Water David Foster Wallace Essay Sample

This Is Water David Foster Wallace Summary and Analysis ‘This is water’ by David Foster Wallace is an essay derived from his Kenyon College Commencement Speech for graduating class of 2005 that is often considered to be one of the most powerful commencement speeches of all time. He gave a public talk on his views on life and addressed the graduates in a funny, truthful, friendly, and warm manner and spoke about important things such as the difficulty of empathy, the essential loneliness of an adult life, and the importance of being well-adjusted. David Foster Wallace shared his thoughts on how to live a compassionate life with people who were twice younger than him, but he really spoke on their level. Many people consider that David Foster Wallace’s ‘This is water’ is a practical guide on how to live a good life. In his unique and persuasive commencement speech ‘This is water’, David Foster Wallace, an American essayist, a philosophical novelist, and college professor, spoke about the barriers to empathy in adult life, and the true meaning of freedom. He addressed the Kenyon grads to describe the everyday difficulties of grown-up American life. He begged his young audience to fight hard to be conscious and vigilant in their adult life. David Foster Wallace also persuaded young people to stay alert and control what they think and how they construct meaning from their experience. More free time? Better grade? Click on this button nowOrder Now The main argument of Wallace’s commencement address is that the main goal of any education, and undergraduate education, in particular, is free will. He explains that the greatest benefit of education is the ability to be conscious and aware of choosing what to pay attention to and how to learn from experience. Free will of education means to have the perfect understanding that educated people understand how to think. The writer used logical and emotional appeals to argue on the importance of critical thinking. He argues that everyone has the choice to think critically and should make that choice to live a happy life. Wallace used negative words to describe the tediousness of everyday life and to stress that unconscious people live awful life. Besides, he refers to suicide and argues that unconscious thinking can lead to death. The larger part of his address is advice on how to be happy. David Foster Wallace argues that if you have reached the ultimate goal of education – that is you have learned how to think, then you will have exceptional freedom. Wallace believes that real freedom has nothing to do with personal pleasure but it involves attention to other people, and the ability to sacrifice for them. According to Wallace, freedom means choosing to be a good person every day. David Foster Wallace as a writer was exceptional in many ways – in the affection of his readers, in his achievements and ambitions. But what distinguished him from the others was his unfashionable style of Americanness. He presented himself as a sensitive man who disagrees with stupid commercial society. David Foster Wallace was a talented writer with his own style – his fiction was full of irony, he incorporated jargon and self-generated abbreviations and acronyms. He liked to use explanatory endnotes and footnotes which were often as large as the proper text. His writings were meant for overeducated American college graduates who were walking in slow steps towards adulthood, desperate for faith and lacking meaning. David Foster Wallace’s ‘This is water’ has become one of the most famous philosophical pieces of writing in the 21st century and Wallace himself is considered to be one of the most revered American writers.