Globalization and the Information Age: Postmodernism into the Twenty-First Century — Test
Question 4 • Literature and Composition III
Read the excerpt from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest . I cannot make myself understood. ‘I am not just a jock,’ I say slowly. Distinctly. ‘My transcript for the last year might have been dickied a bit, maybe, but that was to get me over a rough spot. The grades prior to that are de moi .’ My eyes are closed; the room is silent. ‘I cannot make myself understood, now.’ I am speaking slowly and distinctly. ‘Call it something I ate.’ It’s funny what you don’t recall. Our first home, in the suburb of Weston, which I barely remember—my eldest brother Orin says he can remember being in the home’s backyard with our mother in the early spring, helping the Moms till some sort of garden out of the cold yard. March or early April. The garden’s area was a rough rectangle laid out with Popsicle sticks and twine. Which element of structure most contributes to the postmodern quality of this excerpt?
Answer
A
unexpected change in perspective
B
use of irony to emphasize a point
C
use of allusion to reference an idea
D
sudden shift of time and setting
Explanation
The excerpt first presents a speaker in a silent room, speaking slowly to someone in the present. It then abruptly moves to a recollection of the family’s first home in Weston and a garden being made in early spring. This sudden shift in both time and setting creates the fragmented structure associated with postmodern writing, so the best choice is “sudden shift of time and setting.”
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