
College graduation is historically a time to reflect and celebrate the journey each graduate took to achieve collegiate success. Many commencement speakers choose to focus on these exhausted themes and paint a fairy tale like future for their audience. David Foster Wallace however took a different approach. His commencement speech at a Kenyon College, This is Water, attempts to convince his audience of the necessity to continue to think consciously and critically after graduating, while also enlightening them to the realities of life ahead. His complex and multilayered speech is difficult to understand initially. However, this is a commencement address leaving Wallace  with only one opportunity to be certain his listeners fully understood his message. To simplify his themes, he employs the use of rhetorical devices such as repetition, metaphors, and real life examples to successfully communicate his message.

In This is Water, Wallace repeats the phrase liberal arts to enhance the credibility in his speech. The phrase works well with his audience since they are liberal arts graduates who already have a predisposed connection to the expression. Hearing it used as an adjective meaning “to think critically” is nothing new to his audience, which Wallace proceeds to manipulate to increase the value of his argument. In the middle of his speech Wallace states, “It’s easy to run this story through kind of a liberal arts analysis: the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people’s two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience (Wallace,XI).” The importance of this quote was to highlight Wallace’s decision to incorporate the expression liberal arts. There are many other adjectives, arguably even some that are better, yet he still deliberately choose liberal arts. The rationale behind this decision was to give significance to this perceived special type of analysis, drawing on the audience's connection to the phrase so they feel that only this exclusive group, those who know how to think critically, can see the deeper meaning to the parable. He draws on their egos to win the audience’s attention and their belief in his message. 

Wallace uses this same strategy a bit earlier in his speech when referencing the negative connotation of the liberal arts cliché. He mentions how it’s usually perceived to be an insult and used to draw on the negatives of their degree. However, he spins it as a positive attempting to gain the respect of the crowd. “But I’m going to post it to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about (Wallace,XI)” Wallace shines a positive light on a negative idea allowing him to play off the audience’s attachment and bias to the adjective liberal arts. By eliminating the one negative connotation the listeners have for the phrase, Wallace is able to strengthen their affinity for it, resulting in a positive first impression of him. Wallace earns more credibility in their eyes, which in turn provides a significant contribution to him successfully communicating his speech to his audience.     

Another way Wallace effectively relays his message is by incorporating multiple parables and real word examples to help simplify his complex speech, making it easier for listeners to understand. This is a massive part Wallace’s attempt to reach his audience, with the name of the speech even coming from his first parable. That first parable details a conversation between three fish. “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and say ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’ (Wallace,X)” Wallace utilizes this story to depict an image of what he wants his listeners to evolve into. He’s showing his audience that currently they’re the young fish unaware of what’s around them. Wallace desires his audience to develop into the older fish by examining the world around them and being consciously aware of their environment. Wallace employs the use of a parable as opposed to blantly stating how he wants his listeners to develop, so as not to appear as an authoritarian figure forcing his beliefs on his audience. He’s trying to capitalize on their emotions by providing examples that sway their thinking to have them arrive at his conclusion without that appearing as his goal.  

Wallace translates this concept into everyday events such as being stuck in traffic, grocery shopping, or at the DMV. He depicts two sides of each example for his listeners, one that’s already known, and a second side that is rarely thought about. “This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. (Wallace, XV)” Once again, Wallace is playing to the ego of his audience. By intertwining this with the real word examples, Wallace strengthens his message by associating them with selfishness, subsequently invoking self-centered emotions in the audience, allowing Wallace to sell them on it being their choice to think consciously. 

Wallace’s gamble to focus on real-world advice opposed to fairy tale predictions is  successfully communicated by his use of repetition, parables, and real world examples. His decision to repetitively use liberal arts as an adjective manipulates the ego of his listeners. His choice to employ parables simplifies his message so it’s easier to understand. His real world examples influence his audience’s emotions to make them more susceptible to embracing his message. Together they create a perfectly crafted approach to communicating a complex theme.
