Power Games in Donald Barthelme's The Dead Father

Abstract

My purpose is to examine the shifting power relationships among the main characters of the novel, their struggles to seize power, the methods they use in order to secure their authority and control the others, and their motivations to seize power that spring from the double nature of power articulated by Foucault: on the one hand, the characters of the novel struggle to be rid of the repressive nature of power, represented by the Dead Father, on the 3 other hand, they want to gain authoritative positions in order to privileges that arise from the possession of power.