Gdel, Hofstadter, Wallace: The Gdelian Metalogical Narrative Structure of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest

dc.contributor.advisorHibbard, Allenen_US
dc.contributor.authorHudson, Coryen_US
dc.contributor.committeememberHollings, Marionen_US
dc.contributor.departmentEnglishen_US
dc.date.accessioned2015-08-25T14:46:13Z
dc.date.available2015-08-25T14:46:13Z
dc.date.issued2015-07-10en_US
dc.description.abstractDespite acknowledgements that it forms an intellectual predecessor to Infinite Jest, the influence that Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gdel, Escher, Bach (GEB) had upon the structure of David Foster Wallace's novel has resisted critical exploration. Filling this gap in Wallace scholarship, this study fully probes the degree to which the structure of IJ mimics Kurt Gdel's notions of incompleteness and recursion as explained by Hofstadter. Gdel, via a self-referential mathematical formula designated, established the impossibility for a calculus to account for every true mathematical statement about natural numbers. Wallace used Gdel's notions as a formal principal to structure IJ. The recursive incompleteness of a closed fictional system modeled on such a proof opens finally toward the reader, inviting exit from the experience of reading the novel. In that transcendent movement to the outside of the novel's textual system, writer and readers form an empathetic bond with one another beyond the experience of inhabiting impossible formulae.en_US
dc.description.degreeM.A.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/handle/mtsu/4569
dc.publisherMiddle Tennessee State Universityen_US
dc.subjectDavid Foster Wallaceen_US
dc.subjectDouglas R. Hofstadteren_US
dc.subjectInfinite Jesten_US
dc.subjectMetalogicen_US
dc.subjectRecursionen_US
dc.subject.umiLiteratureen_US
dc.thesis.degreegrantorMiddle Tennessee State Universityen_US
dc.thesis.degreelevelMastersen_US
dc.titleGdel, Hofstadter, Wallace: The Gdelian Metalogical Narrative Structure of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jesten_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

Files

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Hudson_mtsu_0170N_10455.pdf
Size:
1.26 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format

Collections