Television

Back to Main Page or Themes Page or David Foster Wallace

Wallace comments at length about the effect that television has on not only American culture but American fiction as well. With the rise of television, he argues, comes an inescapable loop of irony, where no feeling or emotion can be expressed or received seriously.

Occurrences in Wallace's work

• "My Appearance"
• "The View from Mrs. Thompson's"
• “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction"
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• Infinite Jest