Infinite Jest

“To say nothing of the arresting image of the idolatrous West’s most famous and self-congratulating idol, the colossal Libertine Statue, wearing some type of enormous adult-design diaper.”

The consumerism and corporatism of the society depicted in Infinite Jest is illustrated by the depiction of an American icon turned into a giant commercial. The Statue of Liberty, like the names of the years themselves, is transformed into an advertising opportunity. In the context of the novel, the characters no longer have anything that is free from the touch of consumerism. Even something as historic and distinct as a famous landmark is now an opportunity to sell a product to the American people.

“It’s more like horror. It’s like something horrible is about to happen, the most horrible thing you can imagine—no, worse than you can imagine because there’s the feeling that there’s something you have to do right away to stop it but you don’t know what it is you have to do, and then it’s happening, too, the whole horrible time, it’s about to happen and also it’s happening, all at the same time.”

Throughout the novel, the characters experience a constant sense of unease that they struggle to describe. The state of their society causes many of them turn to drugs and other addictions to provide some semblance of meaning or comfort in a horrifying world. This nebulous, indescribable horror permeates everything. The constant sense of dread is created by a society that provides no meaning in the lives of the characters, but does sell them the drugs and addictions they need to sooth the sense of dread. The consumerist horror of Infinite Jest is a constant cycle of depression and product-based instant gratification with nothing substantive on offer.

“Then in such an instance you are a fanatic of desire, a slave to your individual subjective narrow self’s sentiments; a citizen of nothing.”

Marathe diagnoses the social problems in America from the perspective of a subjective outsider. He sees American society from a distance and actively loathes it. Nevertheless, the feeling of untethered dread that he perceives in this society is not incorrect. The characters portrayed in the novel are citizens of nothing because they feel no loyalty to social institutions or orders. Whereas the Quebecois separatists stand for some grander, large-scale project, every American character is too busy trying to resolve their unique, discrete pain. Marathe may be biased, but he is also perceptive.

“We await, I predict, the hero of non-action, the catatonic hero, the one beyond calm, divorced from all stimulus, carried here and there across sets by burly extras whose blood sings with retrograde amines.”

Hal’s essay about the role of the American cinematic action hero is a subtle commentary on his own role in the novel. Although Hal is ostensibly the protagonist of Infinite Jest, he more closely resembles the “hero of non-action, the catatonic hero” (142) that he predicts will emerge in American cinema than any classic literary archetype. Hal’s analysis of American cinema functions as an attempt to diagnose his own alienation, but—like most characters—he can only express his emotions through media rather than in real life.

“You can be at certain parties and not really be there.”

Joelle’s experience at her friend’s party is a metaphor for the experience of living in the society described in the novel. Joelle is in society and she is not. Her most notable presence is under a pseudonym, while her only purpose at this stage of the novel is to end her life. She is present and not present, just as she is Joelle and not Joelle at the same time. She moves through the party with the same disinterest and depression with which she moves through the world.

“Here was a top-rank authority figure and I was failing to supply what he wanted.”

Hal attends grief counseling as though it were another class that he needs to pass. Rather than confront his actual emotions, he prefers to study grief so that he can provide the answers the counselor wants to hear. Hal is so disconnected and alienated from society that he does not even consider that he might be repressing some pain. Instead, he takes academic gratification from being able to deliver a textbook example of faked grief to the counselor. Hal performs grief and he performs conformity; the only anxiety in his life comes from his fear that he might be exposed for not expressing the supposedly correct emotions.

“Staid, sober, humane, and judicious twelve-year-old world leaders.”

For the students at the Enfield Tennis Academy, real life is an unknowable, absurd, and insincere idea. While they are unable to treat anything without an air of detached irony, they become “staid, sober, humane, and judicious” (327) when they play a game. The contrast between the seriousness with which they treat the game of Eschaton and the detachment with which they treat reality demonstrates their alienation. The only time they can express sincere emotions is when they are performing a role in a game.

“Sincerity with an ulterior motive is something these tough ravaged people know and fear, all of them trained to remember the coyly sincere, ironic, self-presenting fortifications they’d had to construct in order to carry on Out There, under the ceaseless neon bottle.”

The novel presents a contrast between the alienated, insincere society and the pained, sincere rehabilitation meetings. In the context of the novel, the only place where characters can sincerely share pain and emotion is in the context of these recovery programs. As such, this contrast illustrates the hollowness of a society in which every person and gesture has an ulterior, mocking purpose. Everything is so poisoned by irony that forming meaningful bonds is impossible. In the meetings, this irony vanishes and leaves behind only the raw, throbbing pain of people desperate for any sort of human connection. At these meetings, sincerity becomes addictive and the rehabilitation programs provide a substitute for whatever addiction once afflicted these people.

“But Marathe knew also that something within the real M. Hugh Steeply did need the humiliations of his absurd field-personae, that the more grotesque or unconvincing he seemed likely to be as a disguised persona the more nourished and actualized his deep parts felt in the course of preparation for the humiliating attempt to portray.”

Steeply relishes his absurd and unconvincing disguises because it allows him the opportunity to piece together an identity from scratch. He does not need to adhere to social pressures or expectations. His disguise is purposefully absurd as a challenge to society. He demands to be recognized rather than fade into the background like so many other people. To Steeply, the fact that people actually look at him when he is in disguise is better than the anonymity he feels in regular life. He would rather be acknowledged—even in the context of being humiliated—than ignored, because at least being humiliated is better than the vast, dreadful nothingness that so many other characters experience.

“For Marathe felt more uncomfortable not knowing whether Steeply believed a thing than if Steeply’s emotion of face showed he did not believe.”

For the characters, sincerity is a deeply unsettling prospect. The idea of raw, actual emotions expressed without irony is a warning sign that a person is dangerously unguarded. In the world of self-referential commercials and a pressing lack of anything substantive, characters do not know how to deal with sincerity. Marathe would rather believe that Steeply is being insincere than sincere because sincerity would suggest something about their relationship that Marathe is not prepared to accept.

“He didn’t say anything and Hal didn’t say anything, and they stayed like that for a while, and then Wayne’s head smoothly withdrew.”

In Infinite Jest, every reference and allusion is explained through a footnote. Every character analyzes every part of their speech, and they converse incessantly so as to fill the voids in their lives with mindless, endless chatter. When John Wayne appears in Hal’s doorway, however, he says nothing. In this moment, the rival tennis players share an unspoken moment that is notable for its silence. Hal knows about John’s affair with his mother and does not know what to feel about this. Despite his alienation, he is able to share a meaningful moment of unspoken accord with a rival in a difficult moment. This interaction between Hal and John Wayne is notable precisely because it breaks the mold of every other interaction in the novel.

“It gave him real pleasure to give the impression of care and intimacy in this interval.”

Orin is as alienated from society as his brother, but he does not recognize his own alienation. Instead, he performs rituals and gestures that he mistakes for sincere actions. He takes pleasure in being able to give the “impression of care and intimacy” (597) rather than actually caring or being intimate with someone. Orin does not recognize the insincerity of his actions nor how this insincerity alienates him from society. As such, he gives the impression of happiness whereas Hal cannot not even give that.

“Having no choice now not to fight and things simplify radically, divisions collapse. Gately’s just one part of something bigger he can’t control.”

The fight outside Ennet House becomes a metaphor for Don Gately’s loss of control. His entire life, he has been at the mercy of larger moving forces such as his mother’s addiction or his stepfather’s abuse. These forces have set him down a dark path, and by accepting that he is part of “something bigger he can’t control” (612), he has made peace with himself. Don does not believe in God, but he believes in something that motivates his fate. Like the fight, his life has become defined by giving himself up to these external forces and accepting that violence and pain may be an inevitability.

“Anyone else looking at him in there tonight would call Hal depressed.”

Hal imagines his depression as seen by an external figure. Rather than saying that he is depressed or diagnosing himself in any meaningful manner, he can only think about how his depression might appear to others. Hal cannot see a difference between living happily and giving people the impression that he is living happily, just as he cannot see a difference between being and appearing to be depressed. He wants to perform his role to the best of his ability, so he is more concerned with how he appears than how he feels.

“Good night, I am addicted and deformed, seeking residential treatment for addiction, desperately.”

Marathe goes undercover in Ennet House. To gain entry, he provides a rehearsed line in which he describes himself as “addicted and deformed” (731). However, his insincerity is not unique. Many of the people—such as Randy Lenz—who enter the facility are more than happy to lie. Marathe explicitly performs the role of someone recovering from addiction, but his faltering performance is irrelevant in a context in which so many other people are pretending that they are ready to give up their actual addictions.

“Ramy I don’t think I’m like thinking this is a feel-better story at all.”

Kate Gompert begs Marathe to tell her a true, life-affirming story, but her expectations are defined by the media entertainment that she consumes. She cannot recognize the actual emotion and sincerity in Marathe’s story because she has been conditioned by media to expect a certain kind of plot. She expects Marathe’s story to follow the familiar beats of a romantic film, so any deviation from this social expectation makes her feel uneasy. Kate resents Marathe because his real, sincere story does not provide her with the same satisfaction as a cliched romantic film.

“Gately mews and blinks like mad.”

Laying in his hospital bed, Don Gately is unable to communicate with the world around him. He cannot tell his doctor not to give him drugs, and he cannot ask his sponsor for help. He is reduced to a number of strange facial expressions and guttural, meaningless noises. This struggle to communicate is an exaggerated version of all communication in the novel. No one is able to sincerely reach out and talk to another person. Instead, they speak in irony-laden conversations that lack sincerity and are nothing more than meaningless mews and unexplained blinking.

“The nameless patrons always at tables, filling out the bar’s crowd, concessions to realism, always relegated to back- and foreground; and always having utterly silent conversations: their faces would animate and mouths move realistically, but without sound; only the name-stars at the bar itself could audibilize.”

The background actors in the television shows are symbolic representations of everyone in the society. So many of the characters feel alienated and unrecognized by their society; they feel like they are background actors in a television show they do not understand, yapping their mouths meaninglessly as the real plot is advanced elsewhere. Everyone in Infinite Jest feels like an overlooked background character who wishes to be recognized by moving into the foreground.

“He doesn’t know how to explain it, like as if the fact that she’s a public personage makes him feel somehow physically actuated, like more there-feeling.”

Don Gately cannot explain why speaking to Joelle and knowing that she is Madame Psychosis is gratifying for him. Don, like most of the characters, is defined by his relationship to television and media. These entertainments provide him with the only sincere, non-drug-related emotions in his life. As such, feeling as though he knows a celebrity provides him with a feeling of proximity to actual, sincere emotion. The society celebrates fame and celebrity to the point where those lives are the only ones that seem meaningful. A tangential friendship with a minor celebrity allows Don to feel some kind of proximity to meaning that he has never felt before.

“Again it looks cuneiform though, illegible.”

Don Gately’s meaningless scrawls on the notepad are compared to cuneiform, a writing system used in the ancient Middle East. To the characters in the novel, this ancient writing system has no meaning. Don’s attempts to communicate are as useless to the characters as a stone tablet from Mesopotamia. His words are coming from such a different place and such a different time that Don is left alone and isolated by his inability to make himself understood. He, like his writing, is now “illegible” (885).

“We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar, topology or philately—the object seemed incidental to this will to give oneself away, utterly.”

Every character in Infinite Jest searches desperately for something that can give their life some sort of meaning or purpose. Religion, drugs, grammar, or tennis function to alleviate the deep, pressing fear that life is hollow and empty. These pursuits are ways to fend off the dread of modern existence and remedy the constant sense of alienation that permeates their lives. The characters are sure that there must be something they can do to add substance to their existence but everything they attempt ultimately causes them pain somehow.

“It was like he was a vegetated hemorrhagic-stroke-victim.”

In the hospital, Don Gately is forced to reckon with his past. As he is haunted by his memories, he ironically finds his situation equivalent to that of a “vegetated hemorrhagic-stroke-victim” (922) like his mother. He is forced to reckon with the broken maternal relationship with the woman whom he never visits, while also dealing with most painful and violent moments from his past. Don sharing his mother’s position forces him to think about how she might be plagued by similar horrors, thus deepening his already pressing fears of guilt and shame.

“It was obscenely pleasant.”

The final scene in the main narrative provides a contrast between the brutal torture of Fackelmann and the “obscenely pleasant” (981) experience that Don enjoys just a few feet away. The brutality and the pleasure exist side-by-side, thanks to the drugs. The contrast between the pleasure and the pain echoes the way in which people use drugs to dim the horrors of modern society. Don’s experience is a heightened version of life, which people seek by taking drugs to distract themselves from the suffering and pain they see and experience every day. Like Don, they allow themselves to vanish into the pleasant obscenity of drugs rather than confront the reality of existence.