Barth's Influence on Wallace in "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way"

This thesis aims to explore the relationship between John Barth and David Foster Wallace by analyzing and comparing two significant related works: David Foster Wallace's "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way" from Girl with Curious Hair (referred to as "Westward" hereafter) and John Barth's "Lost in the Funhouse" from Lost in the Funhouse. Critics like Connie Luther and Wallace's biographer, D. T. Max, have suggested that strong antagonism was a defining characteristic of Wallace's attitude towards Barth. They draw attention to instances in Wallace's writing where characters that bear similarities to Barth are criticized or presented negatively, indicating hostility or rejection of Barth’s influence. An example is the character of Ambrose in “Westward,” which represents a strong critique against what Wallace sees as a lack of social responsibility in postmodernism, according to Luther. However, scholars such as Harris, Ziegler, and Boswell challenge this conception, arguing that David Foster Wallace and John Barth's relationship is agonistic rather than patricidal: Wallace builds upon and departs from Barth's novelistic techniques and serves as a representation of what Harold Bloom refers to as "The Anxiety of Influence," according to which poets experience pressure or anxiety when creating new poetry because they are influenced by their predecessors. This may have both a motivating and an intimidating effect, since poets aim to respect and even surpass the accomplishments of their literary predecessors.