David Wallace’s “This is Water” speech, represents much more than a farewell speech to graduates, his words are simple but have complex meanings that challenges readers to rethink their place in life and in society. From the first read I had no idea it was a graduation speech, therefore it was a little confusing and hard to follow. After re-reading and understanding the point of the speech was to inform graduates about what lies ahead I was immediately intrigued. Throughout the speech Wallace stresses that adult life is difficult and tedious, and wants the young adults who he’s addressing to know that the world isn’t centered on your lifestyle or your beliefs and it will never be. 

Throughout the speech Wallace uses a straightforward style of writing over an elaborate one. I believe this is because he is not trying to impress the graduates or the people in attendants to the graduation but to really inspire and teach them how to think and pay attention to their experiences. However aside to his format, I do believe that his vocabulary is very elaborate and showy, for example, he uses words like: banal, socially repulsive, triumphal etc. His choice of words helps the straightforward style of writing flow better and more fun to read.  

The word choice in the passage relates to the theme or overall message by helping emphasize a simple yet complex lesson in life. It is simple because its easy to understand and think about but complex because its hard to actually do it, by this I mean it takes more will power and an eager behavior to go and observe life outside of yourself. The vocabulary he uses helps the message flow better and adds creativity to grab the reader’s attention. Along with getting attention it helps emphasize the point he makes by using harsh words to drive it into your brain. I like this method that he uses because when an author uses words that have a different tone than their simple synonyms it makes it seem more important to me. Overall Wallace’s word choices related to the theme in a positive manner by supporting his ideas and theme.

The theme in the speech is awareness, I say this because the whole time Wallace is giving his speech, and almost every point leads up to him wanting us to be aware of what’s around us. We can’t live life only centering it around ourselves, everyone has their own struggles just like you. Therefore we need to take that extra breath and understand you’re not the only one having a bad day. In class we watched the shortened version of the speech acted out, and the one scene that stuck out to me the most was in supermarket at the cash register. During this time the cashier, an older women, was struggling to make the coupon work and the customer was being impatient. Along with the tedious coupons, aggravated customer, her child was having a temper tantrum. While all this was happening the character who “played” Wallace was also getting vexed. However when he stopped to observe what was going on he thought about the cashier who had probably been working all day at her minimum wage job, saying the same “have a nice day” to every customer even though she didn’t mean it. And he thought about the irritated mother who’s child was making a scene and her coupons not working, maybe she really needed to use them because she was very poor. The point is, through this scene Wallace’s whole message clicked for me, it all made sense. If you go through life blindly you’re a lamb, you’re a follower of the mass. If you stop and look around, see what’s really going on around you, and then you’ve made a change to see what the world is really like. Its not centered around you, you and I need to be observant of others and by doing this it can change your whole outlook on society.  

 