Infinite Jest By David Foster Wallace: A Literary Analysis

I think the majority of people who read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, can relate to a lot of themes and cultures throughout the book, but Hal’s tendencies and idiosyncrasies are especially relatable to a specific group of people. Hal represents a culture of people who are obsessive thinkers and indescribably complex. 

Even though he is a tennis prodigy and really intelligent, he came across a problem from an unknown source that made him unable to communicate with others. On page 12, even though he was unable to express himself, he wanted the college administrators he was talking to to know that he is human and not only a machine, and that he feels and believes and has opinions.
But this is contrasted with his absence of emotion after his dad’s suicide. When his mom forced him into grief counseling, he didn’t allow himself to open up and bare the grief he may or may not have felt after his dad died. Instead, he tried to “pass” therapy, by reading books and studying how he should be feeling and how to communicate those emotions to his therapist without actually admitting or actually feeling them. This is relatable to the people who dont adhere to their emotions, but instead try to sort of “think” their way out of emotional situations, but at the same time be valued as a human being by more than just what he can physically do or academically know. …show more content…
Like a lot of teenagers, Hal rebels against the rules of his sort of society in the tennis academy by smoking weed in the ETA’s underground pump room thing. Even though a lot kids do drugs and such, not a lot are as obsessed with the sort of secrecy of the event, rather than like the action itself. In the book on page 49, Wallace says,“Hal likes to get high in secret, but a bigger secret is that he’s as attached to the secrecy as he is to getting high”. So, Hal represents the people who essentially like to hide from