GENERALIZING SUFFERING: A TAXONOMY OF CHARACTER IN DAVID FOSTER WALLACE’S INFINITE JEST

Abstract

One reads Infinite Jest and is left to wonder whether the representation of human beings that emerges from the page is closer to that celebrated by the liberal humanists or rather the one dismantled by poststructuralism. Clearly, any answer must take into account both and see Wallace’s response as a complex negotiation between these two opposite poles. The present study aims to read Wallace’s use of character as a the main locus of his personal articulation of the posthumanist subject. As we shall see, the opposition between alternative conceptions of the human subject is reflected in formal diatribes on the generalisation vs. the particularisation of suffering. In fact, empathy towards a real person or a literary character always takes place on the basis of a particular conceptualisation of that subject’s individuality and freedom. We shall explore these themes, as they are dealt with in Infinite Jest, by means of a taxonomy of its characters. Such taxonomy will allow us to account for the opposition between ‘a generalisation of suffering’ (Wallace 1993) and the mimetic ideals of psychological realism in terms of the traditional narratological distinction between flat and round characters, in a constant effort to link thematic preoccupations with formal aspects of Wallace’s novel.