Wallace's Speech In This Is Water By David Foster Wallace

In his speech “This is Water”, creative writer, David Foster Wallace outlines to Kenyon College graduates of 2005, the struggles that are out there in the world. David Foster Wallace is aware that as college graduates, they have never taken into consideration the deeper aspects of life most people are not mindful of when entering the real world. It seems that Wallace, by the end of the speech, hoped to have opened the minds of these graduates and aid them in coming to realization and reality. Wallace, although being older than the graduates, reinforces to them that he may be older, he is definitely not the wise the fish or nearly as wise as the fish from the anecdote he had commenced his speech with. He does this to establish credibility …show more content…
Wallace uses figurative language such as metaphors and personification, personal experiences, anecdotes and hypothetical situations/circumstances to further enhance his purpose of attempting to aid these graduates in breaking away from their idea and perspective of how they feel life might turn out for them. His intended audience is clearly the Kenyon graduate however, this speech also addresses all other college graduates who think they have it easy. Wallace begins the speech with a narrative of these “...two young fish swimming and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?””(Wallace 1). As the two young fish continue on swimming, one of them asks the other, “What the hell is water?”(Wallace 1). These two fish do not realize, prior to their altercation with the older fish, that what is keeping them alive all of their lives, is the water that surrounds them. The story of the two fish was meant to draw the audience’s attention as they would not have thought they would be hearing a story of …show more content…
He explains a situation where after standing on a long line and having the worst day ever, “...you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic…”(Wallace 14). He elaborates on the way we think but stating that because we choose to think about and pay attention to the “...dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines…”(Wallace 16), it makes our life even more miserable. Wallace mentions that we get annoyed with these people we don’t and disregard perhaps their day is as miserable maybe even worst, than yours. Upon providing these hypothetical situations, Wallace also proposes possible solutions to these circumstances. He suggests that the way you think adds on to how you react to certain situations. “It is my natural default setting.”(Wallace 19), he explains to the graduates that because it 's an everyday process for him to drive and shop and pursue all these basic activities for his life. However, “...there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations.”(Wallace 20), he explains to them. Wallace suggests that one may also take into consideration that everyone has a story and perhaps, in the case of the traffic jam, “...some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in