Summary
The narrator debates whether the dwarves should be tending the vats and washing buildings. In a turn towards deeper self-reflection, the narrator begins to discuss the repetitive futility of standard work. The narrator says that the dwarves worked like everyone else without questioning their actions, which made them simple bourgeois. The narrator recalls how the dwarves found Snow White in the woods. The section is broken up between two pages. It ends with an unfinished sentence interrupted by a dash before continuing on the next page, where the narrator explains that Snow White has made the dwarves’ lives confusing.
In the next section, titled “reaction to the hair,” two men admire Snow White’s hair coming out of the window. They want to touch it but then say that only Paul or someone Paul-like can do such things. One of the men decides to look for work, lamenting the fact that he has to leave the hair.
Another “reaction to the hair” follows. Fred, a rock band leader and another seemingly random character who appears in the novel only once, tells a group of men about seeing Snow White’s hair. He tells the men that the hair changed his life and that he no longer wishes to make music. He then rallies the men against an unknown leader and encourages them to revolt against him. The leader has become a good man after falling in love with a girl, which the men disapprove of.
In another “reaction to the hair,” Bill observes the hair. He discusses the hair’s sexual symbolism and affirms that the hair is Snow White’s. He realizes that by hanging her hair out the window, she has begun looking for a lover. He does not know how he should react to the hair while also debating the existence of God and individual choice.
The next “reaction to the hair” is also defined as a flashback. Paul sits in a “baff,” a misspelling of bath that Barthelme repeats throughout the novel, and recalls how the hair hanging out the window made him nervous, even though he found it beautiful.
A list of random words on a single page follows. The words are related to the “reactions” described previously as well as several other physical objects that have appeared in the novel.
The next section breaks the pattern of “reactions” and is instead titled “lack of reaction to the hair.” The dwarves sit and discuss syntax. Their conversation begins with a debate about the ‘stuffing’ in language, which references small expressions or phrases that flesh out sentences and bridge ideas. The conversation soon moves on to other subjects with little discernible transition as the dwarves discuss trash production rates. Dan then relates trash production to his earlier theory on language, although the connection is left ambiguous and the section ends as he offers the dwarves a Coke. He thanks them for coming on his tour and it becomes clear that he was leading the dwarves on a tour of a trash plant.
In another “additional reaction to the hair,” Edward engages in a philosophical debate that parallels the previous section. He states that the “horsewife” is the most integral component of American society and imbues life with meaning. Dan angrily interrupts Edward and tells him he is over-complicating the situation. He states that Snow White is a problem because of the red towels she wears and that they must get rid of both her and the towels. He hands out towels to the dwarves. In the final sentences, a character named Chang is mentioned. Chang watches the dwarves and the narrator comments that the Chinese are too detached.
Snow White sits at her window and talks to herself, debating the nature of her longing for Paul. Her questions grow to be more existential and she wonders why she has spent her life up until this point waiting for Paul. Frustrated, she says that she wishes she were somewhere else. She then exclaims “Jersualem” and compares Jerusalem’s daughters to burning oil fields.
A page of random words and phrases in quotation marks follows. Some of the phrases reference or repeat sentences from previous sections, while some are more abstract and seem unrelated to the central narrative or characters.
A bishop stands in front of hurricane survivors, and begins to direct the survivors. In parentheses, his clothing is described. It is elaborate and luxurious. From some unknown location close to the bishop, Paul watches and says that he is glad he chose to hide from the Order in the hurricane.
The narrator proposes that self-regard comes from the process of having breakfast. However, this train of thought soon begins to jump between subjects. The narrator discusses the development of books, technology, and a novel by “Dambfloot.” The narrator recounts how the dwarves read the novel and that they like books that do not have room for inference or interpretation. Snow White speaks up and asks the dwarves to stop talking and take off their pajamas. All of the dwarves except for Bill take off their pajamas. A confrontation between the dwarves and Bill ensues, but Bill does not take off his pajamas.
A conversation between Jane and mother in a stream of unattributed, untagged dialogue follows. Jane’s mother asks her why there is an apelike hand reaching into her mailbox. Jane tells her mother to ignore it, and that the ape is one of her “familiars.” She tells her mother to stop searching for meaning.
Snow White reads a note from Fred. It is a proclamation of love. He asks her to meet him in the square. Snow White’s reaction is never described, but we see Hubert picking up the note—it is unclear how the note has moved from Snow White to the yard, where he finds it—and wonders who it is for.
The dwarves have a dream in which they burn Snow White. The narrator explains that the burning was like a scene from a film, Dreyer’s The Burning of Joan of Art (actually called The Passion of Joan of Arc). The dwarves throw wood into the fire and cover her in sweet-and-sour sauce. Antonin Artaud, a French playwright known for developing the theatre of cruelty (a style of theatre in which the audience is “assaulted” by violent sounds, gestures, scenery, and lighting meant to portray the true cruelty of the surrounding world), helps the dwarves. Snow White tells the dwarves that she is in pain. Bill refuses to let her go and Jane laughs at Snow White. Bill explains that the event has nothing to do with justice.
Snow White observes her own hair hanging out of the window. She debates how to respond to the dwarves, who have purchased a new shower curtain in order to impress her.
On the way to the vault, Bill drops a bundle of money that the dwarves had all wrapped and secured together. The dwarves search for the money but are unable to find it.
Hogo urges Jane to get into his car. The car is stained and Jane accuses him of staining everything, breaking the fourth wall and acknowledging the metaphor she uses to describe Hogo’s base nature. She tells Hogo to leave. He asks her once more to get into the car.
Paul explains music to French citizens. It becomes clear that his explanation of music is metaphorical as he urges the men to amplify their lives and actions in order to create audacity.
A short paragraph, bolded and capitalized on a single page, strings together individual words and short phrases. It mentions Rome, a military armband that Paul wore, and the Italian Postal Service. None of the elements have a clear relationship to each other.
Paul has returned home in his monk’s robes. The dwarves and Paul go to a party, where Paul is not allowed to eat, drink, or say anything—a rule that the dwarves imposed upon him. The dwarves and Snow White discuss the bat theory of child-raising with a group of mothers at the party. The dwarves then leave the party. The narrator states that there was contempt for society at the party. Clem takes drugs and begins to experience turbulent emotions. Snow White asks the dwarves to take her home.
Jane asks Hogo to stop dropping his garbage out of windows. She then recounts a dream she had where she and Hogo drank wine and spoke to the winemaker about love. Hubert interrupts Jane, after which the narrator describes the proper way to tie a girl to a bed. The narrator then mentions the dwarves’ plan to sneak into a hospital.
The dwarves discuss Snow White. One of the dwarves describes how Snow White is still sitting at her window. She has not returned the dwarves’ letters and their plan to lure her into the shower with a new shower curtain failed. Another dwarf recounts how they have burned Bill’s pajamas. Bill is not with the dwarves because he is at the vats. The dwarves then discuss the quality of the Chinese baby food they make. Their conversation becomes more absurd and disjointed as they mention stocks, cows, the weather, and building leases.
The next section is a phone conversation between Hogo de Bergerac and an officer from the International Revenue Service. The officer informs Hogo that the dwarves will only give him eight percent of the money Hogo has claimed, even though he requested seventeen percent. The officer tells Hogo it is his duty as an American citizen to claim the money and Hogo protests, stating that he is not an American citizen. Hogo hangs up the phone.
The dwarves admire their new shower curtain, which has two colors. There is a visitor in the bathroom with them, who tells the dwarves that the shower curtain is the best that he has ever seen. This compliment surprises the dwarves. The narrator says that they knew the shower curtain was good, but the comment has made them rethink the shower curtain’s value. The narrator explains that the visitor is an esthetician, which makes his opinion valuable. The dwarves then begin to doubt the truth behind the visitor’s opinion, wondering how they can know that it is true. The narrator explains that it is impossible to know the state of all the city’s shower curtains, using increasingly religious language and referring to the residents of the city as souls awaiting the rapture. The narrator proposes that the dwarves destroy the esthetician, thus destroying his comment, but then comes to the conclusion that the destruction of the esthetician would not erase what he has said, and that the dwarves would then have to kill themselves. The section ends with a series of existential questions on the nature of permanence and the dwarves sit in the bathroom in fear.
Jane expresses her admiration for Hogo. Hogo says that he desires Jane but cannot understand why. Jane’s apes, her “familiars,” crawl through the walls surrounding Hogo’s house. After a brief mention of Hogo’s Pontiac and its connection to Hogo’s middle name, Jane begins to ask Hogo what the future of their relationship is and whether he is troubled by his age, to which he responds that he is not.
The narrator describes an electric wastebasket that Hubert said was overheating. The narrator explains that the record of Bill’s trial will go into the wastebasket and that the wastebasket was the weapon the dwarves planned to use to destroy the esthetician. Kevin and Hubert then have a brief conversation after which Kevin is afraid that he has misspoken. After Hubert leaves, Kevin asks a series of rhetorical questions, wondering why he is unable to make others love him.
The narrator describes how Snow White is hanging her hair out of the window again. In one of the only instances that acknowledges time passing within the novel, the narrator says that her hair is longer now. Snow White expresses her frustrations with the oppressive male control of society before lamenting the loss of buffalos as a result of male action. She pulls her hair out of the window and decides she was born in the wrong time since no one has come to climb up her hair. In the final line, Snow White breaks the fourth wall and blames the story, saying that it is wrong because it cannot supply the correct ending—a prince for her.
Analysis
Part II begins on a darker note than Part I, immediately introducing the doubt held by the narrator and the dwarves about their work and class status. They are identified as “simple bourgeois,” an explicit reference to the dwarves' desire to make more money and establish a comfortable wealth for themselves by working harder and tending the vats more. The bourgeoisie is the middle class, associated with being overly materialistic. The dwarves are framed as bourgeois, obsessed with money and material wealth. This passage foreshadows the end of the novel—when the dwarves' obsession becomes so intense that they hang Bill—and the novel becomes an explicit commentary on wealth and class. When the dwarves hang Bill because he ceases to produce enough and work hard enough at tending the vats, they do so out of an extreme dedication to their bourgeois values: money, wealth, and the preservation of money and wealth through continuous work.
Another criticism emerges in Part II in the scene with the bishop. Barthelme exposes the contradiction of unequal wealth distribution in the Roman Catholic church. As the bishop lectures impoverished people, the novel describes his luxurious dress. He is clearly wealthy, while the people he preaches to are crying after a devastating hurricane destroys their town. The narrator describes their moaning. The stark contrast satirizes the Church by creating a dramatic, exaggerated image of wealth against poverty.
Like the first section, Barthelme’s manipulation of form reflects the dwarves’ doubts as the narrative continues. The first section is split across two pages interrupted by a dash. This break has several effects. It conjures a feeling of questioning, as if the narrator decided to end the narration and then decided to continue onwards. It physically breaks the narrative. The “reflections to the hair” sections also exhibit the overarching theme of breaking apart. The dwarves, who previously remained more or less as a collective (excluding small scenes where Paul broke off and the dwarves decided that Bill was behaving incorrectly and outside of their expectations), are now spread across many sections as individuals. This breaking up of the dwarves also further twists the original fairytale. In the fairytale, the seven dwarves are often referred to only as a group. In other portrayals, such as the Disney film, the dwarves have names but still stay as a cohesive collective. Here, Snow White's hair has disrupted the dwarves and the fairytale continues to fall apart. Additionally, many of the reactions incorporate elements that would never belong in a fairytale meant for children, such as Bill’s assessment of the hair’s sexual potential or debates about syntax between the dwarves.
The debate about syntax is a part of another major theme that emerges in Part II: philosophical, theological, and conceptual debates between the characters. However, while these debates appear profound or serious on a first reading, they are actually abstract and often nonsensical. In the “lack of reaction to the hair,” Dan references a made-up philosopher, Klipschorn, and goes on to discuss the effect of ‘stuffing’ in language, constantly using words that are not a part of standard philosophical debates. He describes the ‘stuffing’ effect as ‘endless,’ ‘sludge,’ and ‘stuff.’ The conversation then moves on and begins to jump around topics. He mentions exact numbers of trash production and returns to the ‘stuffing’ debate in only a few sentences. These conversations create a sense of confusion. They also appear to be a parody of philosophy and theology. The dwarves rarely reach conclusions. The conversations utilize terminology but are actually empty. They don’t understand the culture they reference, like when they use the wrong title for a Dreyer film about Joan of Arc. Barthelme creates false debates that have such little meaning that they are comedic.
The relationship between Snow White, the dwarves, Bill, and Paul also grows strained and introduces more violence into the novel. The relationship breaks down as Snow White becomes more distant from the dwarves. The dwarves dream of burning Snow White. They try to lure her into the shower with a new shower curtain, but she doesn't fall for it. She doesn’t respond to their letters. Snow White is confused and unsure of her attraction to Paul or how to respond to the dwarves. Her confusion is another reversal of fairytale form. In a fairytale, the characters have little agency. They are prescribed to a given story that has repeated itself over time, being retold over and over again. But Snow White doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how to fill her role as princess. In fact, she feels frustrated by it, questioning why she has been waiting for Paul. She wants to depart from her traditional role. The novel illuminates the way fairytales confine characters and presents an alternate reality where the characters experience doubt. Her frustration is obvious at the end of the section when she explicitly blames the story for failing to give her the proper ending. Barthelme implicates himself, the author, and reveals himself as an active part of the novel that the characters are aware of. He totally breaks down the conventions of fairytales and novels, criticizing the very conceit of fictional writing by depicting Snow White’s frustration.
Paul, too, does not know how to be a prince. He does the most un-princely thing: running away from his responsibilities and becoming a monk. Not only is he refusing his role as prince, but he is also escaping the sexuality that is implied in a union between prince and princess. A marriage involves sex. But Paul leaves and enters a sex-less, celibate position, avoiding the physical and emotional destiny that he would have to follow in a fairytale. Like Snow White, he questions his purpose and rejects the standard fairytale tradition of a set narrative.
In this section, Hogo emerges as another one of Barthelme’s criticisms of American culture and society. Hogo is connected to an American consumerism and material identity by his original name, Pontiac. Pontiac is both an American sports car and the name of a Native American chief who fought against the British from 1763-1766. But Hogo is “loathsome” and exhibits poor moral behavior. He rejects his American identity when he tells the IRS officer that he is not an American citizen, which is ironic because his name is so explicitly formed by two parts of American history and culture. He also refuses to pay his taxes, an act with ambiguous symbolic overtones. On the one hand, he is refusing his responsibilities as an American citizen. On the other hand, he is recalling the Boston Tea Party and other historical moments in American history in which the refusal to pay taxes marks a rejection of tyrannical government. Hogo's refusal perhaps implies that the most "American" thing to do, in the corrupt America being depicted here, would be to reject American government.
