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Wallace:David:Infinite Jest:Literature

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

Hamlet

I thought I would throw together all the Hamlet references I could find. Of course, there's the title: here's the quote from Hamlet, Act V Scene i (which Wallace references in footnote 337 (p. 814)):

  Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of
  most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back, a thousand times;
  and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it.
  Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be
  your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
  that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your
  own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

Many of Himself's movies are made for Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited.

In Gately's dream, "Joelle van D. appears with wings and no underwear and asks if they knew him, the dead guy with the head," which to me resonates with "I knew him, Horatio." Of course, picking up Himself's skull is directly analogous to the corresponding scene in Hamlet.

Hal is called Prince Hal = Hamlet a few times (p. ??)

(p. 171) "Hal is sitting in windowlight with the Riverside Hamlet he told Mario he'd read and help with a conceptual film-type project based on part of."

Hal's essay (p. 140) (referenced on p. 7 as "The Emergence of Heroic Stasis in Broadcast Entertainment", with its discussion of a hero of non-action, seems a direct reference to Hamlet.

The situation with James dying and Tavis usurping his role and taking up with Avril is directly analgous to Claudius and Gertrude in Hamlet.

wallace-l 4 July 1996: the Hamlet correspondences seem more significant (if devilishly tricky to plot).

  • JO Incandenza --> Hamlet pere (Horatio)
  • Avril --------- > Gertrude
  • CT ------------> Claudius
  • Hal (Orin)------> Hamlet fils, but NB that Hamlet's ghost appears to Gately
  • Stice --------- > Laertes
  • Joelle van D. --> Ophelia (post-nunnery)
  • Kenkle/Brandt -> Gravediggers
  • etc. etc. (Marathe's wife Gertraude etc.)

Henry V

wallace-l 1 July 1996: a dilettantish question about IJ and Shakespeare's Henry V. Does anyone else see the following congruity between the some of the characters?

                     Hal --> Prince Hal (O.K. that one's obvious.)
                   Wayne --> Hotspur
                 Pemulis --> Falstaff

The two Hal's reject their humorous but corrupt friends and seek redemption through the more principled views of Hotspur and Wayne. Perhaps this is crazy. Like Pemulis, I see every third word upside down. :-)

Tosca

wallace-l 2 June 1996:

Has anyone given any thought to the role or importance of Tosca in IJ? It's mentioned a number of times in the text, and played (I thought) a dramatic emotional role in the first person Hal section beginning on page 851. "There is no music for free-floating misery like Tosca" (p.896). Is it just that Tosca is sad music, or is it more relevant? Anyway, I haven't been able to come up with much in the way of correlations. Are there any?

Duane Spani

1984

Orin screams "Do it to her!" (i.e. the Swiss hand-model aka Luria P--) when the AFR unleashes an army of roaches on him as part of his "technical interview". This would seem to deliberately echo Winston Smith's words in 1984 (when his Party "interviewer" threatens to bring in the rats, his greatest fear): "Do it to Julia, don't do it to me, do it to her!".