John Barth's "Sot-weed factor" revisited: the meaning of form

Abstract

"The sot-weed factor" by John Barth is an expanded parody of the historic Ebenezer Cooke's poem of the same tide as well as of the latter's role as colonial Maryland's first poet laureate. But in the course of the novel the dual nature of parody, as defined between the opposite poles of imitation and play, or necessity and freedom, becomes emblematic of the postmodern imagination as such. Just as the novel's content derives its meaning from the ambivalent central symbol of twinhood, which unfolds in the question of identity and role, so the novel's form mirrors an increasing tension between fiction and reality. Parody, for Barth, becomes a means of solving this tension by dissolving recollected and recorded experience into separate segments which the present author may then treat as material for the creative imagination. In "The sot-weed factor" stories become games played by the author. However, as a creator of fictional characters, while resambling the Creator of real mankind, the author neverthless remains one of His playthings. Thus the freedom which he achieves in entering the realm of the creative imagination can only be enjoyed at the price of evading reality.