David Foster Wallace Speech Analysis

As a college educated individual it’s rather difficult to identify with a pair of guppies that aren’t aware of the liquid that surrounds them. Yet David Foster Wallace chooses to make the comparison in the beginning of his 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address. Wallace chooses to retell parabolist stories and uses his extensive knowledge of the average day to day routine to support the idea that we are self-centered by nature. However, he also uses well supported logical appeals to identify the solution to our nature.

In his speech, Wallace speaks out about the choices that most people make on a day to day bases regarding the way we view the world. He uses parables that make reference to younger creatures; however, he also uses examples that

Wallace mentions suicide in the line, “And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.” A simple google search can revivel that suicidal thoughts were a very real stuggle in his life, but that shouldn’t discount everything he has ever done. If anything his struggles in life should give him more credibility, because the only way to truly understand something is the experience it first hand. His experiences shaped who his was and helped grow the wonderful idea’s found in the

In the line, “Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom,” he focuses on all the good thing American culture offers. However, in singling out our culture, he is highlighting the fact that we often don’t think of the impoverished, sick, and needy people of another culture. While Americans complain about how there is “no food in the house,” the inside of pantries holds a meal fit for a king in the eyes of a little boy from a third world country. He points out that the minor complaints of Americans day to day lives are nothing in comparison to the heartbreaks of other