be noticed before people really get into his writings.
Meanwhile, Donald Barthelme was regarded as a great author and his writings “profoundly meaningful.” He had gained wide recognition and much reputation and received many awards. If you try to see through the seemingly incomprehensible surface and go a bit deeper into the text, you will find his deceptively meaningless sentences highly philosophical.
As a significant figure of post-modernism, he surely had brought about a lot of innovations in literature and played a great role in the history of literature. In his unconventional way of narration, he had reveal to readers his own perception and observation of the world and his deep understanding of the situation of people in a highly developed capitalist society, and in an age when people no longer hold faith in their minds. People feel lost both in reality and in their spiritual world.
In this regard, his short story The Glass Mountain is a good example. The short story was first published in the collection City Life (1970) in which he characteristically mixed the mundane and the fantastic in stories. Like what he had done in his first novel Snow White (1967), Donald Barthelme retold old fairy tales in a totally different way intentionally.
The fairy tale of the Glass Mountain originally appeared in the Yellow Fairy Book edited by Andrew Lang. As in many repeatedly told stories, the original tale was quite stereotype in the aspects of aspiration and masculine heroism. A beautiful and wealthy princess was enchanted in a castle on top of a slippery and solid glass mountain situated in a mysterious land. Knights from every kingdom came to scale the mountain to disenchant the princess and marry her. But none of them succeeded. At the foot the Glass Mountain, there gradually formed a high heap of corpse of brave and unfortunate knights and their horses. A youth was quite familiar with the legend told again and again. He grew so curious and ambitious that he decided to reach the top. Determinedly the youth managed to climb up the mountain on his hands and fight the eagle guarding the castle. Finally he became a mighty and wealthy king and married the princess.
In Barthelme’s version, I tried to climb up a magnificent glass mountain situated “at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Eighth Avenue,” which “looks like” an office building. Everyone in town was told there’s a mysterious “enchanted symbol” on top of the building. I managed to reach the top of this great mountain with two plungers in both hands. Down on the ground was a high heap of fallen knights and horses. Passers-by were looking up and cursing the stupid act of climbing up in search of the “enchanted symbol.” While I was climbing up, I doubted the why I was climbing now and then. When I ultimately reached the top and discovered that the so-called “enchanted symbol” was a princess, I was disappointed and threw the princess down to the ground.
While the former one is quite a customary tale, the latter one is quite different from old telling, both in form and in content.
The first thing that you will notice is that Donald Barthelme had written the story as if he was making a list. The whole story consists of a hundred items. Donald Barthelme had surprised the readers by his unique unexpected form of writing. One of his stories was called Sentence, and indeed, the whole story was written in one single sentence. In his Explanation, Donald Barthelme inserted meaningless black blocks into the text, and the text was in the form of FAQ. The rebellious form of Barthelme’s writing was offensive to some, but at the same time, this is also one reason of his distinctness.
Deeper into the content, we might find many more different points between this story and the old story. In Barthelme’s narration, the immense glass mountain was not in a mysterious place where people would accept the possibility of fairy tales, but in a modernized big city in which people live their real lives and eliminate any possibility of untrue stories. Some people were rather indifferent of my exploration; they continue with their own lives just the same. “28. In the streets were hundreds of young people shooting up in doorways, behind parked cars. 29. Older people walked dogs.” People obsess in their pleasures. Some of the pleasures are pretty dirty and guilty, drug injection for instance. Other people were cursing me. They don’t think climbing up the Glass Mountain and suffering pains to fight the eagle worthy. They don’t believe the enchanted symbol is meaningful either. And to the failed endeavourers, they will not be merciful. “My acquaintances were prising out the gold teeth of not-yet dead knights..”
Most modern people do not even try to make achievements any more. They do not hold beliefs in their minds either. I asked myself “Does one climb a glass mountain, at considerable personal discomfort, simply to disenchant a symbol?” and “Do today’s stronger egos still need symbols?” I decided the answers to both questions should be “Yes.” It is very obvious that I am the only person in modern time to give affirmative answer while many people were busy shooting drug and walking dog, many people were cursing me. The whole world seems to be deteriorating as the streets are covered by dog shits “in brilliant colors” and the elms trees have been cut down by powerful saws.
Everything in modern society has got worse than in the medieval age, when knight were brave to try there best in search of a meaning in life. This is not what modern ordinary people concern. All the preceding climbers are knights, and no modern person would risk their life to challenge the Glass Mountain, or to reach self-establishment and find the meaning in life through their own struggle, except “me.”
Although I am trying to climb up the Glass Mountain and am willing to rescue the princess as keenly as the knights do, I do have new methods. I know this is not medieval age any more and I know “The best way to fail to climb the mountain is to be a knight in full armor – one whose horse’s hoofs strike fiery sparks from the sides of the mountain.” The tools that “I” use are plungers and climbing irons. While the hero knows clearly that he belongs to a totally new age and he has already shifted his way of life in some degree. He thinks there would be new meanings in life and he hoped the enchanted symbol could be something new. The situation of “mine” resembles the stand of a modern man dwelling in big cities in search of success. They are not strong enough to be able to chase a success. Nevertheless they are largely influenced by old habits and clichés. Thus one would make up his mind to pursue the meaning bravely and abruptly before he has really well prepared for the hardship. On the lonely way of chasing a success, I am often frightened and feel not up to the mission. “It was cold there at 206 feet and when I looked down I was not encouraged. A heap of corpses both of horses and riders ringed the bottom of the mountain, many dying men groaning there.” And when I faced the eagle, “I was afraid. I had forgotten the Bandaids.”
While I was unplugging the plunger and moving up a little, “A knight in pale pink armor appeared above me… He uttered the word ‘Muerte’ as he passed me.” The moment when I have fought the cruel eagle following the instructions in the old fairy tale and stepped into the castle, I found that the so-called “enchanted symbol” does not have any new meaning to me at all. A beautiful princess is as empty and pointless as any cliché. “Muerte” uttered by the falling knight does not only mean his own death, also it means that “my” faith in the meaningfulness in life is going to an end, and die.
To the hero himself, every preceding generation has told him the same thing and he is indoctrinated the whole value system. The fairy tale of the Glass Mountain and the symbol meaning of it are among the aged recounting.
I was told that there is a deeper meaning in life other than everyday chores and it in on the top of an immense glass mountain which is hard to scale. I am willing, although not very self-determined, to challenge the glass mountain despite all this suffering. In the heart of the hero, he was hoping for something of more grandeur to appear rather than a princess. After long suffering, I have in the end found out what an “enchanted symbol” really means and been disappointed. But it was only then, that I have the chance and the liberty to choose and realize what he wants despite all the clichés of the society.
It is safe to say that Donald Barthelme will not be happy with the highly industrialized and modernized society in which people no longer find any meaning or pursuit. In such a situation, people do not find themselves in need of anything else. They feel every desire of them is now fulfilled and every need satisfied. On one hand the world is developing rapidly, and in terms of materialism, people fill happy. On the other hand, people are now satisfied with their temporary pleasure and refuse to accept any faith, religion, pursuit or even meaning of life. Still there are lonely endeavourers trying to give and example of meaningful life like the hero of the story and Donald Barthelme.
But if we ask the hero again the question “Do today’s stronger egos still need symbols?” What would the answer be?
Donald Barthelme has repeatedly asked this question in his stories and novels. He does an anatomy on human beings in modern society and exposes their illusions that can never be realized, their weakness that can never be eliminated. The society consists of all kinds of persons. “I” am pursuing and disappointed. Many were disillusioned and satisfied with what they have got. Still there are many people who find gratification in abnormal activities. In this short story and in all his writings, Donald Barthelme has asked many questions about the defections of capitalist society and the abilities and disabilities of human beings. Donald Barthelme has shown us many possible answers but none of them could be a real answer. Barthelme has doubts and questions and he is positively finding answers but unfortunately he could never find them. The only thing he could do is to represent the fragmentized and uncertain human life and society in fragmentized way. Although he has never given clear answers of how to solve the problem of human beings, undoubtedly Donald Barthelme does reach a height in literature.
Text of the Glass Mountain fetched from http://www.fti.uab.es/sgolden/docencia/glassmountain.htm
