Depth of Frame: “Capture” in the Works of David Foster Wallace The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Cowden, Christopher. 2020. Depth of Frame: “Capture” in the Works of David Foster Wallace. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37365066 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Depth of Frame: “Capture” in the Works of David Foster Wallace Christopher Cowden A Thesis in the Field of English for the Master of Liberal Arts Degree Harvard University May 2020 Abstract Television and language are two imperfect forms of communication that are recursively explored in the works of David Foster Wallace. Many critics have analyzed these two motifs as they function in the author’s works, however a decisive link between these two devices has yet to be fully established critically. Critic David A. Kessler suggests that television’s dominance over its audience’s consciousness has created a disconnection with reality, as it did in Wallace’s own life. Kessler coins this disconnection, “capture”, and theorizes that it led to Wallace’s own disillusionment and eventual withdrawal from life. In the thesis, I take this idea further by arguing that the capture television caused in Wallace’s own life can be meta-reflexively identified in the characters Neal (“Good Old Neon”), Julie (“Little Expressionless Animals”), and Chris Fogle (The Pale King). By close reading these short and long fictions paired with Wallace’s own criticism, treatises, and interviews, I investigate how television and language are used as imperfect forms of mediation, then assess the capture that supervenes as a result. Citing popular Wallace critics, I explore the evolution of these concepts over Wallace’s career as he strives to create a “New Sincerity”. Wallace ultimately demonstrates that language and television create a capture in the lives of his characters that distorts their perception of reality, and thus an understanding and expression of the self. It is only by becoming aware of this capture – that is hidden in plain sight – that one can learn to transcend it. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2: Mirrors, Monitors, and Mediation in “Little Expressionless Animals”…….....7 Chapter 3: “Capture”: Television and Disconnection in “Good Old Neon”…………….18 Chapter 4: Television Apotheosis: Intervention and Escape in The Pale King………….28 Chapter 5: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………47 Works Cited.......................................................................................................................56 Chapter 1 Introduction Given the enormously eclectic nature of David Foster Wallace’s writing, it should not be surprising that the growing field of David Foster Wallace Studies shares an equally diverse set of critical approaches to the writer’s work. Even the categorization of the author’s oeuvre has proven difficult to codify. As a result, a common approach to Wallace criticism has been the creation of discourse about Wallace’s role as a vanguard for a third wave of modernism in literature and the situating of the author within that spectrum. This placement varies, with some critics labeling Wallace as a postmodernist, others a postpostmodernist, and another school of thought branding him as a leader in the “New Sincerity” (Kelly 131). Perhaps this is due to the uncategorizable nature of Wallace himself. The author has been termed a satirist, a philosopher, a journalist, an ironist, a meta-ironist, an essayist, a short story writer, a novelist, and an educator, just to name a few of his roles. For this thesis, I intend to examine Wallace’s fiction, both short and long, with the aid of Wallace’s own criticism, treatises, and interviews as they shed light on the subjects of language and television. Many critics have analyzed these two motifs as they function in the works of Wallace, however a decisive link between these two devices has yet to be fully established critically. I propose that one link between these two subjects is mediation. Both language and television are utilized as imperfect means of expressing the self in Wallace’s short stories “Little Expressionless Animals” 1 and “Good Old Neon”, as well as in the author’s final novel The Pale King. While mediation by definition suggests a conflict in arbitration, for the purposes of this thesis "imperfect" forms of communication shall allude to mediation that exhibits a distorting influence or capture. The principal questions I intend to investigate are as follows: First, what is the link between the mediation of language and television in Wallace’s fiction? Second, how do television and language create a disconnection in the lives of Wallace’s characters? Third, if the mediation of language and television creates a disconnection in the lives of Wallace’s characters, does Wallace offer solutions to escape this despotic influence? For my thesis, I propose to investigate how mediation operates to express the human experience in Wallace’s fiction. I theorize that Wallace employs frames, over multiple works, as a metaphor for mediation (such as language and television) and its limitations. It is these limitations that create a disconnection in the lives of Wallace’s characters by inhibiting their ability to fully understand themselves or others. In the essay “Mind of Captives”, critic David A. Kessler suggests that television’s dominance over the modern audience’s consciousness has created a disconnection with reality, as it did in Wallace’s own life. I would like to take this idea further, arguing that the disconnection that television caused in Wallace’s own life can be meta-reflexively identified in the characters Neal (“Good Old Neon”), Julie (“Little Expressionless Animals”), and Chris Fogle (The Pale King). Kessler suggests that there is a common mechanism underlying our emotional struggles and mental illnesses, a “stimulus—a place, a thought, a memory, a person— [that] takes hold of our attention and shifts our perception” (82). Kessler defines this stimulated shift in perception as “capture” and argues that it led to Wallace’s disillusionment and eventual 2 withdrawal from life. Kessler states that Wallace once scribbled in a book, “‘Grandiosity- the constant need to be, and be seen as, a superstar.’ Something about this notion stuck and became a reflexive thought—one that made him feel very bad” (82). For the purposes of my argument, I find Wallace’s use of the term “superstar” curious, as it suggests the lexicon of television and film. Viewing television as a perception-altering stimulus, or “capture”, would correlate with the experiences of the characters Neal, Julie, and Fogle. As it did in Wallace’s own life, the distorting mediation of the television frame causes disconnection or capture in the lives of these characters. For each one, capture is demonstrated through the television frame or through language. What is there connection? They are both forms of mediation that articulate “the impossibility and the necessity of complete communication" (Schlegel 55). For my thesis, I hope to bridge this unique link and add to the academic discussion of Wallace and his works. While many of Wallace’s writings explore the role of television in American culture or the limitations of language to express the self, I intend to focus specifically on the fiction in which television and/or language create a disconnection in the lives of Wallace’s characters. In “Little Expressionless Animals”, Wallace examines the impossibility of a full connection between two people, set (appropriately) against the backdrop of the JEOPARDY! television studio. In the story, game show champ Julie Smith, “sits staring at herself in a harsh makeup mirror framed with glowing bulbs, her face loose and expressionless” (76). As she examines herself in the light of the television studio, Julie becomes disillusioned, “She has trouble reacting to stimuli” (76), she is unable to process a correlation between herself and the television persona that contemplates her through the reflective frame. The contrast between Julie’s television 3 facsimile and her true self creates capture in her life. As a result, she is unable to fully understand or express herself, creating a break in her communications with others. This capture is brought on by the mediation of “reality” through the television frame, as well as the imperfect mediation of language as it is presented in the story (often through the lexicon of television). Mediation through language and the television frame are also linked via capture in Wallace’s “Good Old Neon”. In this story, the character Neal has a mental breakdown after watching a re-run of the television show Cheers. In preparing his suicide note, Neal utilizes the vocabulary of television, describing, “I’d somehow chosen to cast my lot with my life’s drama’s supposed audience instead of with the drama itself, and that I even now was watching and gauging my supposed performance’s quality and probable effects” (447). In both narratives, the inability of the television frame to objectively present depth can be tied to the inability of the characters to fully connect with others or understand themselves. Wallace takes this notion further in his final work, The Pale King, in which the character Chris Fogle has three life-changing experiences in front of screens. One of the most significant shifts occurs while Fogle is watching the soap opera As The World Turns. Due to television’s capture, Fogle believes that the eponymous repetition of show’s title is a commentary on his own life, prepared just for him. Ironically, it is these screen-induced religious experiences that allow Fogle to deconstruct the capture that has taken over his life.