David Foster Wallace and the Demon Depression Life Mirrors Art - Research Paper Example

?First Lecturer’s Homework David Foster Wallace and the Demon Depression – Life Mirrors Art David Foster Wallace was a novelist, essayist, journalist and a professor who in his short life was one of the most prolific writers of his time. His novel, Infinite Jest was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the best 100 English novels written between 1923 and 2005. His unfinished posthumous work, The Pale King was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012. In his biography of David Foster Wallace, D T Max said the writer wanted very badly to be the kind of writer for whom fame and success didn’t matter much (O'Connell). David Foster Wallace had a unique writing style and imagery that, as is usual with deep thinkers, was as funny and as intoxicating as it was dark and surreal. His style incorporated an ironic as well as an earthy self-deprecating humor and wry wit. The sheer width of his subject matter – from everyday topics like his feelings on 9/11 to the films to life to leisure to politics to tennis to words and writing was as astonishing as it was captivating. His scope, his style and his command of language defied logic, definition and pigeonholing. His clever use of words to interpose irony with poignant honesty made him at once readable and at the same time too deep to comprehend. The sum total of his work revealed the one true and honest fact that he could not hide with layers of fictional characters, situations and dry wit – what a deep, twisted and tortured soul he sought to escape by finding solace in words and make believe. Wallace suffered from depression for all of his life. His writing, his dark moods, his inexplicable dry humor all served to form a thick outer crust that hid his addictions and his deeply felt anxiety. He used the melancholia that he suffered from not as a crutch to be used as an excuse but rather as a springboard from which he was able to burst forth with creativity, vigor and verve. As is usual with a star that shines so bright, its internal heat and the depth of feeling within was far too much and while the rest of the literary world was content to watch with awe and gaze at the brightness and drink in the warmth of expression, he was burning up inside, eventually consuming himself in that awful suicide (Winner). Some of the works of Wallace included some very candid and almost personal characterizationson the issue of depression. One of his works titled “The Depressed Person” is a thinly veiled but self-conscious examination of an account of a woman suffering from depression. This heavily footnoted work – at some point the footnotes were even more than the actual story – showed Wallace in his element, funny and revealing. He shows in this work a detailed knowledge of the internal workings of the mind of the depressed person and the internal struggle that takes place within them and eventually possesses them – an experience that Wallace was all too familiar with as he struggled with depression for a larger part of his life. The story relates the depressed woman’s interactions with herb therapist, friends and her support group and is as moving as it is intimate and sincere. In the story the depressed person relies on the telephone as the main means of communications, showing the isolation caused by today’s supposedly all-reaching communications where you cannot even tell if the person talking to you on the phone or responding to your email is rolling their eyes or being insincere in their communication. This stands for the isolation, loneliness and solitude that a depressed person battles with. In the book Infinite Jest, Wallace talks about the struggles of a “psychotically depressed” person and the motivations that push him towards committing suicide by falling from a great height, trying to explain the terror that so inhabits one’s mind that it surpasses the fear of falling in a suicidal leap. In his death, as in his writing, Wallace was as creative as ever, with a great deal of literary discourse that took place because of and to do with his suicide, so much so that the suicide almost eclipsed all his works and writings. Apart from depression, Wallace also suffered from substance abuse and serious addictions that he battled with both silently in his life and very eloquently through his works. The death of Wallace through suicide was not only a catalytic event that captivated the entire literary fraternity but it brought to the fore a two societal issues that are swept under the carpet in the US today – depression and suicide. Depression is by far the most common anxiety disorder suffered by a large number of Americans. About 1 in 5 Americans suffer from some form of mental illness or psychological disorder and extreme depression is the most common manifestation afflicting more than one in ten Americans. Mental disorders have been linked to a most of the violent rages that take place in American society today such as mass shootings at schools, shopping malls and other places. Yet not a lot is being done about this serious issue that has the potential and indeed ability to destroy so many lives. The American society sweeps this issue under the carpet and not enough is being done to adequately tackle it. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States and has been referred to in many instances as the silent epidemic that no one dares speak about. It has particularly come to affect the youth in unprecedented numbers. Suicide is also a serious problem in the Armed forces, with the rates being so high that an American soldier is more likely to die from suicide than from confrontation in a frontline. It is perhaps fitting that in death, as in life, David Foster Wallace was able in his usual ironic and humane way to bring attention to an important aspect of American society and continued to play his role as not only the conscience but the voice of the majority of society – speaking up about a subject that in the end affects all members of the society. Works Cited O'Connell, Mark. "The Genius in the Room - D.T. Max’s biography of David Foster Wallace." The Slate Book Review, 7 Sept. 2012. Web. 29 July 2013. . Winner, Laurie. "David Foster Wallace: Defining voice of depression?" Salon.com, 26 Nov. 2012.Web. 29 July 2013. . Zahl, David. "David Foster Wallace on Addiction, America and Any Book Later Than Dostoyevsky." Salon.com, 18 June 2010. Web. 29 July 2013. . Read More