North American writer David Foster Wallace wrote two short stories - The Planet Trillaphon As It Stands In Relation To The Bad Thing and The Depressed Person - that depict depression, in each one taking different yet complementary perspectives on this subject. Our aim is to analyze these texts and to discuss the role literature can have in regard to the apprehension of subjective experiences of others. Whereas the first text attempts to describe depression objectively, the second one describes the impossibility of doing so, focusing on literary techniques that create distressing subjective experiences in the reader, possibly resembling those felt by depressed persons. We suggest that literature might be helpful to comprehend some aspects of the experience of being depressed and that such an understanding may enrich psychiatric practice.
Key words:
Literature; psychiatry; depression; David Foster Wallace