“I Am in Here”: A Comparative Reading of David Foster…

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_6750
dc.title	“I Am in Here”: A Comparative Reading of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
dc.contributor.author	den Dulk Allard
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/english-literature/2021/1/i-am-in-here-a-comparative-reading-of-david-foster/
dc.description.abstract	Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915), with Gregor Samsa’s transformation “into a gigantic insect”, forms an insightful comparative reading to the opening of Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996), including Hal Incandenza’s seeming, unexplained catatonia. Wallace described Kafka’s fiction as conducting a “radical literalization of truths we tend to treat as metaphorical”. In comparing Kafka’s novella and Infinite Jest, the question ‘what has happened to Hal?’ thus means: what metaphor is literalized by Hal’s situation? In both texts, the metaphors represent selfhood and writing fiction; but, contrary to Gregor, Hal has taken up the task of self-becoming and symbolizes literary disclosure and communication – rendering Infinite Jest as a redemptive novel.
dc.relation.ispartof	English Literature
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 8 \| December 2021
dc.issued	2022-03-16
dc.dateAccepted	2021-12-07
dc.dateSubmitted	2021-09-16
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2420-823X
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2021/08/002
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Acknowledgment
dc.subject	Alienation
dc.subject	Communication
dc.subject	David Foster Wallace
dc.subject	Franz Kafka
dc.subject	Infinite Jest
dc.subject	Role of literature
dc.subject	Self-becoming
dc.subject	The Metamorphosis

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

“I Am in Here”: A Comparative Reading of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Allard den Dulk Amsterdam University College, The Netherlands

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abstract

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915), with Gregor Samsa’s transformation “into a gigantic insect”, forms an insightful comparative reading to the opening of Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996), including Hal Incandenza’s seeming, unexplained catatonia. Wallace described Kafka’s fiction as conducting a “radical literalization of truths we tend to treat as metaphorical”. In comparing Kafka’s novella and Infinite Jest, the question ‘what has happened to Hal?’ thus means: what metaphor is literalized by Hal’s situation? In both texts, the metaphors represent selfhood and writing fiction; but, contrary to Gregor, Hal has taken up the task of self-becoming and symbolizes literary disclosure and communication – rendering Infinite Jest as a redemptive novel.

Published

March 16, 2022

Accepted

Dec. 7, 2021

Submitted

Sept. 16, 2021

Language

Keywords: David Foster Wallace • Role of literature • Franz Kafka • Self-becoming • Communication • Alienation • Acknowledgment • Infinite Jest • The Metamorphosis

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2021/08/002

Copyright: © 2021 Allard den Dulk. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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