"Not Another Word." - Metafiction and solipsism in the short fiction of David Foster Wallace

Abstract

Departing from an analysis of David Foster Wallace's non-fiction essay "E Unibus Pluram" and Wittgenstein's "Tractatus," this thesis analyzes the inherently ironic effects of metafiction and the connection between metafiction and solipsism, and how this affects present-day culture and postmodern literature. David Foster Wallace's stories "Octet" and "Good Old Neon" are subsequently analyzed, in order to reveal how Wallace escapes the postmodern trap and the "tyranny of irony" he describes in "E Unibus Pluram."