In the speech, “This is Water,” the speaker informs the audience on “how to think” and teaches the audience how to look at life differently rather than using their own natural default setting. David Foster Wallace, an American writer and English university instructor, delivered a commencement speech to the graduating class of Kenyon College in 2005 informing the seniors about our “default setting”. He explains, “The most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about” (1). Wallace’s intent is to not only persuade the 2005 Kenyon graduating class, but to also persuade all American graduates on altering their own natural hardwired self into becoming a more understanding being with better knowledge of what is real and what is essential in the world around them. This speech remains perfect for this group of people because these seniors are about to become completely independent individuals who will unintentionally judge others based off their default setting. The speech appeals to the audience through the use of ethos, pathos, and logos in order to convince them to not over-intellectualize.
Wallace starts off his speech by giving the audience a small story about two fish who don’t have an understanding of water. This is a great introduction because it attracts the audience’s attention and it leads right into one of the major topics of the speech; banal platitudes having a life-or-death importance. He then states, “I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence” (2). This statement makes Wallace seem very self-centered but later explains that every experience that we have had, we were the absolute center of. He then goes on to talk about a person trying to get home from a long day at their challenging job; however, they run into a few frustrating situations such as traffic, kids with ADHD, and long checkout lines at the grocery store. Although these are frustrating situations, Wallace makes the audience feel sympathy towards these difficult situations by giving understanding backgrounds to these people. Lastly, he ends off the speech by concluding, “It is about simple awareness… so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: ‘This is water, this is water’” (8). This leaves great conclusion to the speech because it references back to the beginning when he mentions the two curious fish not understanding what water is.
Wallace has tremendous credibility and trust to his name. He has a very strong ethos and has done a fantastic job organizing and delivering this speech to the graduating class. In the article, “David Foster Wallace Biography,” posted by the biography website, it gives us the early life and education of the famous author. In the article, it states, “Wallace received his B.A. [ in English and philosophy] and then headed to the University of Arizona to pursue a master’s degree in creative writing.” This gives him tremendous credibility because he pursued multiple majors in English and writing which helped enhance the writing of his speech, “This is Water.” From the same article, it also states, “Wallace’s depression became severe… and he had to leave school several times in attempts to recover.” With Wallaces depression, he also started getting into “regular bouts of drinking” and started exploring “pot-smoking” to try and help his depression. Sadly, the combination of these two things oftentimes made his condition much worse. This shows that although Wallace did not have the ‘brightest’ times during his college years, he was able to recover and still result in being very successful. After his difficult times, he decided to go to Syracuse college, where he would spend a majority of his time working on his next novel, “Infinite Jest.” A novel about the drug use and the abuse he received from his past, which also got awarded on the ‘best of’ lists nationwide. Aside from his popular speech, Wallace has also been very successful from his previous novels about the difficult times he went through during his college life.
Secondly, in his graduation speech, Wallace does not have very strong logos to support his claims because his speech’s intent is to be more persuasive than informative. He uses his own reasoning to help convince the audience into changing the way they think. The first claim Wallace makes in his speech states, “There is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of” (2). He backs up his claim effectively:
The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real – you get the idea. (2)
Wallace makes a great argument saying that all of our own thoughts are so immediate and present, that all of our actions are based off of them. Everyone else has to somehow communicate their feelings and thoughts in order for us to get a better understanding. His evidence does not have the strongest logos to back up his claim; however, it displays very factual and understanding information for the readers. He also claims, “There is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping” (7). He then claims that everybody in this world worships someone or something. Wallace starts to bring religion into his speech which can be risky because people could possibly get offended. He supports his claim by stating, “…pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive” (7). He is persuading the audience by saying when you decide to worship objects such as money, then you will never feel as if you have enough. Again, Wallace doesn’t necessarily have evidence for his claim but he does efficiently make a good point by stating that everything we worship will result in the feeling of weakness and the feeling of being afraid. He is trying to convince the audience to become more aware of the outcome of worshipping and how it can impact your life.
Lastly, Wallace did an outstanding job implementing pathos into his speech. There are many different types of emotions that the speech displays. The first biggest emotion that the speech delivers pertains to frustration. Starting off with an average day at a difficult job, working for around ten hours and being very exhausted by the end of the day, then remembering that there is no food at home for you to eat. So while at the overcrowded grocery store you encounter, “slow old people” and “spacey people” and “the ADHD kids who all block the aisle” (4). Long checkout lines, flimsy plastic bags, and bad traffic with people cutting you off. This may make the audience feel frustration or annoyance towards the people described in the passage; however, this goes back to Wallace explaining how everyone is the center of their own universe. He explains that because of his bad experience with the grocery store, he will be miserable every time he has to go now because his default setting happens to just takes care of his needs only. The second biggest emotion displayed in Wallace’s speech has to do with sympathy and compassion towards others. This emotion is used to counteract the feeling of frustration used earlier in the speech. He gives the difficult people and situations a sympathetic background to make the audience feel compassion towards them. He explains that possibly some of the people who were driving slow earlier, “[could have] been in horrible auto accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic” (5). Possibly the person who cut you off, “[could be] a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him” (6). They would be in a bigger rush than trying to get home to rest. The lady who screamed at her child at the grocery store could have possibly, “been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who’s dying of bone cancer” (6). These different perspectives make the audience feel completely different at the situations that used to appear frustrating.
In conclusion, Wallace did an incredible job with the structure, word choice, and persuading with valid reasoning. In his speech, Wallace lacked a little with logos due to the persuasive format; however, his ethos gives him great credibility and the pathos used displays tremendous emotion that convinces the audience into changing their ‘default self’. The way Wallace ends his speech is very appropriate because it refers back to the beginning when he talks about the two fish. This allows the audience to get a better understanding of the meaning, “This is water, this is water” (8).
