earticle

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This paper aims to identify social pathology in postmodern society by analyzing short stories of Bartheleme and Carver. They are known as outstanding minimalists in minimalist school of fiction in 1970s. Barthelme’s and Carver’s short stories have indeterminacy in common. Thus, it is very difficult to find an unified theme in each short story because of fragmentary form. Nevertheless, this study examines social pathology in Bartheleme’s and Caver’s short stories. For Barthelme, Views of My Father Weeping shows the loss of objective truth in everything. Narrator can’t know the genuine meaning of reality because he can never find the true cause of his father’s death. In City Life, there is amorality in sexual relationship between man and woman because of subjective truth. Two university students’ sexual lifes seem to be self-destructive and grotesque in view of moral value. For Carver, in What We Talk about When We Talk about Love, Mel is obsessed by his own idea of love and he has no ability to empathize with his wife due to his self-centered character and emotional blindness. In Cathedral, narrator shows his inability to connect with his wife by the same reason. Finally, we can say that Carver shows us the conflict between husband and wife caused by the failure of communication while Barthelme shows us frustration caused by the loss of absolute meaning and sexual amorality.