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A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies“…”: Language, Gender, and Modes of Power in the Work of David Foster Wallace

A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies: “…”: Language, Gender, and Modes of Power in the... [It is becoming something of a convention among Wallace scholars to lament the comparative absence of well-developed female characters in his work. It is true that the female characters in Wallace’s novels and short stories do tend toward the archetypal, from the bookish, Converse-wearing Lenore to Avril’s towering maternality and the shattering beauty shared by Joelle and Meredith Rand. It is also true that there is a surprising absence of direct feminine narrative: those female characters that appear are remarkably quiet. By contrast, the masculine figures that populate Wallace’s writing are physically solid, vibrant, and vocal. However, this distancing represents an approach to women that—while it could be termed misogynistic—is not based in antipathy but in alterity.1 Wallace’s awareness of the inviolable strangeness of the female to the male consciousness leads to the opacity of his female characterizations, providing an oppositional balance with the forceful, dynamic males. Wallace’s women, who wield the influence if not the power, form the silent, shifting center around which his representations of masculinity can locate their stable orbits.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies“…”: Language, Gender, and Modes of Power in the Work of David Foster Wallace

Part of the American Literature Readings in the 21st Century Book Series
Editors: Boswell, Marshall; Burn, Stephen J.
Hayes-Brady, Clare
Springer Journals — Nov 7, 2015
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19 pages

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2013
ISBN
978-1-349-34112-2
Pages
131 –150
DOI
10.1057/9781137078346_7
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[It is becoming something of a convention among Wallace scholars to lament the comparative absence of well-developed female characters in his work. It is true that the female characters in Wallace’s novels and short stories do tend toward the archetypal, from the bookish, Converse-wearing Lenore to Avril’s towering maternality and the shattering beauty shared by Joelle and Meredith Rand. It is also true that there is a surprising absence of direct feminine narrative: those female characters that appear are remarkably quiet. By contrast, the masculine figures that populate Wallace’s writing are physically solid, vibrant, and vocal. However, this distancing represents an approach to women that—while it could be termed misogynistic—is not based in antipathy but in alterity.1 Wallace’s awareness of the inviolable strangeness of the female to the male consciousness leads to the opacity of his female characterizations, providing an oppositional balance with the forceful, dynamic males. Wallace’s women, who wield the influence if not the power, form the silent, shifting center around which his representations of masculinity can locate their stable orbits.]

Published: Nov 7, 2015

Keywords: Gender Relation; Female Character; Tennis Player; Power Struggle; Direct Speech

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