COMMUNICATION ETHICS AS SHOWN BY TWO PEOPLE NAMED HAL -- AN ESSAY

COMMUNICATION ETHICS AS SHOWN BY TWO PEOPLE NAMED HAL -- AN ESSAY

This paper looks at how Hal, a character in Infinite Jest, communicates with other people. It tries to figure out a good ethics for talking to faceless strangers and getting to know them, also looking at Infinite Jest’s literary precedent, Hamlet, for examples. Finally, the paper follows my own experiences with acting, struggling to interact with other people during and afterward. The paper suggests that communication is a constant struggle to avoid facelessness, and that communication itself can also become the object instead of the person or place underneath it, which is why a constant attempt to rediscover the territory underneath is necessary.

Matt Krane