a sort of iteration of the dialethic imperative of deconstruction, such that every text, every narrative, every theory, contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction

This strategy, which I have termed "skeletal narrative," is one whereby Wallace destabilizes a narrative by means of elements embedded within the narrative itself

Skeletal narrative refers to a strategy by which Wallace embeds the seeds of textual and interpretive unraveling within the narrative voice of a story; a narrator (often but not always first-person) begins to tell a story, but through asides of tonal slippage reveals another layer of narrative under the surface, ultimately losing control of the primary narrative vocabulary and confessing or revealing what was hidden.

notwithstanding his particular idiolect

Randall [...] has an elevated opinion of his own intellectual standing. [...] unnecessary Latin phrases, italicization, and the use of exaggerated inverted commas as a sort of conversational crutch, ostensibly indicating his disdain for contemporary argot, but actually revealing a narrator uncomfortable with his own voice, a discomfort that proves crucial once the sub-narrative is revealed at the close to the story. The uneasy edge to the voice keeps the reader alert [...]

Wallace finds another way of resisting apocalyptic postmodern anomie

[...] the narrator despises this girl's lifestyle and outlook, yet finds himself almost obsessively in need of her approval and love. As a consequence, he attempts to master her, to prove his own superiority, in much the same way as Wallace described the tendency he saw in his own and others' work to challenge the reader with long sentences, too much data or the intentional frustration of expectations. When that does not work, and the narrator realizes that the power balance in the story has shifted to the girl, he loses his control over language altogether, transferring his rage to the other mute female character in an incoherent tirade. The transference of anger in the final paragraph demonstrates the effect of a total loss of power on the linguistic control of the narrator, offering a clear psychological link between linguistic dominance and other forms of power.

simultaneously aggravating and obviating the distinction between self and other

"liebestod," meaning love-death, here is interesting; the connection of love with death further highlights the notion of death as a consummation

This repeated abnegation of qualification is one of many figurations of a deeply problematic tendency to reject ideas of authority and authorship throughout the nonfiction, in ways that dovetail interestingly with the structural and vocal instability of the fiction.

While lightly dismissing the "magazine people" as disingenuous, Wallace draws paralliptical attention to his own disingenuousness in writing the piece at all.

lallating function

[...] Wallace distances himself falely from a group in order to establish a relationship wtih the reader. This tactic is more complex--and often less successful--in the scholarly writing, because, as shown here, Wallace frequently is an expert in what he writes about. With that in min, such distancing seems outright mendacious. By linguistically encoding the opposition that may or may not exist between him as author/narrator and the implicit "them"--in this case critics and theoreticians--Wallace attempts to solidify his alliance with the reader. However, the disjunction between this alliance and the tone and content of the essay's substantive portions serves to underscore Wallace's disingenuous construction, thus perhaps putting the reader even more on guard.