Views of My Father Weeping (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Donald Barthelme
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Plot: Antistory
- Time of Work: A timeless present
- Setting: Unspecified
- Principal Characters: The unnamed narrator, Lars Bang, A little girl
- Genres: Short fiction, Antistory
- Subjects: Parents and children, Emotions, Fathers, Accidents, Death or dying, Visions, epiphanies, or revelations, Sympathy
The Story
In “Views of My Father Weeping,” there is no realistic plot line based in the conventions of cause and effect and set in some existing time and space. Rather, Donald Barthelme presents the reader with a story about the supposed death of a narrator's father combined with interlineations that present alternating views of a father weeping. To complicate the matter even further, the story about the death of the father may or may not be true because the coachman, who storifies the experience, is reported to be a “bloody liar.” In addition, the juxtaposition in the...
[The entire page is 1487 words long]
