Date of Award
5-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
College/School
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department/Program
English
Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair
Jeffrey Gonzalez
Committee Member
David Galef
Committee Member
Jeremy Lopez
Abstract
Academic critics and casual readers of David Foster Wallace’s 1,079-page novel, Infinite Jest, have long ruminated over the book’s daunting physical size and wide narrative scope. This paper offers an argumentative interpretation of the novel’s immensity through an exploration of Wallace’s thematic preoccupation with solipsism and human loneliness. Building primarily from the critical works of Frank Cioffi and Casey Michael Henry, this essay makes the contention that the length of Infinite Jest behaves mimetically, simulating for its attentive readership a sense of perpetual emotional isolation—an isolation reflective of the epic’s untold lonesome characters. The argument further suggests that length of the novel is necessitated by Wallace’s creative want to depict a broad spectrum of solipsistic characters with profound detail. This essay ultimately establishes the gradient of loneliness in Infinite Jest through the character analyses of two antipodal Wallacean figures: Hal Incandenza and Randy Lenz.
File Format
Recommended Citation
Gieger, Michael, ""Into the womb of solipsism": the spectrum of loneliness in Wallace's Infinite Jest" (2024). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 1390.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/1390