Reading the Ghost in David Foster Wallace’s Fiction

Hering, David ORCID: 0000-0001-7838-4815 (2017) Reading the Ghost in David Foster Wallace’s Fiction Orbit (Cambridge), 5 (1). ISSN 2398-6786, 2398-6786

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Abstract

In this article I argue that the figure of the ghost, a surprisingly regular presence in David Foster Wallace’s fiction, represents an attempt to address problems of authorial presence, character autonomy, generational influence and monologism. I locate Wallace’s position within the critical debate over the effacement of authorial presence, before establishing a developmental theory of possession and ghostliness across Wallace’s body of fiction from his first novel The Broom of the System to his short story collection Oblivion. I subsequently argue, with reference to Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony and the drafts of Wallace’s work in the Harry Ransom Centre, that Wallace’s “apparitions” gradually effect a new mode of “ghostly” authorial presence in the text that seeks to move away from monologic approaches to narrative. The essay concludes by suggesting that a model of ghostly “co-authorship” can be discerned in the drafts of Wallace’s final novel, The Pale King.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	07 Sep 2016 08:42
Last Modified:	23 May 2026 00:02
DOI:	10.16995/orbit.208
Open Access URL:	https://orbit.openlibhums.org/article/doi/10.16995...
Related Websites:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3003193
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