David Foster Wallace and Repressive Taboos: Clenette Henderson, yrstruly and the identity politics of representation

Abstract

David Foster Wallace’s use of disenfranchised voices in Infinite Jest (1996) receives little critical attention. Clenette Henderson and yrstruly’s narratives raise issues of taboo subjects: child sexual abuse, drug-addiction, and prostitution. A close reading of their voices aims to break over twenty years of critical silence by exposing such taboos.