Infinite Jest Essay

Gender inequality in professional tennis is a real and alarming issue, from the pay gap between mens' and womens' tennis players to the low media coverage of women's professional tennis. This issue even goes as far as how differently tennis commentators discuss and analyze mens tennis as opposed to how they discuss and analyze womens tennis. When commentators discuss men's tennis they solely focus on the skill of the players, but when they discuss women's tennis they place more importance on the appearance of the female players, rather than their skill. This instance of gender inequality in professional tennis is further exacerbated by the differences in advertisements for male tennis players and female tennis players. The advertisements involving male tennis players display their athleticism and tennis abilities, whereas the advertisements including female tennis players are appearance-focused, with the females often wearing little clothing. This is corroborated by the popular belief that focusing on the physical appearance of female athletes is the only way in which generating money from women's professional sports is distinctly possible (Fink, 2015, p. 338). Female professional tennis players train just as hard as the men do, thus the gender inequality that exists in the sport is not necessarily a result of how women perform on the court. It is rather a result of how society perceives women playing in professional sports overall, which the mass media is partially to blame

The author of The Colonel, Michael Hogan, details how a certain Army Colonel influenced his life through the sport of tennis. Hogan begins by indicating how mainstreamed tennis is today, to the point an average adolescent could not imagine tennis as a ‘rich man’ sport. In the fifties, when Hogan was a child, tennis was a sport reserved for mostly men at country clubs and private resorts. Women had competed at international competitions such as Wimbledon for a several years, but many of them were amateurs (oftentimes paid little). Fortunately for female tennis players, Billie Jean King’s assertiveness, in 1967, and the Virginia Slim tournaments, in the seventies, influenced tennis to include women in professional tennis (such as Chris Everts

Wallace establishes a humorous tone in the first section to convey his argument. “There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how's the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’” (233) This anecdote introduces the fact the many people don’t understand what is going on around them and why Wallace believes it is important to be conscious of what is happening around you. “This is not a matter of virtue- it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.” (233) Wallace argues that it is hard to get into a state of awareness because humans have their “hard-wired default-setting”. People need to get out of their own self-centered habits and see things in a different point of view. By using a humorous tone, Wallace can effectively get people on his side of the argument.

In the biography Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, a troubled adolescent boy named Louis Zamperini revolves his life around his running career. Starting at such a young age, running had many impacts on Louie’s life. The high demand of training kept Louie distracted from making unintelligent choices he had previously been making. Running changed the young teenager he was and the man he was going to become.

This news article gives a variety of issues that emerged on account of the utilization of steroids in expert games. For instance, on 1976 the International Olympic Committee restricted the utilization of steroids. Steroid use in expert games turned into a gigantic point when competitors were getting discovered utilizing the execution improving medication.

Wallace was known for being a nihilist – a belief that everything we do and experience in life is meaningless or lacks meaning. September 12, 2008 marked a sad day in history, David Foster Wallace committed suicide and his legacy lives on. “This is Water” didn’t fully embed or resonate within me until I found out that Wallace had unfortunately committed suicide. As I read through Wallace’s anecdotes his use of analogies helps me adopt these notions; for example, “Here is just one total wrongness of something wrong, I tend to be automatically sure of: …my deep belief that I am the absolute center if the universe”. Growing up I thought I was the center of the universe and I had a blatant disregard for others that weren’t in my “circle”. The reason why this speech has changed me so much is because Wallace is challenging me as an audience member to change how I think about the world; he is challenging me to reconstruct everything I have

A Rhetorical Analysis On Wallace’s “This is Water” In the speech titled, “This is Water,” David Foster Wallace gives a commencement speech to the Liberal Arts graduating class of Kenyon College. He introduces a common cliche that serves as the foundation of his speech. He asserts that a liberal arts education is not about being filled with knowledge, but rather, recognizing the value in having the advantage of being taught how to think and the necessity of this phenomenon in coming adulthood. Wallace effectively convinces his audience that the true benefit of education is being taught how to consciously choose what to think about.

Within sport, as throughout society, gender differences exist. The socially constructed phenomenon of gender dictates a dichotomous system whereby females are feminine and males are masculine. Focusing on females specifically, society determines the feminine traits and roles ascribed to this gender. Being domesticated, slender, passive and heterosexual are a part of the desirable appearance that society has formed surrounding femininity (Wolf, 1991). On the other side of the dichotomy is the masculine realm that sport plays into. Sport is fuelled by muscle, power and aggressiveness, which are behaviours and images associated to masculinity. Sport therefore, defies all existing female gender ideals. It would be assumed that females have no place within this institution due to the gender clash. However, female athletes do exist, and many are very successful. For this to work, sport has established and reinforced the social constructions of gender that exist in society. Female athletes are viewed as inferior and are pushed into gender appropriate sports. Furthermore, they are often labeled as masculine until they can prove otherwise, and so great attempts are made to reassert femininity. The stigma associated to being masculine or homosexual for female athletes is so great that many have become irrationally fearful of this label. The sexualisation of the female body and overt displays of heterosexuality are used in

Abstract:  With the increase of competition has also come the need to become bigger and stronger than the opponent.  The use of steroids among athletes has caused the focus of the game to change.  No longer does an athlete want to win by doing their best, but they want to become bigger and have an advantage over the opponent.  Ultimately, all athletes feel that they need to use performance-enhancing drugs to compete at the same level. Despite all of the warnings and information on performance-enhancing drugs, athletes continue to use them and overlook the potential health risks associated with steroids.

To begin with, Wallace's essay describes issues of the ordinary adult life. He implies that the decisions we make in times of frustration define the value of our character. Wallace expresses his idea that we are by default "the absolute center of the universe"(1). Wallace suggests that our "default setting"(1), is what disables our ability to see situations that exist externally. In his essay, there are instances where he gives in to his Self-centered "default setting"(1).

“…medical researchers believe that between 1 and 3 million youths and adults have taken anabolic steroids in one form or another specifically to enhance their looks or athletic performances,” stated Nuwer (Nuwer, 61). As astounding as these figures are, the number of performance drug users is steadily increasing. With this progressively increasing numbers, it is projected that millions more will use steroids in the immediate future (Newer, 61). Athletes have always sought an advantage in competition even if ignoring the law and their health if necessary. Using drugs of any sort to facilitate an athlete’s athletic ability should be illegal. The use of performance enhancing drugs is not only detrimental to the user but it also creates an

The uniqueness and complexity of David Foster Wallace’s writing earned him a spot among the most influential contemporary authors of his generation. He is most well known for his immense, thousand-page novel Infinite Jest, published in 1996, which grabbed the attention of readers worldwide (Ericson). In addition, throughout his career, he published several other novels, short stories, and nonfiction articles. His most popular works include The Broom of the System, Girl with Curious Hair, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, and The Pale King (Ericson). Wallace is known for the stylistic devices of footnotes, endnotes, abbreviations, and specialized jargon, and the literary techniques of metafiction, hyperreality, irony, and fragmentation (Ericson). Thematically, he focused on finding truth in a society where pop culture, entertainment, and technology have redefined humanity (Ericson). Although Wallace’s writing appears during the postmodern era, critics disagree over whether his work fits with this movement. Many writers refer to Wallace as reviving or re-defining postmodernism, calling him a post-postmodernist; however, this categorization is ambiguous. While elements of David Foster Wallace’s writing warrant analysis beneath an array of literary movements, a posthumanist lens is more appropriately suited to understand the larger theme across his work. Wallace’s short story “Everything is Green” helps to amplify this conclusion due to its conflict of

While they are illegal the companies can experiment and create their own undercover. While their condition may seem to meet health standards, years into the future the long term effects of these drugs may never leave their system and can wreak havoc on former athletes lives. Most typical of these drugs are Anabolic Androgenic Steroids, which are injections of hormones which promote masculine features that promote tissue building and secondary reproductive system development. Usually this results in side effects like greasy/ oily skin and acne, infertility, hypertension, liver and kidney dysfunction, aggressive behaviour, and tumors. This can also harbor sex-specific effects, like in females: low voices, excess hair, baldness, and deeper voices and in males the opposite reaction giving them breast development, lower testosterone and risk for prostate cancer. A chilling example of these detrimental effects were seen at the olympics between 1968 and 1988 when East Germany had used state-funded drugs on countless athletes. From as young as the ages of 8, prospects were told to take certain “vitamins” everyday by coaches.

An example of a female athlete being ridiculed for portraying society’s idea of non-femininity is Martina Navratilova. Martina was the first female tennis player who began to play tennis more as a power sport than a sport of technique. Subdued by an oppressive communist system that controlled the Czech Tennis Federation, she was seen to be playing in the style of men instead of playing women's tennis. As she did not fit into society's image of how a woman should look, behave and play tennis, she was ridiculed and branded as the proverbial ‘bad egg’ when compared to her contemporaries. Additionally, she was branded as a lesbian, which caused more hardship for her as she was forced to face a world which was much more homophobic at that time than it is now. Her sexual orientation is not a prime issue; it was something that was used against her and something that was assumed simply because she did not portray the feminine image that is expected of women.

In the past three decades, steroids has been becoming a serious problem more than ever in the athletic field. Steroids are anabolic drug "to build" growth hormones that include the androgens (male sex hormones) principally testosterone and estrogen and progestogens (female sex hormones). Steroids were first developed for medical purposes. They're used in controlling inflammation, strengthening weakened hearts, preventing conception, and alleviating symptoms of arthritis and asthma. Unfortunately research has shown that steroids have been abused in almost every kind of sport. Although steroids contribute to a muscular body, usage should remain illegal because they physically deteriorate and mentally destroy the body.