Analysis and Review of David Foster Wallace's 'Good Old Neon' Essay

This essay provides a detailed book review of David Foster Wallace's 'Good Old Neon,' exploring the themes of fraudulence, suicide, and therapy. The review examines the life and death of Neal, the protagonist, and his experiences with therapy under Dr. Gustafson. The essay delves into Neal's feelings of inauthenticity, his struggles with his identity, and his ultimate act of suicide. The review analyzes the author's portrayal of Neal's unhappiness, his obsession with appearing impressive, and the societal pressures that contribute to his despair. References from Hudson (2018) and Bodary (2016) are incorporated to support the analysis, offering a critical perspective on the novel's central themes and characters.

Essay 1

Contents
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Book review of Gold old neon.....................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................3

MAIN BODY
Book review of Gold old neon
Gold old neon is written by David Foster Wallace. This book is published by Little, Brown
and company in the year 2004. The story is all about a life and death of a successful phony. The
reason of death was suicide in car wreck. The book was being published by author just after 3
months of 9/11 attacks. Good old neon is based on disappointing round of therapy. Neal was
undergoing therapist treatment who was known as Gustafson. Story revolves around a boy who
was been raised by foster parents. The boy was involved in behaving inappropriately. Neal
realised that Doctor G can assist him in overcoming the circle of fraudulence and will help him
in overcoming unhappiness which he has constructed for himself. In the book Neal has
committed suicide and baptizes himself at that place where the hands of clock will not move.
Book has revealed that it could take forever to die, and dying is not that bad. In the final chapter
of story Neal has committed suicide and crashed his blue Corvette into the highway bridge. The
car was found in outskirts of Chicago (Hudson, 2018). The car just got wrecked and was moving
up in the flame. Author realised by seeing his year book picture and tried to figure out that Neal
was really devastated from inside. This was major reason because of which this luminous guy
has taken up such a big step. Neal was so frustrated that he selected to kill himself and he was
left with no option. No one can understand pain of Neal in his silence. Good Old Neon” also
alludes to another piece of short fiction. Book revealed that Neal has destroyed his talent by not
making adequate use of it, he was lazy and was silent most of the times. The story was based on
allusion that Neal received an heirloom from his step mother which his grandfather gave him.
The watch had a sentence written on it in Latin language, it was respice finem which means
consider the end.
This made Neal’s skin crawl. This quotation was also seen on medallion that was been used
by Ivan Ilych when he passed out law school. Ilych also felt like Neal that his life was nothing
but was a farce. The honourable judge was sick and he really wanted to die. Both Neal and judge
felt that they have not lived their life as they wanted to. They were being thresholder and also
depressed. Most of the time they were silent. They feel that their life and social ambitions both
are false and the rules made by higher class people in society, judge and Neal both felt
suppressed with it. They do want to live their life in suppression and this made him feel
depressed. It was also being evaluated that Neal was obsessed with his inauthenticity, he felt like
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a loser and he feels that his life has no meaning. This has led to him doing suicide, as he was
suffering from inside. Neal was really unhappy with his life and he suffers and dies in unique
way. unique to a latter-day American techno-consumerist, he felt like a junkie but they assumed
that Neal was addicted to himself. Neal has described reason about his phoniness, he said that his
success is fraudulence paradox. He said that the more of time individual tries to appear
themselves as impressive in front of others. The less impressive they can feel from inside. He
considered this fundamental as a fraud (Bodary, 2016). A person who is involved in impressing
other people harder, the people will not be able to find out about how hollow is a person and
Neal considered it as a fraud. It was being evaluated from the book that Neal said he has seen
people who were been appraised for few years of their lives because of their success and after
quite some time they were not even being remembered. He felt like everything is an illusion.
Neal was really unhappy from this and this unhappiness was being created by Neal himself. It
was also being analysed that Neal crashed his car and there was a dull synopsis which was going
out there. In the Good Old Neon, author reveals that everyone was being involved in their self-
centred need to perform and to impress other which was not liked by Neal.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Hudson, C.M., 2018. David Foster Wallace is not your friend: The fraudulence of empathy in
David Foster Wallace studies and “Good Old Neon”. Critique: Studies in Contemporary
Fiction, 59(3), pp.295-306.
Bodary, S., 2016. Good Old Holden: A Salingerian Reading of David Foster Wallace's" Good
Old Neon" (Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University).
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