




In “This is Water” David Foster Wallace speaks to his audience of college students and their parents about the student’s liberal art degrees. He explains this type of degree as not just gaining knowledge in a few subjects, but learning the ability to look at ideas differently. Wallace uses examples to illustrate his argument that the world is like a machine and all the people are the parts of that machine. He explains that everything is automatic but with this degree students now have the ability to break away from this automation. David Foster Wallace ends his life a few years after giving the commencement speech. Although this speech was written to describe the purpose of a liberal art degrees, many people would not notice that Wallace was also trying to describe his struggle with his default setting.

Wallace brings up the idea of suicide early in his speech when he says “It is the least bit coincidental that the adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head” (Wallace XII). Without knowing the background of Wallace this would have passed over the audience without any real thought of the reasoning behind including this part. Wallace adds to this with “And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger” (Wallace XII). In this part of the speech his words are sincere and honest, they were not put there just to create an appealing speech. This could have been true for Wallace as well, that he felt dead for a while before actually ending his life. The feeling that you are dead while living is usually attributed to feeling that there is no purpose in your life like living life repeating the same actions over and over.   

David Wallace shows his struggle through his speech by repeatedly bringing up the idea of not trying to be automatically sure of something. The first time he brings up this idea of autonomy is when he is speaking about being taught how to think is, “To be just a little less arrogant” (Wallace XII). He goes on to say that most things that he is automatically sure of are usually incorrect. From this first use of the word we can tell that Wallace looks at it negatively to his development as a person. Shortly after he brings up the idea that we are all in a default setting, which he views as a negative in our society, he tells the graduates they should strive to break this setting so that they are able to live a full life. Wallace seems to see the autonomy in our society as complacency in our lives that stops us from pushing to reach our potential.

David Wallace gives examples of this default or automatic setting multiple times throughout his speech. Each of these examples are from his point of view that could give the audience the idea that he struggles with breaking away from this way of thinking, which is no different from everyone else. One of these examples that Wallace uses is the “average adult day” (Wallace XIII) in which he explains how people will come home from their nine to five and just sit down to relax when they realize that there’s no food in the house. He then goes on to describe the trivial problems that we all have like getting stuck in traffic on the way there. Then when we are at the store everyone is in a rush walking around bumping carts because it is so crowded and when you get to the checkout line there are not enough lines open. After explaining the situation, he then gives the audience another way to look at which he urges would be a way the graduates may look at it. From the way Wallace explains this scenario it shows that he first goes through life in his default setting until he is able to point it out in his own self. Once he notices it then he is able to look at a different viewpoint then his own which he was blind to before.

David Wallace struggle with breaking from his default setting is evident throughout the speech he gives to the graduates. Towards the end of the speech Wallace brings up the idea that in the day to day of adult life there is no such thing as not worshipping, everybody has to worship something even if they don’t know it. People could worship something spiritual or it could be something like money and materialistic things. If it is not one of these it something else like beauty, sexual appeal, or power. The reason that everyone worships something is because these ideas that are worshipped are default settings, instead of trying to take control we all let things control us. He goes onto explain that the world we live in will not help you break away from this default setting, there are people that are able to take advantage from the ones that are stuck in this autonomy. 

Most of Wallace’s speech is about how harmful the default setting we all have is, but he also brings up the alternative to it that he hopes the graduates will be able to find which is real freedom. This real freedom he says will not be heard in the world because how our society is materialistic and only concerned with ourselves, but it is being able to give attention and sacrifice for others that we care for. There are other kinds of freedom but Wallace sees the one, of the many freedoms that someone could have, that does not put ourselves first as “real freedom.” This is the one point in speech that Wallace is not focused on his self, but helping others. This explains that he desires and finds true happiness in helping others but he he has trouble from breaking away from thinking of himself.

No one will ever know the reason for David Foster Wallace taking his own life but the speech that he gave to college graduates of Kenyon College on the purpose of their degrees, “This is Water”, allows for some insight into his thoughts. Wallace used this speech to express his thoughts and feelings on his struggles that he was going through to try and help the students from falling into the same automation that he may have felt he was in. Wallace struggled with being able to break away from his default setting and to look at ideas from other points of views other than his own to find the freedom that we all strive to find. 


