Title: The gathering of a force : David Foster Wallace's millennial fictions and the literature of replenishment
Abstract:This thesis charts the postmodern fin de siecle in North American fiction, through
close scrutiny of David Foster Wallace’s writing, and his engagement with
twentieth-century literary development. T...This thesis charts the postmodern fin de siecle in North American fiction, through
close scrutiny of David Foster Wallace’s writing, and his engagement with
twentieth-century literary development. Through examination of the ‘blank
generation’ fictions of Douglas Coupland, Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney,
and establishing the lineage of Wallace’s own influences, such as John Barth and
Don DeLillo, this thesis demonstrates that Wallace’s writing is distinct from that of
his contemporaries and explores his ambition to move American literature beyond
its reliance on established tropes of postmodern expression.
In his fiction, Wallace depicts a world where postmodernism has become
the default, mainstream mode of expression. Focusing on Wallace’s novels, The
Broom of the System (1987) and Infinite Jest (1996), this thesis interrogates his
depictions of passivity and addiction through his creative rendering of
contemporary consumer culture, going on to evaluate his attempts to develop a
new moralism through pragmatic application of philosophical systems of thought.
There is particular focus on how his ideas of morality parallel many of Iris
Murdoch’s writings on the ethics of attention.
This is one of the first theses to make use of the Wallace collection at the
Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, and through archival research and close
readings it builds on existing critical material in order to position Wallace’s work in
the wider American canon, considering its conceptual links to past literary works.
Through a critical engagement with Wallace’s work, this thesis reassesses the
progression of late-twentieth century American literature and also identifies a
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systematic attempt to initiate a new direction in novel-writing which defies
traditional categorisations and more aptly describes the American millennial
experience.Read More
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-11-01
Language: en
Type: dissertation
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