DAVID FOSTER WALLACE AND FRANZ KAFKA IN DIALOGUE: AN INTRODUCTION

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze comparatively moments and forms present in some works of David Foster Wallace and Franz Kafka, especially Infinite Grace and The Metamorphosis. For this analysis, we selected critical texts from and about the authors chosen, as well as other works that can dialogue with the themes evoked. The topics chosen for comparison were the question of humor, which Wallace analyzes in Kafka and which we can notice in the first. Wallace’s essay on Kafka, in this sense, will serve as a basis to clarify both, since Wallace points out what seemed relevant to him, namely: Kafka’s literal humor. The question of the father, as well as the traumas derived from it, also deserved our attention. Therefore, we aim to bring the authors closer together in order to broaden and clarify both authors and their relations with their own literary work.