
Left or right? To sleep in or go to class? To intervene, or be a bystander?  All simple choices presented to us all too often throughout our lives.  “This is Water”, is a commencement speech given to the class of 2005 liberal arts graduates at Kenyon college by David Foster Wallace.  In this speech Wallace proposes that we can all as educated people make a conscious choice to see things from different perspectives in our dreary day to day lives.  It provides a look into the future lives that the students will be living.  He tries to spin off of the usual commencement speech and leave his readers with more than a lesson on how to best utilize their degrees.  He uses anecdotes, repetition, and irony throughout his speech to support his claim of our ultimate choice on perspective.

 Wallace begins his speech with an anecdote, or as he calls it, a “didactic little parable-ish story”. (Wallace X) In this first anecdote two young fish are swimming around and an older fish comes along and says, “Morning boys, how’s the water”, and the younger fish are confused by this which we figure out from one stating, “What the hell is water?”  Following his didactic story Wallace explains he is not to be presented as the older, wiser fish, he merely wants his audience to see how the “most obvious, important realities”, are some of the most difficult to realize.  It seems as though from this story Wallace wants us to see that, possibly, we are the young fish who are oblivious to what’s going on around us and do not see what is really happening in our day to day lives.  A little further into Wallace’s speech he presents us with another anecdote, this one starting out with two men (one an atheist and the other religious) in Alaska arguing over the existence of God.  The atheist says he was caught in a blizzard and asked God to save him, the religious man says, “Well then you must believe now”, but the atheist argues that it was not God, but some Eskimos that happened to fumble his way that saved his life. (Wallace XI) This story, like the first, shows how two individuals can see the same scenario with two completely different sets of thoughts and opinions.  Wallace uses these anecdotes to give the audience clear examples of the choice in perspective to further support his main idea of peoples ability to choose their thoughts in his speech.

In addition to his use of anecdotes within the text, Wallace uses irony in his speech to emphasize more what he is trying to convey to his audience.  The first example of irony that we see in this speech is about the fish story that he begins his speech with.  We would assume that Wallace being more educated, experienced, and older than his audience that he would consider himself the wiser older fish in the anecdote, but he clearly states this is not true.  In fact, throughout the speech he puts himself on the same playing field as the students he is talking to.  Wallace also repeatedly comments on his own speech with statements like, “That may sound like hyperbole or absolute nonsense”.  Wallace is taking his speech and doing self-analysis throughout to show that he is not some perfect wise man, and using himself as an example of his message.   (Wallace XIII) With his comments it brings us as readers to further reanalyze the speech from different viewpoints.  The self-analysis of Wallace is yet another example of different perspective, he gives us the option to form opinions while we are reading and then we also see the perspective that Wallace is giving.  

Along with the anecdotes and irony that Wallace presents in his speech, he uses repetition for effect throughout the piece to emphasize his main idea of choice.  One word that is prevalent many times within the speech is the word if.  He almost creates a kind of parallel universe in the reader’s mind to reiterate that there may be more underneath the surface of what we see with our own eyes.  One example of its usage in the speech is when he talks about driving home with the most aggressive and inconsiderate drivers are those in the big SUV’s who are wasting our fuel and ruining our climate.  He then restates the same scenario from a different point of view, with the word “if”.  The speech states what “If” the SUV drivers were in horrible accidents and driving around in the big gas guzzling SUV’s is the only way they can feel safe on the road.  By replacing with the word “if” we start to see that not everything is as we see it and everybody has a reason for what they do and how they act.   (Wallace XII) Wallace also uses the words “YOU” and “MY” repeatedly in his speech. (Wallace XIV) They are both used to represent a similar meaning, he uses the word “YOU” first to explain how we are the center of our own universes.  How there is not one situation that we are not the absolute center of, and how we take everything that happens around us as specific to our own stories.  Wallace then turns it on himself by using the word “MY” to represent his own selfish view on the happenings in the world.  He references “MY hunger”, “MY fatigue”, and “MY desire to just get home”, and how everybody around is just in the way. (Wallace XIV) The switch between “YOU” and “MY” makes the speech more relatable and less like a lecture being given.  It also further supports his ideas on perspective and how to us we are the stars in our lives, but everyone around feels as if they are the star and we are just supporting characters. 

Through the use of anecdotes, irony, and repetition Wallace presents to the reader his idea that all of us have a choice on how we view the world.  He explains that we can either view our day as if we are the center of the universe and see others around us as obstacles, or we can look into the “what if”.  The speech explains that with a degree, we should not just see what future careers we can have, we should use our educated minds to choose how we view the world.  Upon close reading of this text we can see that all of the literary devices Wallace chooses to use support and provide further evidence of the choices we have to make and how everybody chooses a different way to think based on their education or experience.  As educated individuals we are given a choice that no other living thing has, the choice to think that maybe we are not always the star in our own lives, but a supporting character in others’.  Through the unorthodox style of writing, Wallace provides us with the example of his own choice of perspective and teaches us how to make ours. 
