English 021 Creative Reading

Weblog - Category - 2 Wallace
The Anxiety of Empathy/Down to the Wire (II)
2 Wallace
by jhoffman

Anxiety and empathy are seldom far apart in "Octet" and "Adult World", although the relationship between the two is often difficult to discern. The young wife’s insecurities in “Adult World” (I) and (II) stem not from any perceived personal inadequacies but from her fear that her lovers are disengaged from...
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February 10, 2005, 02:43 PM
Friendly Feinds vs. False Friends
2 Wallace
by kparker

In “Octet,” Wallace’s unconventional narrative technique encourages disconnection between the reader and the characters. Wallace demonstrates this by making the characters in the relatively conventional Pop Quiz 4 empathetic, while making the experimental nature of Pop Quiz 6 a main reason why X an Y generate little empathy from...
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February 10, 2005, 02:17 PM
Empathy for the Reader who Works for it
2 Wallace
by began

David Foster Wallace’s unique and often headache-inducing style of writing promotes empathy to the reader who is willing to struggle through the text and critically think about its true meaning. In fact, the only chance the reader has at fully understanding Wallace is by forcing himself to somehow relate...
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February 10, 2005, 02:05 PM
Wishing but dismissing meaningful "relations"
2 Wallace
by lcolon

David Foster Wallace, in both “Octet” and “Adult World,” describes people who are either superficially connected to others or struggle to gain “true” connectedness, but fail or perish due to this attempt. “Pop Quiz 6(A)” shows superficiality within “close and intermeshed” relationships (“Octet”, p. 114) as being false due to...
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February 10, 2005, 01:54 PM
An Impartial Recounting
2 Wallace
by oradwan

In the Pop Quiz 6(A) section of Wallace’s Octet, we are presented with a character, X, who is described to the reader rather clearly as suffering from a defect: “X secretly worries that the obvious selfishness (…) might constitute evidence of some horrific defect in his human makeup” (117). Throughout...
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February 10, 2005, 01:50 PM
X as the reader
2 Wallace
by pdecoste

The narrator in “Octet: Pop Quiz 6(A)” states, about character X, that “he keeps all his secret feelings of alienation and distaste and resentment and of shame and self-urtication even about the shame of itself completely to himself…” (117). This previous statement is a paradox because the narrator confides in...
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February 10, 2005, 01:06 PM
Locked off?
2 Wallace
by kmcqueen

In Adult World (I), David Foster Wallace builds Jeni as a character that can neither be understood nor connected with. On page 137, second paragraph, “the only negative part was her irrational worry that something was wrong with her,” is Jeni’s character analysis given by Wallace. As the reader, we...
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February 10, 2005, 01:00 PM
Heartless?
2 Wallace
by jmurray

Two nameless late-stage terminal drug addicts prove that although the destruction of their lives appears complete, their "heart's nodes of empathy"(138) still remain. Whatever drove them into drug addiction in the first place is irrelevant. As suggested by DFW's ambiguous story of X and Y, any conclusion as to the...
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February 10, 2005, 12:24 PM
Observation without interaction.
2 Wallace
by kanders2

David Foster Wallace pushes us to feel disconnected from his characters by making them two dimensional from the very start of the short stories. In the second paragraph of Adult World (137) we are given our first real introduction to Jeni, which sets the stage for how we are exposed...
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February 10, 2005, 01:34 AM
I don't love you/ I just love myself
2 Wallace
by jsese

Jeni’s sudden epiphany in “Adult World II” does not signify a transformation that makes her empathetic, as no critical change in her personality occurs. David Foster Wallace’s portrayal of Jeni forces the reader to consider her nothing but an “immature, inexperienced, [and] emotionally labile young wife” (140). He lays a...
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February 10, 2005, 12:39 AM
Connecting After All
2 Wallace
by jsimpson

Despite the ostensible lack of connection between Jeni and her husband throughout Adult World, by the end of the story Wallace manages to establish the antithesis of such. As the story progresses so does the “young” (137) wife’s suspicions that her husband may be cheating, as well as her doubts...
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February 10, 2005, 12:34 AM
Disconnectedness
2 Wallace
by bellwang

“Pop Quiz 8,” in David Foster Wallace’s Octet, details X’s struggle with what he suspects must be “some horrific defect in his human makeup, some kind of hideous central ice where his heart’s nodes of empathy and basic other-directedness ought to be” (117) because he cannot wait for his...
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February 10, 2005, 12:27 AM
To empathize with the characters or with Wallace himself
2 Wallace
by sstewar2

With powerful scenarios that compel the reader to develop an identity with the characters, David Foster Wallace captures his audience through the character dilemmas. The audience is then forced into sharing feelings of empathy by ending the story without a resolution, leaving them to make judgments and end the...
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February 10, 2005, 12:09 AM
Who Cares About the Reader?
2 Wallace
by rmccally

Despite the very negative sounding passage in David Foster Wallace’s “Octet” that describes apathy in people as "some horrific defect in [their] human makeup, some kind of hideous central ice where [their] heart's nodes of empathy and basic other-directness ought to be..." (138), Wallace’s stories “Adult Word I” and “Adult...
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February 09, 2005, 11:23 PM
Empathy for David Foster Wallace
2 Wallace
by acathcar

In both of his short stories “Octet” and “Adult World,” David Foster Wallace implements a unique narrative technique of inserting himself into the text. This is particularly true in “Octet.” Specifically, the passage “Pop Quiz 9” functions as a sort of letter to and from Wallace. This intentionally diverts the...
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February 09, 2005, 09:49 PM
Introspection over Inter-connection
2 Wallace
by aahearn

Labeling characters with letters instead of names, refusing to disclose which drug addict dies, and leaving the rift between X and Y unexplained, David Foster Wallace writes fiction that remains “maddeningly hard to pin down” (123). This open-ended technique draws the reader “down here quivering in the mud of the...
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February 09, 2005, 10:11 AM
Second blog assignment
2 Wallace
by mphillip

Post before class on Thursday, 2/10 Both DFW stories present characters with "some horrific defect in [their] human makeup, some kind of hideous central ice where [their] heart's nodes of empathy and basic other-directness ought to be..." ("Octet," p. 138). Do such stories, in the end, fight against such disconnection?...
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February 08, 2005, 02:19 PM