Item Details

abstract

This thesis examines David Foster Wallace's magnum opus Infinite Jest in terms of its relationship with the linguistic philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Starting from a summary of the later Wittgenstein's famous Private Language Argument, I analyze the way Wallace adapts the idea of the Private Language User (PLU) as an archetype for his novel's characters. The third chapter details Wallace's use of the Wittgensteinian notion of the "language-game" as an antidote to the epistemological and existential solipsism entailed by the private referential or mentalistic paradigm of language, while the fourth concludes with a look at the formal implications of Wallace's use of Wittgenstein for what has already been rather unfortunately termed the nascent aesthetic of "postpostmodern" fiction.

subject

Language

Language-game

Postpostmodernism

Solipsism

Wallace

Wittgenstein

contributor

Cobb, Gavin (author)

Hans, James (committee chair)

Wilson, Eric G (committee member)

Holdridge, Jefferson (committee member)

date

2013-06-06T21:19:39Z (accessioned)

2014-06-06T08:30:09Z (available)

2013 (issued)

degree

English (discipline)

embargo

2014-06-06 (terms)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/38580 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

title

Alcoholics Polyphonous: Wittgenstein's Linguistic Philosophy in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest

type

Thesis