David Foster Wallace Ensayo

Arguments can be made about the artistic merit of David Foster Wallace’s “Big Red Son”, an essay about the Adult Video News Awards. Wallace did an extensive amount of research to provide details about the people in the award show. According to Dictionary.com artistic merit is defined as “performed, made, or arranged decoratively and tastefully; aesthetically pleasing”.This essay is the complete opposite of “aesthetically pleasing” unless if a pervert with twisted tastes reads it. “Big Red Son” does not contain artistic merit because it doesn’t take a lot of creativity to state facts about the porn industry, even though the essay is supposed to be about the AVN Awards.

Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York in 1962, he attended Amherst College, University of Arizona and Harvard University. His most recognized novel Infinite Jest is about his past, ranging from his drug abuse to his tennis career as a junior. During his college years he used drugs and alcohol to battle his depression but resulted in worsening the condition. He is the kind of writer that makes the same point over and over again to get the message to the reader. In an interview by Charlie Rose, Wallace states “I have this problem of thinking that I haven't made myself clear or that the argument hasn't been sufficiently hammered home, so I will make the same point five, six, seven times.”. This quote says that Wallace is a very determined man no matter how difficult or tedious the task may be. In “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: The Difficult gifts of David Foster Wallace” Zadie Smith states “ When Wallace wrote he offered everything he had to his readers, including the kitchen sink.”(258) she also says “For many of us, though, what Wallace had to give looked simply too heavy, too much like hard work.”(258) this confirms that Wallace’s writings were very extensive and detailed.

When writing, Wallace establishes himself as the authority, he does so by referring to himself as “your correspondence” in “Big Red Son”. Jonathan Franzen stated “Dave loved to be in control of things.”, thats why Wallace refers to himself as “your correspondence” he wanted to establish himself as the dominating power. The opening line of “Big Red Son” is a fact about male self-castration, it is not mentioned in the essay except that one time. Wallace does this because it mirrors to the reader what Wallace had to go through while attending the AVN Awards, it is a logical appeal because Wallace is using statistics from a reliable source to prove his point. Very little is said about the AVN Awards in the essay, Wallace focuses more on the pornstars and the people involved in the business. There are few instances where the essay focuses on the AVN Awards, page 34 is one instance. Even though mentioned few times, Wallace was very observative of the AVN Awards when he describes the food being served “Friday’s only food is big wheels of vegetables and dip near the cash bar.” (34).

The following page, page 35, of “Big Red Son” is a question and answer section that makes the essay seem like documentary. Even though he includes this section in the essay, Wallace seeks to mock the porn industry because of how serious people take it. The question and answer section has emotional appeal nonetheless, “anal shenanigans” (35) tells the reader

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