the modality of suicide in infinite jest

29 Aug, 2025

Direct And Indirect Suicide: Hal, Joelle, James

Though famous for its inscrutability and purposeful obscurantism, perhaps one of the most interesting threads in Foster Wallace's notorious sophomore novel is its treatment of, or, indeed, disinterest in, suicide. Central characters in Infinite Jest variously greet suicide with wry amusement, apathy, anguish, or a combination thereof. Figures attempt or complete suicide, or pursue it indirectly, experiencing concern and support from those around them that is scantly proportionate to the severity of their actions. In light of Foster Wallace's own death by suicide, a detailed interrogation of the novel's themes of self-destruction, suicidal ideation, and addiction is both warranted and necessary in understanding its pivotal figures. Here, I argue that many of the work's central characters occupy space on a continuum between direct and indirect suicide, though universally, they share in being consumed by its allure. Whether their suicides are completed, averted, or redirected into psychic crisis, they are all victims of life.

Despite being entirely absent from the novel's primary narrative thread, James Incandenza is integral to vivisecting the psychology of those who survive him, oft a yardstick by which they judge themselves. No character crossing Incandenza Sr. in life seems to be free of his impression; recurrently, we are reminded that he cuts an imposing figure, with frequent references to his height, intelligence, preternatural thinness, and reserved silences which others interpret as symptoms of either his depression, intelligence, or both in tandem. He has multiple handles, all of them ominous or portentous ("Auteur", "the Mad Stork", and simply "Himself"), and is a Kurtzian figure: ever-mentioned but seldom seen, a man whom we mostly experience through secondhand recollection, or indirectly through the result of his actions. Crucially, he is not a model of morality, or indeed one for admiration; as frequently, or potentially more often, as we are reminded of his talent and intellect are we shown his debilitating alcoholism, his emotional coldness which alienates him from two of his three sons, and his inability to satisfyingly confront Avril's serial adultery, which causes him great anguish and renders him an impotent figure in the eyes of his eldest, Orin. We see that his inaction is not a result of indifference: the motif of infidelity is ever manifest in Incandeza's filmography, and characters repeatedly theorise that Avril's conduct is the primary instigator of Incandenza's severe alcoholism. Rather than by his motiviations, which remain largely ambiguous, we are forced to judge him by his actions, from his creation of the eponymous and fatally-hypnotic "samizdat", Infinite Jest, to his legacy as an optical luminary of fusion weaponry. His method of suicide is both abhorrent and uniquely elaborate, and Hal's discovery of Incandenza Sr.'s body sources much of the former's trauma throughout the narrative. We are at once asked to admire Incandenza without finding him admirable, and understand a man who defies understanding, even, and especially, in those closest to him. Ironically, even James himself is haunted by his own suicide, with some shade of his consciousness surviving in the form of the "wraith". During his interactions with Gately, we are shown that he still grieves his inability to connect with his son Hal, and that his suicide has neither afforded him peace nor spared him from inner tumult. Though it is of course possible that this wraith is a figment of several characters' imagination, we are invited to consider him "real", owing if nothing else to the fact that this being the fate of Incandenza compounds the extent of his personal tragedy. The more tragic interpretation in fiction is, inevitably, that which we consider more "real". Potentially, this is rooted in our desire for enhanced catharsis, or perhaps instead this reflects humanity's collective inner pessimism, namely that the most tragic conclusion bears the most authenticity¹.

Incandenza is not the sole figure whose connection to the theme of suicide forms the basis of their characterisation. Joelle van Dyne, known by her nom de guerre "Madame Psychosis", attempts suicide directly during the early stages of the novel, which catalyses her placement at Ennet House for the remainder of the book. Once her role as the filmic protagonist of Infinite Jest is revealed, we see her likened extensively to a striking, and crucially feminine, incarnation of death². Before her attempt at suicide, there are arguably three central male figures in her life: James, Orin, and her father, who we learn harbours a disturbing incestuous attraction to her. Having been sexually objectified by two of them, her relationship between her father and Orin culminate in her disfigurement, while her relationship with James leaves her abandoned in a state of bereavement in the wake of his suicide. Much like Incandenza Sr., her effect on those around her is quasi-hypnotic, best exemplified by her cult status as the host of "Those Were the Legends That Formerly Were", the cryptic and disconcerting radio show which captures Mario's fascination, and by Orin's initial impressions of her. His attraction to her is potent and enduring, leading him to refer to her as "the P.G.O.A.T." ("Prettiest Girl of All Time") in place of her name. In fact, it's ultimately revealed that we, too, have been forced to adopt yet another one of van Dyne's pseudonyms; her real name is Lucille Duquette. There is a clear parallel between characters' description of van Dyne using labels other than her name, and the use of "Himself" by the Incandenzas as James' sobriquet. Thus, both characters, rarely known by others by their true names, are perceived as, in a sense, outside of the realm of typical human experience. Both are seen to have a hypnotic effect on others. This is obviously apparent in the form of Infinite Jest itself, the lethally-entrancing output of their cinematic collaboration; individually, for James it is the result of his intellect, introversion, and emotional distance, and for van Dyne, it is a combination of her own intellect, creative vision as the host of a bizarre avant-garde radio broadcast, and, like James, her physical appearance.

The tripartite relationship between van Dyne, Incandenza Sr., and suicide, forms one of the most intriguing subplots of the novel, though the nature of this relationship is left largely nebulous until the book's concluding sections, where van Dyne's relationship to Infinite Jest is finally elucidated. Incandenza routinely utilises van Dyne in his films, and van Dyne's influence is credited with maintaining his sobriety in the final "three-and-a-half months" before his death³. However, it is also speculated by Molly Notkin³ that this is an aggravating factor on his mental state and a potential accelerant towards his suicide. Therefore, van Dyne and Incandenza are intertwined not only in their propensity for suicide, but also in the causality of their suicides, completed or abortive. This relationship runs both ways; Orin and van Dyne's relationship deteriorates from Orin's sexual insecurity resulting from Joelle's closeness to his father and his fear of being sexually supplanted by another man. This in turn arises from his observation of his parents' relationship, wherein James is endlessly victimised by Avril's sexual laxity, and cemented as sexually impotent in Orin's eyes. Late in the novel, in Hal's recollection of Orin's meeting with James as result of Orin's schoolboy fixation with pornography⁴ that he is responsible for procuring and distributing at E.T.A., it is revealed that Orin believes his father to have been a virgin before meeting Avril⁵. As Hal reflects, this is most certainly untrue, but demonstrates Orin's binary classification of men as either sexually potent and promiscuous, or impotent and celibate. Orin leaves van Dyne in order to pursue the former lifestyle, ostensibly to escape what he believes to be his father's failure to achieve a sufficient level of masculinity. Van Dyne, recently the victim of violent disfigurement and parental estrangement from her sexually-deviant father, is left abandoned by both Orin, out of selfishness, and James, via his suicide.

Unlike James, however, Joelle survives, and finds meaning in her relationship with Gately, as well as the other members of Ennet House; when Gately is severely wounded following a confrontation with the Canadian men seeking retribution for the sadistic murder of their dog by Gately's charge, Lenz, Joelle adopts a vivacious and urgent demeanour largely at odds with her previous characterisation as a subdued survivor of suicide. We can also read this as an inversion of her previous relationships with men, no longer objectified by them (sexually in the case of Orin and her father, aesthetically by James Incandenza) but instead displaying significant power over them. To examine this transformation through the feministic critical lens, we inherit the prescription of judging the text vis-a-vis the depth and complexity of its female characters. Typical archetypes include portrayals of women as "as an immoral and dangerous seductress, the woman as eternally dissatisfied shrew, the woman as cute but essentially helpless, the woman as unworldly, self-sacrificing angel, and so on"⁶. It can be argued that van Dyne is still here being pigeonholed into the lattermost category- that of the "self-sacrificing angel", but surely this is a pessimistic reading of her empathetic nature and her ability to assume a position of responsibility and leadership in the wake of so much personal trauma and adversity. Here, we see van Dyne "in her terry robe and gauze veil and still clutching a toothbrush [climbing] out onto the little balcony outside the 5-Woman’s window and into a skinny ailanthus beside it and [coming] down"⁷, and we can even see clear parallels between her and the stereotypical masculine protagonist rushing to comfort the wounded. In spite of this, there are clear sexualisations of her appearance by both Gately⁷ and Erdedy, the latter noting how she "runs like a girl"⁸. Whether this constitutes authorial sexism or not is difficult to parse, though it is hard for one not to allow the sexist subtext undercut the scene. We are rightfully skeptical of Foster Wallace, a male writer, and are reminded to "question the popular notion of the death of the author"⁹; neither Foster Wallace, nor indeed any author, is a passive observer of their work. His choice to include these clear sexualisations of Joelle can be read generously as attempts to portray flawed characters convincingly, or, pessimistically, as Foster Wallace's own failure to fully grapple with the dimensions of his own female characters.

Hal Incandenza, too, is potentially suicidal. Notably, he is the only character to narrate from the first-person perspective, raising the question as to whether some, most, or all of the novel is based on his memory, perception, or secondhand experience, though it is hard to imagine how he would have become intimately involved with either the actions of Steeply or those of the Assassins Fateuils Rolents (AFN) Quebecois separatist movement. There is the possibility that all of these chains in the narrative are, too, either entirely or partially imagined. What we know with certainty is that Hal's actual life is rife with pain and adversity. In the opening chapter, we witness his mental breakdown in the presence of Tavis and the University of Arizona admissions board. The confluence of several factors are implied to contribute to this, from his near-defeat at the hands of Ortho "The Darkness" Stice, a younger and nominally inferior player, in a tennis match at the E.T.A., to his attempts to remain sober despite his predilection for substance abuse. His immediate reaction to the former is one of confusion and embarrassment; Stice's ability to hold his own against him is considered such a singular embarrassment for Hal that much of the Academy flocks to watch the final moments of their match. Though Hal ultimately prevails, his brush with defeat forces him to confront the tenuousness of his psychological state, and the reliance of his self-esteem on his prestige as a tennis player and his success or failure to live up to his father's image. One can make the case that Hal is an "indirect" suicide, both in the sense that his self-destructive behaviour can be taken as a form of suicidal ideation, and in the sense that Hal's psychic crisis in the opening chapter demonstrates irreversible damage to his psyche. Strong as his attempts to persist in life may be, he is a product of suicide, and, ultimately, a beneficiary of little else. His mother fails to nurture him, preoccupied instead with her affairs with Tavis and Wayne, as well as her fixation on grammatical accuracy, which betrays her uncompromising and exacting nature that render her unfit as Hal's mother. It is challenging to identify a character with whom Hal is truly "close" or intimate, and equally difficult to identify passages which indicate his view that his life holds intrinsic value. This culminates in a form of ego death, potentially the clearest analogue to indirect suicide in common parlance.

Joelle is the metaphorical "middle ground" between James' direct act of suicide, and Hal's indirect acts of suicide and suicidal ideation. Like Hal, she inherits a similarly violent act of suicide- that of her mother's, whose death via garbage disposal² echoes that of James'; both, involving kitchen appliances, can be read as a macabre rebuke of domesticity. Both James and Joelle's mother deal with infidelity; for James, it is Avril's consummated relationships with other men, and for Joelle's mother, it is his emotional infidelity via his incestuous attraction to Joelle herself. Though she is shown to be an intimate platonic companion of James', Joelle's interaction with Hal is superficial and fleeting; she remembers him only as a "little show-offy kid", whom she wants to "slap upside the head so hard his bowtie [spins]"¹⁰, a depiction of him which bears little resemblance to the withdrawn and precocious Hal of the principal narrative. Though she displays this distaste for his histrionic antics, she is, in James' eyes, the agent through which he can connect with his son, leading him to select her for his work on Infinite Jest. She can perhaps be viewed as a sacrificial sheen who, in Hal's place, bears much of the pain inflicted by both James and Orin. We note that her attempt at suicide is preceded by James' own, and Orin's choice to discard her, while Hal remains largely detached from both his father's suicide and Orin's familial estrangement. In a sense, she is a closer confidante to the Incandenzas than Hal himself, having been chosen as his father's muse and brother's lover, and the clarity of her perception of Avril, whom she perceives as "Death incarnate" with a "rictal smile"³. Once more, death is a feminine figure. Although Avril seemingly exists outside the space of James' suicide, she is as enmeshed in death, or at least its respectable guises, as any character in the novel.

Avril has no explicit relationship with suicide, beyond through her marriage with James. However, as a commanding figure in the novel, she merits devoted attention. Like James, she is said to be imposingly tall, over six feet and five inches¹¹, and one of the novel's most imposing intellectual figures, alongside Hal and James. Like James, she is a respected academic- a former professor at Brandeis¹¹ who leaves her position to maintain E.T.A. Further parallels can be seen in her having her own nickname-"the Moms" (c.f. "Himself"), the superficial warmth of which belies her strained relationship with her children. She is a key agent in James' depersonalisation: Orin speculates that Avril was the first to coin the use of "Himself" in place of his name¹². Foster Wallace digresses early in the novel into a lengthy discussion of the levels of abuse¹³, intimating that Avril, while not openly abusive or easily categorised as an abuser, is judged by Wallace to be guilty, at least in part, of inflicting a more subtle variety of trauma onto her children. It is theorised by Molly Notkin that she pursued a sexual relationship with her own son, Orin, which would appear outlandish and obscene were it not for the longevity of her incestuous relationship with Tavis, which potentially resulted in the birth of Mario. The fact that we are provided with ample evidence of Orin's sexual and emotional deficiencies, in addition to his estrangement from and resentment towards Avril, seems to indicate some level of impropriety or complication to which we are never made privy. It is clear that Avril is at least a major factor in James' suicide- her adultery and indifference towards him (note the descriptions of her ambivalence to James' alcoholism in life) are obvious motivators for his mental deterioration. It is shortsighted to indict her as the sole instigator of his death, however: James' relationship with his own father oft veered into the territory of verbal and emotional abuse as a result of the latter's desire to live vicariously as a successful tennis player through James. When James's father, James Sr., experiences a grievous injury as a young man, his own father's callous response¹⁴ damages James Sr. immensely, a trauma that he passes to his son, James. James Sr., too, is an alcoholic, engaged in his own act of indirect suicide, and it is this tradition into which he tries to induct a young James Jr. by offering him a sip of the "amber liquid" in his flask¹⁵, an effort in which he is posthumously successful. Here we can also read James' suicide as the inevitable culmination of generational trauma. Regardless, Avril's actions are surely self-destructive. Her sexual relationships extend even to one with a student, her fellow Canadian John "No Relation" Wayne, and the subsequent exploitation of this secret by Pemulis precipitates his expulsion, presumably in part at Avril's urging, and her inaction when confronted by the disintegration of her family- from James' suicide to Orin's estrangement and Hal's deterioration- can be seen as either sociopathic and detached, or self-destructive and an expression of her emotional underdevelopment, and ultimate powerlessness in the matter of her family.

The authorial voice reserves overt judgement on the topic of suicide for the internal monologues or dialogues of their characters. As stated before, there is a possibility that the narrator throughout the novel is, in fact, Hal. Regardless of their identity, the narrator's discussions of suicide beyond Joelle and James include a mention of suicide as a method of escaping addiction failures towards recovery. Alcoholism, addiction, and recovery are ever-present threads of the novel, as they were in Foster Wallace's life. So, too, was suicide; it is easy to see fragments of Foster Wallace's reality in his fiction. In reality, his father was a professor, mimicking James' position as a prominent academic with a doctorate in physics. Also significant is the fact that the scene describing Avril's breakdown after finding young Hal with a half-eaten clump of mould is extracted almost verbatim from Foster Wallace's earlier essay, "Tennis, Trigonometry, Tornadoes" ¹⁶, as is Hal's experience as as talented tennis player. Foster Wallace's choice of Hal as protagonist possibly reveals him as his closest avatar in the text of the novel; moreover, we are shown a passage in which Hal seeks treatment for his own addiction, an experience the likes of which Foster Wallace had during his own life.

Concluding remarks must be the following- Infinite Jest is a book about life, pervaded by death. Though it succeeds in capturing the richness of its many characters' disparate experiences, it never attempts to escape the death, loss, or tragedy that defines them. In many ways, Infinite Jest is not a book about living; it is a book concerned with attempts to subvert, delay, or escape annihilation, disintegration, dissociation, and depersonalisation. Characters are not strictly "alive"- they are simply not yet dead. They exist in a world better defined by its absences and negative spaces than the shapes of what is left behind. Joelle, James, Hal, and many of those in their lives exist instead on a continuum of suicidal modalities, with one extreme serving as an imperfect and shallow approximation of life, and the other as a tortured, wraithlike, and purgatorial experience, where the psyche persists beyond death, and is tortured by its failures in life.