A Long Walk To Water And This Is Water Essay

In “This is Water” and A Long Walk to Water, both Park and Wallace demonstrate people thinking internally from a personal consciousness. It is clear that Salva and other characters from A Long Walk to Water and the author of “This is Water” think from a personal consciousness because of how they change their minds. Specifically, this is shown through how the woman who was helping Salva she changed her mind and left him and Wallace changing his thinking to be able to include others’ perspectives and how me not being able to make decisions affects others.

Characters in both “This is Water” and A Long Walk to Water demonstrate internal thinking through changing their minds. Throughout both passages, people were faced with many decisions and challenges that required them to think

Park writes, “Salva stared at her as panic rose inside of him. Why can’t I go with her?” (Park 18). The old woman who had previously been helping him, changes her mind for her own benefit and isn’t thinking about what he is going through. This connects to Wallace’s struggle in “This is Water”. He feels that “Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real”(Wallace 2). Wallace is saying that it is easier to only notice and think about one’s own feelings. Later in “This is Water”, Wallace changes his thinking to include others’ possible thoughts and feelings into the way he sees situations that he is put into. The woman in A Long Walk to Water, only knows her own feelings, as they are “immediate, urgent, real” to her and she changes her mind without fully understanding Salva’s perspective and what he is going through. (Wallace 2) His feelings aren’t being communicated through to her. Both of these quotes use diction to show how people think internally. Salva is feeling scared and alone inside but his feelings aren’t being communicated to the woman who was with him. This is shown through