What Are The Similarities Between Ennett House And The Enfield Tennis Academy

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2.) There are many similarities between Ennett House and the Enfield Tennis Academy (ETA), including the two sections when their characters are in their respected sections, but David Foster Wallace interweaves the other. The thematic climax of both sections shows that they are part of the same physical hill of life. For residents of ETA, they submit a selfless will to tennis and are pushing themselves toward secrecy of potential addictions. While the residents of Ennett House are relinquishing control of their addictions by eliminating secrecy and hiding. In addition, the members and residents of ETA and Ennett House are both given strict rules for them to follow o will result in repercussions. Both locations have higher up officials like …show more content…

When the book opens, the reader is thrown into the recruitment interview for one particular student named Hal Incandenza. Hal’s subsequent acceptance into the school as one of their star tennis players leads to his own downfall when he starts using marijuana and as the pressure to be the best results in him becoming a resident of Ennett House. In Ennett House, the residents are addicts in various stages of recovery who have to follow not only the twelve steps, but they have to listen to the live in staff members for the house rules (i.e. Parking their cars specific places at 1 AM, lights out, phone calls, etc.). The live in staff has people who were former members of the Program like Don Gately who knows what they are going through and are able to have an open line of trust so they can easily communicate with someone they feel listens to …show more content…

I think this program is like having a sponsor while you’re going through the program at Ennett House. Both upper level people help their person by having a more individualized, personal, and genuine concern for another person. Both ETA and Ennett House provide a solution to replace their boredom especially for ETA because the residents and players are realizing that their sport is nothing more than mindless and spectacle based entertainment. For many of the players, tennis is one of the few sports that they can distance themselves from reality. Whenever, Hal and his teammates play the game it is the moments they feel the most alive because the emotional part of their brain gets turned off while the analytical part of them takes over. This distance between the two parts of their brain reminds me of how addicts view their addictions and specific substance (s). For an addict, the moments they are taking their particular substance allows them to create a barrier between the real world and the world of the addiction that they keep coming to because it is often too hard to deal with

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