Unlike Pynchon, however, Wallace does not wish to dump the legacy of Calvinism; he seeks to build fictions around work and the fervent call to work, an activity he recurrently sees not just in terms of the labor theory of value but, through the lens of Hegel, as the only way of creating a fully viable self. Whether through an executive washroom attendant, diligent cruise-ship workers, or an actuary who dies prematurely of a heart attack, Wallace consistently makes work heroic and tragic, its lack, avoidance, or meaninglessness a sign of his most lost, and, in the realm of laborless capitalist value extraction, most evil figures. Absorption in work seems to be a reliable antidote to depression and feelings of worthlessness. Hegel's bondsman is a recurrent trope, as is metaphysical slavery in general.