David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest by Burn Stephen J

Author:Burn, Stephen J.
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

First, one must believe individuals ought to be rational, motivated agents in full control of themselves. This assumption in turn entails a strict metaphysics of inside and outside; that is, the self must be a clearly bounded entity, with an interior core of unique beliefs, memories, and desires easily distinguished from the external influences and controls that are presumed to be the sources of addiction. (162–3)

That Hal’s loss of control over his addiction, then, is carefully timed to coincide with his loss of control over the expressions that should be most personal to him is presumably intended as a literal manifestation of the disintegration of the last of his inner core of self. The inner gaze on November 8 reveals only emptiness, and with this recognition comes the inevitability of defeat in his efforts to limit his addiction, and estrangement from the self follows. But while Hal’s alcoholic father and grandfather have bequeathed their addiction to him, as outlined above, they have also passed down a sporting philosophy that depends upon the extinction of the idea of an “inner” self. At this point the significance of Hal’s concurrent competitive explosion and his descent into addiction emerges: both draw on the same erasure of self. Shortly after Hal has reflected on his past year’s growth, in a passage that is both heavily shadowed by the ghost of his father (his family name “Himself” recurs, while his initials, J. O. I., are played on) and clearly designed to echo the novel’s fourth sentence, Hal describes this empty self:

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