Gately survives; the beach scene is his relived bottom, not his death

theory

The theory is the best explanation of the cited pages: the beach clause is very close to settled (a …

Where readers stand

consensus

consensus (the corpus's strongest plot-crux consensus), with a persistent, repeatedly-rebutted dies-minority.

In plain terms: Gately survives the hospital, and the closing beach scene is his relived rock-bottom, not his death.

Where the text lands: the best-supported reading. Among readers: near-universal, with a small, repeatedly-rebutted "he dies" camp.

The past-tense grave-dig memory needs a living Gately a year on, and the correspondence record has the author saying the reader knows exactly what happens to Gately by the end. The archive's tested reading rates survival as favored and "dies at the final page" as a stretch, while leaving a faint terminal-tone reading formally open. See The Ending: State of the Debate.

The question

This reading answers the crux does Gately survive the hospital / what the beach scene is.

The ruling

Weighed in the adversarial ledger Gately's Fate.

The evidence

What this reading rests on, by kind of witness:

In the text

ch. 1 grave-dig memory requires a living Gately a year on
"came back to" = post-Sunshine consciousness, Year-of-the-Whopper flashback markers
pp. 442–49 sea-at-terrific-depths dream prefiguring the tide-out close
the mock-baptism tableau
scene 182: the A.D.A. has secretly tossed Gately's file — removes the Walpole-doom premise from missing-year timeline arguments (also bears on gately-salvation)

In Wallace's own statements

Pietsch correspondence: "we know exactly what's happening to Gately by end"

Scenes in evidence

Where this reading's evidence sits in the novel, in reading order:

Sources

Who takes this reading, and how far they go:

Endorsed by

Entertained by

Slate Audio Book Club: Infinite Jest — Roiphe, Patterson, and Surowiecki on the mess, the design, and the sadness (recorded ~March 2009)