why — incl. died-to-become-a-wraith
Granting that JOI killed himself, this asks why — and in particular whether he did it in order to return as a wraith and finally reach Hal. It is contested because the novel supplies several candidate motives and confirms none, keeping his reasons in the same deliberate haze as much else about him.
Scenes
Adjudication
This crux has an adversarial ledger: James O. Incandenza's Death. The per-reading verdicts are below.
Theories on this crux
| Reading | Verdict |
|---|---|
| JOI killed himself in order to return as a wraith and finally reach Hal | open |
Discussed in
- Community book club 4
- David Foster Wallace and 20 years of Infinite Jest
- I Hate Infinite Jest ep. 23 (pp. 652–682) — guest Hannah Smart: the Marlon Bain endnote, Avril–Orin, and a spoiler run through the wraith, JOI's suicide, and DMZ
- I Hate Infinite Jest ep. XXXII (pp. 938–981, the end) — guest Tim Eastwood: the ending-theories finale — the Lyle-toothbrush DMZ walkthrough, the single-quote narrator argument, and the Marathe ER identification
- IJ Book Club Ep. 09: All good parties have a line for the bathroom — Ennet House grounds, the halfway-house wisdom list, tattoos, DMZ logistics, and Joelle's last party (from p. ~193, page ref ASR-derived)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 17: Reinventing Government and History — the ONANtiad session (pp. ~375–407 + n.145): Luria authored experialism, found drama as critic-troll, the wraith skeptic holds
- IJ Book Club Ep. 46 (S3 Ep 12): You Ain't Gonna Learn What You Don't Wanna Know — endnote-24 filmography walkthrough + Hal on the floor (pp. ~948–951)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 48 (S3 Ep 15): Are These Idiots Still Talking? — the pre-exhibition locker room, Barry Loach and the sauna death, Orin under the tumbler (pp. ~964–972) — with the Ep. 49 (S3 Ep 15a) next-day addendum
- Infinite Jest Extraction
- The Language of Landscape, Information, and Disturbance: An Existential Look at the Literary Techniques of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
- What Happens in Infinite Jest — My Own Personal Theory, Parts One–Four (an online forum)
- an online forum — full-history archive digest