Commencement Speech In Cory Booker's 'This Is Water'

U.S Senator Cory Booker, in his commencement speech at UPenn, describes his own courageous experiences after graduating from college. Meanwhile, David Wallace, in his “This is Water” speech, talks about the harsh reality and his repetitive life conflicts he went through after graduating college. Cory Booker’s purpose was to convey the idea that after you graduate college and start living on your own, you start to realize how hard it is to survive for those who do not have homes and are forced to live on the streets. On the contrary, David Wallace’s purpose was to convey the idea that it is infuriating to live on your own because you have to deal with everyday people and how they make such absurd mistakes which can affect your mood. Cory Booker …show more content…
Cory Booker had an encouraging tone within him and clearly inspired the students of UPenn in a traditional manner. By this, I mean that Booker has similar inspirational speeches such as J.K Rowling or Barack Obama. In a different manner, David Wallace’s speech focused more about the harsh reality of the adult life and how it ruined his life. But his speech was different than Obama’s and Wallace’s style because he related his experiences and made it quite humorous to those students he told. Perhaps Wallace’s style tried to show students that everyone will suffer in the future, whether they are homeless or wealthy, but to overcome this problem is the key to a suitable lifestyle. Another difference between the two speeches is that Wallace uses an extensive amount of metaphors in his speech while Booker gives more examples about the actions of notorious figures such as Gandhi and how he changed him. There were some similarities among the speeches such as motivating the college graduates to succeed on with their lives and indirectly stating life lessons such as being aware of your surroundings is a part of life along with how we all have options that controls our