Response to David Foster Wallace's "Incarnations of Burned Children"

This story is about the panic two parents experience when a pot of boiling hot water falls on their toddler. It mainly focuses on "the Daddy" and his reaction. He immediately assumes the position of the calm father who takes action instead of freaking out, but unfortunately he doesn't realize that the diaper is retaining the water and continuing to burn their son even after the parents have doused him in cool water and wrapped him in a towel. It deals with the guilt that the father feels for not realizing this, the blame he places on the mother for allowing this to happen, and the guilt he feels for wanting a cigarette in the middle of the chaos.

So, one really cool thing about this piece is that it's basically all one giant paragraph. And normally block text can be really intimidating. But because the story was only four pages long, and because it's crazy long sentences keep things moving instead of slowing them down, it doesn't feel that long at all. The block text seems necessary, because paragraphs would interrupt the flow and this story is about one event that happened in a flurry of action and panic. I also think it's interesting how the parents are referred to as the Mommy and the Daddy, because their characters for the purpose of this story are focused on their role as parents. It focuses the story.

I find the ending kind of confusing and ambiguous. The play on the word "tenanted" is interesting, because the father was fixing the tenant's door when the event happened. But it's confusing in terms of the child. Does untenanted mean his body is uninhabited? And if so, what does that mean? That this tragedy forever scarred the child mentally? Everything else about the story was very clear and less symbolic, and the shift at the end confuses me and makes me feel like I'm missing something essential to understanding the story. "Whatever was lost never thenceforth mattered". What does that mean? I get that time is passing and the child is growing up, but what is David Foster Wallace saying about how the kid turned out?