Infinite Jest

According to Marathe, humans' attachments become their "temple of worship." Americans are known for their patriotism, but this patriotism often manifests as fanatical support for American leaders. Johnny Gentle has risen to the office of president through the cult of celebrity worship. He and his administration, however, are just people. People "change, leave, die, become ill" all the time, betraying or otherwise ending relationships. As Steeply has just acknowledged, one of the current leaders (Rodney Tine) is having an affair with a Québecois woman (Luria) who might be betraying state secrets. Marathe argues that Tine could easily be more attached to Luria than he is to American citizens. Americans should be careful about turning Tine, Gentle, and the rest into their "temple of worship" instead of remaining loyal to their nation or another more stable cause.

Steeply does not argue with Marathe's logic, but his inquiry about Marathe's family is its own kind of comeback. Steeply is essentially saying that this point is rich coming from a man who is willing to betray just about anyone to help his wife get the medical care she needs. Marathe is ostensibly a Québecois operative, but he is a triple or quadruple agent. He always makes the choice that benefits his wife, not his nation. It is clear even to Steeply that Marathe's own "temple of worship" is already sick and dying.

"We've Only Just Begun" was a 1970 hit song by Carpenters, a brother-sister musical duo Karen and Richard Carpenter. Karen Carpenter wanted to be a drummer, but audiences fell in love with her distinctive alto singing voice. In the '70s, it looked like she had a long and promising musical career ahead of her. Privately, she was struggling with the pressures of fame, her family's expectations, and her own increasingly difficult body image issues. She developed a severe eating disorder that ultimately killed her before her 33rd birthday. Her death was the first time much of the general public learned about anorexia. Her dramatic weight loss had made it clear to many that something was wrong, but people did not have the vocabulary or understanding to help her.

The optimistic "We've Only Just Begun" and the Carpenters' other music is sometimes cited as an example of unfashionable adult contemporary music. Joelle hears the song and thinks that Karen Carpenter is "a ghastly old pre-Carter thing." Her aversion might be related to her musical taste, but it also might have something to do with the similarities between Joelle and Karen. Both of them have successfully performed a version of femininity that people love to watch, Karen onstage and Joelle on the football field or on film. Even after Joelle started wearing the veil, she developed a radio personality that people listen to religiously. Behind all her performative personas (and perhaps because of them), Joelle is struggling with addiction, trauma, and identity issues. Like Karen Carpenter at the height of her fame, Joelle's internal struggles are killing her. Ironically, though, her outward personas make it hard for anyone to see or believe that she, the "Prettiest Girl of All Time," needs help.

Mario, who takes comfort in Madame Psychosis's nightly radio show, has been struggling with loneliness ever since she went off the air. He is surrounded by plenty of people whom he talks to and even counsels on a regular basis. Madame Psychosis, though, talks about being alone in her own mind and body in a way that resonates with Mario. In response to her voice, Mario feels a kind of solidarity he is lacking in his in-person community. When he hears her through the window at Ennet House, he feels "strangely thrilled" not only to hear her voice, but also to know that there is another fellow listener so near to him. With this listener, too, he feels a kind of solidarity.

The reader knows what Mario does not: the listener is almost certainly Madame Psychosis herself, Joelle Van Dyne. She has recently checked into Ennet House, and her stay there is in fact the reason she is not making any new shows for the time being. Mario doesn't realize that in this moment when Madame Psychosis feels so far away, she is actually closer to him than she has been since she created her radio personality. By bringing Joelle back within Mario's physical orbit, Wallace also emphasizes the dramatic irony swirling around Mario's entire love of the radio show: he does not seem to realize that the reason Madame Psychosis's voice feels so familiar and nice to him is because he knows her personally.

This moment in the book almost seems to promise that Mario and Joelle will have a meaningful reunion. Ironically, their physical proximity doesn't amount to anything (at least that the book explicitly covers). This missed connection reinforces the fact that E.T.A. and Ennet House are worlds largely apart from each other, even though they stand right next to each other and their residents sometimes interact.

DeLint claims that the academy has "carved out" a place where talented students can work on their tennis skills without the crushing attention of the media. In other words, the academy protects the students. Steeply, suspicious that the academy is hiding The Entertainment (and thus poses a national security threat), plays on deLint's phrasing to wonder what the academy is "carved out of." Instead of negative space "carved out" of society, Steeply imagines that the academy is some sort of monument "carved out" of a suspicious material. Perhaps it is carved out of duplicity or pro-Québecois sentiment. After all, Avril Incandenza only became naturalized to the United States through marriage.

While Steeply is worrying about E.T.A.'s threat to national security, this passage invites the reader to worry about its threat to its own students. Steeply looks around and sees evidence of all the teens deLint claims to be protecting. Mixed in with their tennis equipment in the stands are "a couple incongruous cans of furniture polish." Students at E.T.A. habitually spray themselves down with lemon Pledge because, absurdly, they have found that it is the most effective sunscreen. Steeply's suspicion over what the academy is "carved out of" brings new and deeper meaning to the students' use of furniture polish on their own bodies. Under pressure from E.T.A. to practice tennis in the sun far longer than the human body can naturally accommodate, the students are spraying themselves down until they turn, metaphorically, into polished furniture that E.T.A. can show off to visitors like Steeply. It is ironic that E.T.A. claims to protect its students from the harsh pressures of the media when, inside the academy, E.T.A. is carving beautiful set pieces out of human children.

The kind of depression Hal experiences is anhedonia, or the absence of feeling. While miserable, Kate feels as though anhedonia would be preferable to the form of depression she experiences. It is called slightly different things by various practitioners, including both clinical depression and psychotic depression. Kate experiences it as an "invisible agony" so palpable and terrifying that she can imagine dying to escape it. She compares suicide to the choice a person might face if they were trapped on an upper floor of a skyscraper that was on fire. This person might choose to jump out the window to their near-certain death simply because the alternative is being burned alive. The profound instinct for self-preservation is, in a horrible twist of irony, what leads them to jump.

Kate resents the term "psychotic depression" because she doesn't think there is anything psychotic or unreasonable about her suicidal ideation. It is not that she wants to die, but rather that her self-preservation instincts are at war. Caught between death or a life of endless depressive torment that she does not know how to bear, she can imagine opting for death and does not want to be told she is out of her mind for entertaining the possibility. Ironically, she sees suicidal ideation as a resourceful form of self-preservation.

Kate is one of many characters in the novel who face the challenge of learning to dial down the pain they experience as a side effect of mere existence. Many characters, including Hal and Kate, use substances to turn their pain into something more like anhedonia. Those characters who go through addiction and recovery learn that this solution only makes things more difficult in the long run. Gately is perhaps the main character who comes closest to healthy coping, but the end of the novel suggests that even he relapses into drug use. Relapse is a common part of addiction recovery. Nonetheless, this is a pessimistic note on which to end the whole book. Wallace, who died by suicide 12 years after publishing Infinite Jest, seems to be working through the difficulty of bearing psychic pain for an entire lifetime. He seems to hope but never fully believe that the flames of depression can be contained indefinitely. The book should not be considered an endorsement of suicide, but it does insist on compassion for those who grapple with the all-consuming pain and terror of clinical depression.

Mario tries to interrupt Hal, telling him that he is not angry Hal lied and asking Hal what he wants to do about his situation. Hal hardly seems to notice that Mario has said anything. He instead continues to spin an abstract metaphor about his mental state. He seems to imagine that he is orbiting around a black hole that is growing ever larger and threatening to swallow him up. Soon, he won't be able to resist its pull. Like a star that passes too close to a black hole, he will be shredded into pieces in front of everyone who has come to watch him at the peak of his tennis game. Even if he manages to pass the drug test at the end of the month, Hal is sure that everyone in his life will see what a fraud he is. In particular, he is sure that everyone will see how similar he is to his father.

Hal rightfully resents his father for the way he parented and for the way he died. When he was alive, he tried progressively more complicated ways to "connect" with Hal—disguises, experimental films, and more. He never bothered to drop all the pretense and meet Hal where he was at. When he died, he left Hal to discover the aftermath and develop a pathological guilt over the possibility that he was responsible for his father's death. Hal is desperate not to become someone who, like his father, alienates people and sinks into a self-centered depression. Ironically though, this desperation has led him to do exactly that. The trauma surrounding James Incandenza's life and death is a black hole that is threatening to destroy Hal once and for all. Its pull is so strong that Hal can't even hear Mario trying to assuage his fear and help him find a way forward.