“I Kept Saying Her Name”: Naming, Labels and Power in the Early Writing of David Foster Wallace

Abstract

Among the most immediately striking features of David Foster Wallace’s writing is his use of names. Ranging from broad comedy to philosophical and cryptic signposting, the ways Wallace names his characters, and, just as significantly, the ways his characters name themselves and each other, are central to the development of identity, and to the appropriation and exercise of power. The forms and relationships of nomination in Wallace’s fiction speak to a range of his primary artistic concerns, and a reading of these interactions sheds light on both the intricate narrative structures and the grounding ideologies of his writing. This essay traces some of the patterns in these nominative practices, arguing that an onomastic reading of Wallace’s work traces the sometimes less than clear connection between the broad comic style that marks his early work in particular and the profound philosophical engagement undertaken throughout his career.