Postironic Sensibility in My Appearance by David Foster Wallace

• Authors: Malina Załużna-Łuczkiewicz

Abstracts

EN

This paper aims to show how David Foster Wallace uses the story My Appearance to convey his ideas on postmodernism and irony. I argue that two sensibilities, ironic and post-ironic, are represented by the main characters David Letterman and Edilyn, respectively. I briefly outline the ways in which irony is problematic. Then I focus on how the battle between the ironic and the post-ironic is played out during an interview that the above mentioned characters participate in. I also write about the tension inherent in the notion of sincerity. I draw on the works of Adam Kelly and Lukas Hoffmann on postirony as well as a body of literature devoted to irony.

Keywords

EN

irony; postirony; My Appearance; David Foster Wallace

• Publisher: Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa w Chełmie
• Journal: Language. Culture. Politics. International Journal
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 129-138

Dates

published

2023

Contributors

author

Malina Załużna-Łuczkiewicz

• The University College of Applied Sciences in Chełm

References

• Bal, M. (2017). Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Boswell, M. (2003). Understanding David Foster Wallace. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
• Colebrook, C. (2004). Irony: the New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge.
• Constantinou, L. (2016). Cool Characters: Irony and American Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Hoffmann, L. (2016). Postirony: The Nonfictional Literature of David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers. Bielefeld: Verlag.
• Hutcheon, L. (1988). A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge.
• Hutcheon, L. (1994). Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. London: Routledge.
• Kelly, A. (2010). David Foster Wallace and the New Sincerity in American Fiction. In: D Hering (ed.) Consider David Foster Wallace: Critical Essays. Los Angeles: Sideshow Mediagroup Press.
• Kelly, A. (2013). American Fiction in Transition: Observer-Hero Narrative, the 1990s, and Postmodernism. New York: Bloomsbury.
• Konstantinou, L. (2016). Cool Characters: Irony and American Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• McClaughlin, R. L. (2018). Wallace's Aesthetic. In: R. Clare (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to David Foster Wallace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Timmer, N. (2010). Do You Feel It Too? The Post-Postmodern Syndrome in American Fictionat the Turn of the Millennium. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
• Wallace, D.F. (2014). My Appearance. In: The David Foster Wallace Reader. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
• Wallace, D.F. (2014). E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction. In: The David Foster Wallace Reader. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
• Wallace, D. F. (2012). An Expanded Interview with David Foster Wallace. In: S. J. Burn (ed.) Conversations with David Foster Wallace, Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.

Identifiers

DOI

10.54515/lcp.2023.1.129-138

Biblioteka Nauki

22177739