Save Yourself From David Foster Wallace

Yourself: Rhetorical Wallace was an American writer and an Creative

Analysis of
Writing professor at Pomona College. He gave the
commencement address, “This is Water” in 2005.

Wallace’s “This is Water”

Wallace struggled with anxiety and depression. Wallace
killed himself in 2008.

elements of humor. Wallace’s entangled in their own thoughts.

S ome of the hardest
truths to realize live right in
front of us. David Foster
Wallace, Pulitzer Prize nominee,
explains this in detail in his
graduation speech at Kenyon
College titled, “This is Water.”
He implores the graduating class
to live life as more than a
goldfish who doesn’t realize
water exists and to live life
believing that, as much as they
may have come to believe it,
they are not the center of the
universe. He wants his audience
to realize the most important
truths of daily life that often
hide in front of their eyes, that
they need to help other people.
Wallace directs his speech
toward the graduating students,
most importantly the students
who haven’t yet had to survive
in the real world. Wallace
reaches his audience by using a
colloquial tone, appealing to
their emotions with personal
anecdotes, and convincing them
of the seriousness of his
message through his logic and
credibility.
In his speech, Wallace
begins by recounting a tale
about two young goldfish out
swimming. An old fish passes
them and asks them how the
water is. The young goldfish do
not know what water is, even
though they’re swimming in it.
Wallace then comments that the
human mind naturally believes that it
resides at the center of the universe
because it always observes life from
its own perspective. He describes
how real life feels--“day in, day
out”--by describing a horrendous trip
to the grocery store where you
hypothetically get annoyed at every
single person in sight (3). Wallace
later explains how to shift your mind
out of the “default-setting” that may
end up hurting you and everyone
around you (2).
First, Wallace uses a
consistently informal tone. He
connects to his audience by using
words that would appear in an
everyday conversation as well as by
using humorous statements. Wallace
says, “If at this moment, you’re
worried that I plan to present myself
here as the wise old fish explaining
what water is to you younger fish,
please don’t be” (1). His intent with
this statement was to set himself
equal to his audience. By using
casual language, the audience feels
that the message belongs in a more
casual setting, and Wallace more
effectively conveys what he came to
convey: that people need to be
supportive of each other to save
themselves. Wallace also uses a few
curse words, which would not
usually be found in a formal speech.
The members of the audience,
mostly young college graduates,
probably use curse words on a daily
basis. By using curse words in his
speech,
Wallace’s audience trusts him and
what he says more. The audience is
more relaxed and feels that they
might be listening to a friend. He
continues by saying that college
education “enables [his] tendency to
over-intellectualize stuff” (2). By
using the word “stuff”, he generalizes
his statement to reach a large portion
of his audience and avoids shifting
into a formal tone even when talking
about education, a subject which
would most likely tire his graduating
audience.
Next, Wallace includes
personal stories and humorous
anecdotes to appeal to the emotions
of his audience. He describes a
horrendous trip to the grocery store
following a day at work:
It’s the end of the workday,
and traffic’s very bad, so
getting to the store takes way
longer than it should, and
when you finally get there the
supermarket is very crowded,
because of course it’s the time
of day when all the other
people with jobs also try to
squeeze in some grocery
shopping, and the store’s
hideously, fluorescently lit,
and infused with soul-killing
Muzak or corporate pop, and
it’s pretty much the last place
you want to be. (4)
Wallace describes an experience that
almost everyone in his audience can
relate to, both the parents attending
and the students. The story includes
choice of the word hideously to
describe the lights in the store
probably made his audience
smile. The fact that Wallace
wrote this story as an extremely
long sentence, similar to how
one’s mind would be churning
in the situation presented,
effectively demonstrates to the
audience that life can be hard,
even in the grocery store, if you
only focus on yourself. Wallace
also appeals to the emotions of
his audience by including
personal narratives. He states
that getting your mind out of the
default of only thinking of
yourself challenges him, “and if
you’re like me, some days you
won’t be able to do it, or you
just flatout won’t want to” (6).
Including a personal, vulnerable
experience causes the audience
to realize the humanity of
Wallace and their similarity to
him.
Lastly, Wallace uses a
serious tone at times that shows
the audience the importance of
his message while displaying his
logic and credibility. Wallace
beseeches his audience to heed
his message so they do not find
themselves “getting hypnotized
by the constant monologue[s]
inside [their] head[s]” (2). The
use of the verb hypnotized
strongly convinces the audience
that they should follow
Wallace’s advice or risk
becoming
Wallace informs his audience
that they “get to decide what has
meaning and what doesn’t” and
they “get to decide what to
worship” in their lives. (6)
However, he implements a more
serious tone by later noting that
“pretty much anything” one
chooses to worship “will eat
[them] alive” (7). Wallace has
life experience that most of his
audience lacks, and his audience
becomes more intent to listen to
him when he develops a serious
tone following a humorous or
informal tone. The most serious
side of Wallace’s speech
consists of mentions of suicide.
Wallace explains an essential
part of education--learning how
to control what goes on inside
your own head. He logically
says, “It is not the least bit
coincidental that adults who
commit suicide with firearms
almost always shoot themselves
in the head” (3). Given the
informal tone of the rest of his
speech, this sentence stands out.
The audience was probably
confused by the whiplash this
sentence caused, but the
whiplash was necessary for
Wallace’s intentions. Wallace
points out that many people
worry about what will come
after death, but that “the
capital-T Truth is about life
before death” (8). Many people
do not think of life in the way
that Wallace stated it.
Through this sentence, the audience
can easily infer that Wallace spent a
lot of time prior to delivering his
speech considering the most
imperative things in life.
Wallace begins his speech
with a story of goldfish who don’t
realize what they’re swimming in,
and he ends it by referring back to
that story. He tells his audience that
life is about being aware “of what is
so real and essential, so hidden in
plain sight all around us”, and that it
is necessary to remind “ourselves,
over and over: ‘This is water, this is
water”. (8) Wallace conveyed his
message through humor and informal
tone, stories that reached the people
listening, and by bringing up the rock
hard truths. The graduating class at
Kenyon College receives the
message: that focusing on
compassion may be the best way to
live, and possibly the only way to
survive. ▪
Wallace, David Foster. “This is Water.”
Kenyon Commencement Address.
Gambier, OH. 21 May
2005. Speech.
This is Water. Wallace’s speech describes
fish who don’t know they live in water.