Replenishing the Used-Up: Metafiction and Mythic Renewal in John Barth’s Chimera

Abstract

John Barth’s Chimera stands as a seminal work of postmodernism, directly putting into practice the theories he outlined in his essay “The Literature of Exhaustion.” This paper argues that Barth employs metafiction, anachronism, and radical shifts in perspective to deliberately exhaust three canonical myths from Western tradition: the story of Scheherazade, Perseus, and Bellerophon. By deconstructing these archetypes, Barth moves beyond simple retelling to critique and analyze their very structure. The paper examines how each novella in the collection— “Dunyazadiad,” “Perseid,” and “Bellerophoniad”—targets a different aspect of narrative exhaustion, from the role of the storyteller to the nature of the hero’s journey. Through a comparative analysis with the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Robert Coover, and by engaging with the critical frameworks of Linda Hutcheon, Brian McHale, and Patricia Waugh, this study posits that Barth’s project is not one of nihilism but of replenishment. It concludes that by breaking down these “used-up” myths to their foundational elements, Barth demonstrates how they can be reassembled to find new relevance, arguing that the highest use of ancient stories is to make them speak to the modern condition of creative anxiety. Barth suggests that in an age of narrative surplus, the true innovation lies in conscious, critical, and playful re-appropriation.