Abstract

The epilogue notes the scarcity of the sentimental touch in the middle and end of the twentieth century. The vanishing trope continues to suggest the utopian possibility of unmediated communication, even as the literary use of the sentimental trope is not entirely defiant. By considering David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, the epilogue argues that what seems to be a reclamation of sentimental values in recent fiction is not entirely a rejection of modernist thought, but rather a continuation of the overlooked ethical concerns of the modernists. When writers use the sentimental touch in an unsentimental universe, they are engaging in a utopian literary fantasy, offering an apparently natural body in an attempt to soothe the capitalist alienation embodied by the manager. Their literature reflects a cultural anxiety, offering an imaginative compensation for what is lost in social life.

Share