SOURCE: Christensen, Inger. “John Barth's Metafictional Redemption.” In The Meaning of Metafiction: A Critical Study of Selected Novels by Sterne, Nabokov, Barth, and Beckett, pp. 57-79. Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1981.

In the following essay, Christensen provides a thematic and stylistic analysis of John Barth's metafictional novels The Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy.

One of the stories in John Barth's fifth book Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is called “Petition”. It is written in the form of a letter to the King of Siam from a man who is a Siamese twin. The petitioner implores the King's help to be parted from his twin brother. His stomach is fastened to his brother's back, and the reason he wants to be separated from his brother is that their personalities differ totally despite the physical union.

His brother is an extrovert who takes care of the public side of life, earns and spends...