Forms of Doubt: Realism and Scepticism

This chapter addresses the scepticism inherent in Wallace’s metafictional strategies before arguing that Wallace’s sceptical forms problematise a common reading of his writing as affirming literature’s redemptive qualities. Metafiction can be understood as a formal way of responding to a scepticism of literary realism’s representational capacities; through considering Wallace’s metafictional strategies in relation to those of John Barth, I show how Wallace links this traditional epistemic concern of metafiction to an ethical question. I perform a reading of the story ‘Oblivion’ that shows its formal and thematic engagement with sceptical doubt before arguing that the instability that Wallace’s metafictional strategies produce problematizes a popular reading of his work as straightforwardly participating in what Leo Bersani calls the ‘culture of redemption’.