Analysis Of David Foster Wallace's Essay: Element Of The Crowd
Alexander Kyriakides
Professor Jennifer Hyde
Writing the Essay
5/2/16
Element of the Crowd
The essays of David Foster Wallace are, in many ways, not about the subjects they pretend to cover. Foster Wallace is not concerned with lobsters, high-stake tennis matches or the way that Midwesterners gather around their TV's. Instead, Foster Wallace is interested with what surrounds these subjects and what they have to say about human experience. In this sense, the seemingly random topics Foster Wallace chooses to focus his lens on are actually incredibly precise. He uses them to find existential, and sometimes metaphysical, insight out of the mundane. It is for this reason that I think he is drawn to subjects that involve crowds, such as the Maine Lobster Festival in "Consider the Lobster," the 2006 Wimbledon tournament in "Federer as Religious Experience," and a group TV viewing in "911: The View from the Midwest." The increased number of people in the crowds in these settings gives Foster Wallace a larger sample …show more content…
Where and when was the public debate on whether they're worth it? Was there no such debate because we're not capable of having or demanding one?" (2). What began as an intimate discourse that presented itself as a one-on-one questionnaire between Foster Wallace and the lone reader, has expanded to include the entire American populace. The questions he asks here ultimately have no direct answers, and he doesn't really attempt to propose any. However, the use of these rhetorical questions as a means of asking the reader to think about a larger shared experience, in this case the experience of an American living in post-9/11 America, is indicative of his approach in his more journalistic-style
Professor Jennifer Hyde
Writing the Essay
5/2/16
Element of the Crowd
The essays of David Foster Wallace are, in many ways, not about the subjects they pretend to cover. Foster Wallace is not concerned with lobsters, high-stake tennis matches or the way that Midwesterners gather around their TV's. Instead, Foster Wallace is interested with what surrounds these subjects and what they have to say about human experience. In this sense, the seemingly random topics Foster Wallace chooses to focus his lens on are actually incredibly precise. He uses them to find existential, and sometimes metaphysical, insight out of the mundane. It is for this reason that I think he is drawn to subjects that involve crowds, such as the Maine Lobster Festival in "Consider the Lobster," the 2006 Wimbledon tournament in "Federer as Religious Experience," and a group TV viewing in "911: The View from the Midwest." The increased number of people in the crowds in these settings gives Foster Wallace a larger sample …show more content…
Where and when was the public debate on whether they're worth it? Was there no such debate because we're not capable of having or demanding one?" (2). What began as an intimate discourse that presented itself as a one-on-one questionnaire between Foster Wallace and the lone reader, has expanded to include the entire American populace. The questions he asks here ultimately have no direct answers, and he doesn't really attempt to propose any. However, the use of these rhetorical questions as a means of asking the reader to think about a larger shared experience, in this case the experience of an American living in post-9/11 America, is indicative of his approach in his more journalistic-style