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Of Postmodernism in David Foster Wallace by Shannon Reading Beyond Irony: Exploring the Post-secular “End” of Postmodernism in David Foster Wallace By Shannon Marie Minifie A thesis submitted to the Graduate Program in English Language and Literature in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada August 2019 Copyright © Shannon Marie Minifie, 2019 Dedicated to the memory of Tyler William Minifie (1996-2016) ii Abstract David Foster Wallace’s self-described attempt to move past the “ends” of postmodernism has made for much scholarly fodder, but the criticism that has resulted focuses on Wallace’s supposed attempts to eschew irony while neglecting what else is at stake in thinking past these “ends.” Looking at various texts across his oeuvre, I think about Wallace’s way “past” postmodern irony through his engagement with what has come to be variously known as the “postsecular.” Putting some of his work in conversation with postsecular thought and criticism, then, I aim to provide a new context for thinking about the nature of Wallace’s relationship to religion as well as to late postmodernism. My work builds on that of critics like John McClure, who have challenged the established secular theoretical frameworks for postmodernism, and argue that such post-secular interventions provide paradigmatic examples of the relationship between postmodernism and post-secularism, where the latter, as an evolution or perhaps a mutation of the former, signals postmodernism’s lateness—or at least its decline as a cultural- historical dominant. I also follow other Wallace critics in noting his spiritual and religious preoccupations, building on some of the great work that has already been done to explore his religious and post-secular leanings. Noting similarities between the post-secular perspective, which admits that the role of religion in the postmodern (and beyond) must be reconsidered, and a key function of irony, which is to create an ambiguous space of reflection and complexity, I show that irony in Wallace’s work is a strategy not necessarily to undermine in order to ridicule the spiritual or religious ideas his characters represent in these texts; but rather, because irony is not only a dissembling tool but also a way of destabilizing meaning in the text, it serves to create a constructive tension which opens up a tenuous middle position that ironists and post-secularists always inhabit. iii Acknowledgments When you take almost ten long (and sometimes very hard) years to write a thing like this, the thanks add up. Thank you to Craig Whiting and James Houston: I may never have found Wallace if you two hadn’t introduced me (come to think of it, I’m not sure thanks are in order!). Thank you to my supervisor, Dr. Molly Wallace: for your generous insights, thoughtful commentary, unrelenting patience, and for partaking in such an undertaking as having to read much of Wallace’s work. Thank you to my second reader, Yael Schlick, who besides being on my committee has been an important mentor, friend, and inspiration to me. I’m grateful for the recipes and conversations, for the notes and humour, and for your thoughtfulness. Thanks as well to Tracy Ware and Asha Varadharajan, who were early and enthusiastic supporters of my work, and who helped me to feel an early affinity for the department of which I was newly a part. Thank you to Barb and Dave Gourdier, and to the Golles, for frequently hosting me while I was in Kingston; and to anyone else who offered up their couch while I was in town. Thank you to the friends who have been walking this path with me: Beth Jean Evans, Ashleigh Kennedy, Erin O’Brien, Leah O’Halloran, Holly MacIndoe, Martha Schabas, Erin Weinberg, and Mikaela Withers. Thank you especially to Sheila Morris, who offered perspective, friendship, and encouragement when I most needed it. Thanks to my other colleagues and classmates at Queen’s, and to the students I had there, too. That was a wonderful time, and I thank you for indulging me, and allowing me to learn alongside you all. A great big thank you to Michael and Marcella Bungay Stanier, and to all of my colleagues at Box of Crayons. Thank you for suffering me daily, and supporting me always. I’m grateful in particular for Michael’s encouragement, and for absolutely insisting on the necessity of carving out the time needed to finish this project. iv I’m grateful for the ongoing love and support of my siblings Kyle, Jenna, and Sara Minifie, who together with our little brother Tyler are one of the great blessings of my life. Thanks for not giving me too much grief over how long I’ve been in school. Thank you to my in-laws, as well: to David K. Anderson, for your unflagging cheerleading and invaluable advice at various stages of this process; to my sister-in-law Abby (Lorenc) Anderson, for your love and for our conversations; to Valerie and the late Jack Anderson for helping to shape Mark into the person of integrity that he is. Thank you to my parents, Paul and Carol Minifie, to whom I owe just about everything. Thanks for your unwavering love, and for being understanding but persistent in your encouragement that I finish this work. Thank you for always believing I could do it, and anything else I put my mind and hands to. Life has brought you to your knees, but every day, you get back up. I am emboldened by your courage and delighted by your propensity to seek joy and peace. Thank you most to my husband, Mark Anderson: without you, I wouldn’t have gotten through this, and without you, it would hardly be worth getting through anyway. Your capacity for patience, forgiveness, generosity, and love continue to astound and inspire me. Thanks for listening to me while I worked things out; thank you for creating the space I needed to complete this project, and for not allowing me to leave it unfinished. Thank you to our son Jack Tyler Leslie Anderson, for your impeccable timing and for always reminding me of what really matters. v Table of Contents Dedication ii Abstract iii Acknowledgments iv Table of Contents vi Introduction: David Foster Wallace at the ends of Postmodernism 1 Chapter 1: Postmodernism’s post-secular children: the limits of authority 61 Chapter 2: Ego, repentance, and liberating constraint in Infinite Jest 105 Chapter 3: In search of what is real: seeming versus being as a moral conundrum 151 Conclusion: “Motive, feeling, belief”: that which is still human in dark times 194 Works Cited 204 vi Introduction. David Foster Wallace at the Ends of Postmodernism “America is one big experiment in what happens when you’re a wealthy, privileged culture that’s pretty much lost religion or spirituality as a real informing presence. It’s still a verbal presence – it’s part of the etiquette that our leaders use, but it’s not inside us anymore, which in one way makes us very liberal and moderate and we’re not fanatics and we don’t tend to go around blowing things up. But on the other hand, it’s very difficult to think that the point of life is to double your salary so that you can go to the mall more often. Even when you’re making fun and sneering at it, there’s a real dark emptiness about it.” - David Foster Wallace Dark Times In a 1996 interview with Larry McCaffrey, David Foster Wallace speaks to the role of contemporary fiction in what he emphatically describes as dark times: Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this dark world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it […] I don’t think I’m talking about conventionally political or social-action- type solutions. That’s not what fiction’s about. Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking 1 human being. If you operate, which most of us do, from the premise that there are things about the contemporary U.S. that make it distinctively hard to be a real human being, then maybe half of fiction’s job is to dramatize the fact that we still are human beings, now. Or can be […] What’s engaging and artistically real is, taking it as axiomatic that the present is grotesquely materialistic, how is it that we as human beings still have the capacity for joy, charity, genuine connections, for stuff that doesn’t have a price? And can these capacities be made to thrive? And if so, how, and if not, why not? (McCaffrey 25-27) Wallace’s remarks are often the catalyst for analyses focused on the use of fiction as a conductor of sorts: a way to connect people, whether through empathy or imagination. A way to avoid being alone. But these remarks raise a different set of questions for me; namely: what exactly is “dark” about these times? What, for instance, makes these times any darker than times past? Wallace’s sense of the times’ “darkness” – an adjective he uses no fewer than three times in this short quotation to describe contemporary America – is an interesting counterpoint to more popular conceptions of the contemporary world as, by virtue of the mass media and communications, more transparent and more enlightened (and indeed more connected) than ever.
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