Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest Characters

The characters in Infinite Jest can be broken up into three main categories: the Incandenza family, government and nongovernment agents, and drug addicts (either in recovery or not).

The Incandenza Family

The Incandenza family is comprised of Jim and Avril and their children Hal, Orin, and Mario.

Hal Incandenza

Highly intelligent and talented, Hal Incandenza is the youngest son of the Incandenza family. He is a star at E.T.A. (ranked #2 for much of the novel), but he struggles with an addiction to marijuana. He quits smoking when he is told he will have to take a urine test, and the absence of drugs makes him question everything about his life. Hal also has difficulty expressing himself and is unable to communicate with college admissions at the beginning of the novel. His inability to communicate with his father perhaps prompted James to make the Entertainment.

Dr. James Incandenza / Jim

The father of Orin, Mario, and Hal, James founded E.T.A. as a place for students to learn and play tennis. After serving as E.T.A.'s headmaster, James's focus shifted to filmmaking later in life. He created the avant-garde film Infinite Jest, referred to primarily as "The Entertainment," in an effort to communicate with his emotionless son Hal. James suffers from depression and alcoholism and commits suicide by putting his head in the microwave.

Avril Incandenza

Orin, Mario, and Hal's mother, Avril Incandenza married James to overcome problems with her American visa. She has several affairs, including with 30+ medical men, an underage student at her school, and her stepbrother.

Orin Incandenza

The eldest Incandenza child, Orin was also one of the first students to graduate from E.T.A. He originally studied tennis like his father but now plays football after trying to impress Joelle. Orin is a sex addict, and he is eventually kidnapped by one of the women he has sex with. She forces him to tell her where the master copy of The Entertainment is.

Mario Incandenza

The middle Incandenza boy, Mario was born with several intellectual and physical disabilities. Mario does not play any sports, but he carries on his father's filmmaking legacy.

Drug Addicts (Former and Current)

Most of the drug addicts in the novel are undergoing rehabilitation at Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House.

Don Gately

A recovering drug addict, Don Gately checks into Ennet House to avoid going to jail after accidentally murdering someone during a robbery. Don eventually works for the Ennet House and helps other characters fight their addictions. He is shot while intervening in a fight and has a series of strange dreams in the hospital.

Joelle Van Dyne

A strikingly beautiful woman, Joelle Van Dyne meets Orin at college. When they are dating, Orin's father casts Joelle in several of his films. The two eventually break up, and she struggles with a crack cocaine addiction. She enrolls in Ennet House after a failed suicide attempt.

Government and Nongovernment Agents

The agents in the novel either work for the Office of Unspecified Services in the United States government or the Assassins Fateuils Rolents (Wheelchair Assassins) terrorist organization.

Hugh Steeply

A government agent, Hugh Steeply is undercover as Helen Steeply for much of the novel. He is actively working to find the master copy of The Entertainment before the A.F.R. does so the radical organization doesn't use it against America.

Fig. 4: Steeply works undercover as a woman named Helen for much of the novel.

Rémy Marathe

A member of the A.F.R., Rémy Marathe cares more about getting life-saving care for his wife than anything else. It is unclear whether he is actually betraying the A.F.R. or only pretending to.

Infinite Jest Genres

Infinite Jest does not belong to one singular genre of literature. As a postmodernist novel, Infinite Jest toys with traditional conventions and dips into many different genres. Some of the most obvious are satire, science fiction, hysterical realism, and tragicomedy.

The term hysterical realism was first coined by critic James Wood when he was reviewing Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth (2000). Wood stated that hysterical realism takes life experiences grounded in realism and attempts to make them grand and elaborate and pursues "vitality at all costs."¹ Infinite Jest, which encompasses 1,079 pages, is grounded in an American reality that differs from ours largely in the character's relationships to drugs, power, and one another. Likewise, Infinite Jest can also be considered a satire in that it critiques society's relationship to entertainment, mental health, and addiction.

Infinite Jest Analysis

Infinite Jest was written in the 1990s, but it is set just a few years into the future. Many brands that dominate American culture (such as Glad, Perdue, Dove Icecream, and Maytag) still exist and profoundly impact how capitalism functions in the novel. In order to increase tax revenue for the government, each year is sponsored by a corporation. This reveals how the government is directly influenced by big corporations that line politicians' pockets. This also works as an advertising tactic for big companies, whose ever-present name in the media is a subliminal reminder to support their business.

Fig. 5: Glad sponsors one of the years in Infinite Jest.

This dramatization of American society is apparent in many different areas of the novel. Consider drug use and addiction, which affects nearly every character in Infinite Jest. The students in Hal's school regularly sneak off to get high, and drugs are a normal part of socialization. Meanwhile, Orin is so addicted to sex that he gets in dangerous situations with women he does not know, all in the name of satisfying his urges. The most shocking case of addiction is with The Entertainment, which causes its viewers to become so obsessed with it that they die.

Addiction takes its toll on the mental health of many of the main characters. For example, James's addiction to alcohol contributed to his depression, but he could not stand the boredom of sobriety. He commits suicide because his addiction has deteriorated his mental state.

The novel also speaks to the burden of talent, fame, and status. Although Hal is both intellectually gifted and athletically talented, he feels isolated from his peers and his family. He constantly has to live up to the expectations others set for him until the pressure becomes too much to take. The narrator references other famous tennis players who could no longer handle the pressure of their own success. At the college admissions interview, Hal crumbles beneath the weight of his past expectations. While his peers resent Hal because they wish to be him, Hal feels trapped because he barely knows himself.

Infinite Jest Criticism

Infinite Jest was met with a diverse range of criticism. Wallace had gone on a 10-city book tour promoting the novel prior to its publication. A strong marketing strategy and early positive reviews lead to the novel's success. Some critics lauded it as the last great work in encyclopedic literature, while others found it unsatisfactory, needlessly long, and overzealous in its approach. Other reviewers argued that it was theoretically impressive, but it failed to hit its mark in actuality. It has also been criticized for its depiction of drug usage and mental health issues.

One of the novel's most avid supporters was literary critic Steven Moore. He praised the nuanced language of the novel,

One of Infinite Jest's harshest critics, Dale Peck, said:

Still, Infinite Jest is unarguably David Foster Wallace's most famous novel. It has sold more than a million copies worldwide since its original 1996 publication and made Wallace a public figure.