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Chapter 40
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Infinite Jest, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Talent, Precociousness, and Fame
Addiction, Mental Illness, and Suicide
Entertainment
Reality as Corporate Dystopia
Institutional Control vs. Rebellion
Summary
Analysis
30 April / 1 May Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. Marathe suggests to Steeply that Canadians are not the real threat, considering that the Entertainment was produced by an American. He points out that the American government knows the country’s entire population could be wiped out by the cartridge, which A.F.R. will not force on anyone but will simply “make… available.” He explains that someone already killed the U.S. by making people “forget how to choose.” Steeply criticizes Marathe’s overly positive view of the nation state and insists on the importance of freedom. Marathe mocks this obsession with freedom. Both are ignoring how difficult it will be for them to get down from the mountainside now, in the darkness of night.
Here Marathe and Steeply represent two sides of an age-old political divide. Marathe believes that it is important to have a purpose in life greater than oneself. For Marathe, this is serving his nation (Québec) and its people. Steeply, however, expresses the more traditionally American view that individual freedoms are sacred and must be protected at all costs. Marathe mocks this, but the real issue is that he believes that the American version of freedom is actually an illusion.
Themes
