“The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death” (Wallace, XVI) is a statement that David Foster Wallace made during a commencement speech given to the graduating class of Kenyon College in 2005. This claim is rather ironic for Wallace to make since only a few years later he committed suicide. Considering the fact that Wallace hung himself in 2008, this commencement speech could be perceived as a foretelling of his future fate, as well as a precaution to the graduates from Wallace so that they don’t suffer the same misfortunate outcome. By analyzing the speech for signs that Wallace was contemplating killing himself, it could be claimed as a pre-warning suicide note three years before Wallace took the action that ended his life. His tone throughout the speech and the content of his speech both has indicating signs of his severe depression and his negative outlook on life. Whether it was his purpose to bestow the audience with some insight into his psyche or not, the text can be analyzed for these precursors that may have warned the audience. 

One of the simplest examples of these tell tale signs can be Wallace’s overall tone throughout the text. By analyzing the language Wallace used, his tone can be interpreted as negative with a hint of dry sarcasm. His adjectives throughout the speech fall heavily on the pessimistic side which can be noticed through words and phrases such as, “less bullshitty” (Wallace, X), “hideously” (Wallace, XIII), “soul-killing” (Wallace, XIII), “confusing” (Wallace, XIII), etc. Another example of his negative tone can be seen through his hints at his own personal experiences, “I have learned the hard way…” (Wallace, XII) referring to how he learned to be more aware of himself and his certainties. Typically, when people use that phrase, it is used as a substitute for a story too dark to casually mention in everyday conversation. By using this ominous, mysterious phrase, Wallace negates the tone further. There are a few instances where Wallace claims that he is not here to lecture the graduates, despite the obvious fact that he is giving a speech. “Don’t worry that I’m getting ready to lecture you…” (Wallace, XII) and “but if you’re worried that I plan to present myself as the wise old fish…” (Wallace, X) are two of these examples. By promising the audience that his purpose is not to lecture them or act as their superior mentor sharing his knowledge from experience, Wallace comes across sounding like a worn out man, tired of repeating himself. He is warning that he is not here to lecture because Wallace knows that he cannot force the graduates to reason with his opinion and take to heart his words. By ending the speech with the sentence, “I wish you way more than luck” (Wallace, XVII), Wallace puts emphasis on the words “way more” which are not usually included in the commonplace phrase “I wish you luck”. This emphasis implies that he thinks the task of surviving life and becoming self-aware is an impossible goal. With that closing statement, the speech does more than simply end. The statement is such a strong farewell that it almost hints to the idea that Wallace believes the graduates, like all humans, are already condemned to be the way they are, which is forever self-centered and stuck in the mindset that they are the center of the universe. All the evidence together provides a base for Wallace’s negative mindset that may have led to his final reasoning that humans in the world cannot be made to be entirely self-aware. Wallace may have felt ultimately doomed once he came to the realization that the mindset of humans in the world cannot be changed. 

Another indicator of Wallace’s future actions of claiming his own life can be analyzed through the content of his speech. One of these examples of content can be Wallace’s own personal viewpoint on the idea that every person worships something. In the speech, Wallace sets up this conversation with a “didactic little story” (Wallace, XI) about two Alaskan guys and their differing opinions over the meaning of an experience. Wallace claims that the easy moral to conclude from this story would be that “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). However, Wallace presents this idea that the difference that needs to be analyzed is the “individual template” (Wallace, XI) within each individual person. He goes on to claim, “in the day-to-day trenches of adult life...there is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” (Wallace, XV-XVI). Through his own personal definition of worship, which is the idolization of anything from a religious figure to a certain quality such as beauty or intelligence, he claims that humans unconsciously worship, they “measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re (they’re) doing” (Wallace, XVI). After giving the audience a grasp on his meaning of worship and all the possibilities categorized under the realm of what could be worshipped, Wallace explains his opinion that whatever which is worshipped is actually unattainable. Depending of what you value, he explains that the individual will “never have enough, never feel you (the individual) have enough” (Wallace, XVI). If it is a god or superior being that is worshipped, there will never be a true understanding of all that is encompassed by that being. If it is a human trait that is admired and worshipped, the individual will always be striving to obtain that quality, yet because there is such an importance placed upon the quality it becomes unachievable. Like Wallace said, the individual will never feel as if they’ve achieved the highest possible level of that quality because there is no exact measure of its worth when it's priceless to the individual. Therefore, the individual lives in a paradox, always striving toward a goal that is impossible to achieve. The difference in Wallace’s circumstance is that he has identified this phenomenon in life. Wallace, according to his own beliefs, must have something that he worships and idolizes like every other human being. Most humans are unbothered by this phenomenon because they are unaware of its existence. However, Wallace is gifted with the knowledge of his self-awareness, which in this case is a curse. Wallace probably was able to easily identify what it is he worshipped, but he was probably also able to easily comprehend that he would never be able to achieve the impossible thing he worshipped. He could live his entire life, but he would never be able to entirely obtain or aspire to the purpose of his living. 

Of the entire commencement speech, the paragraph that may have caused the most red flags would probably be the short paragraph that actually discussed suicide. Wallace is expressing his thoughts on the mind using the old phrase “the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master” (Wallace, XIII). He then continues this thought into the next paragraph by talking about the fact that “it is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger” (Wallace, XIII). In this paragraph, there is undeniable evidence that Wallace has contemplated the reasoning behind why some people commit suicide with a bullet to the brain. This statement shows some of Wallace’s premeditation surrounding act of ending his life. It is the sentence “And the truth is most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger” (Wallace, XVII) that is the most haunting though. With the way Wallace makes this claim, it makes the audience wonder if he makes this statement from personal experience. It is possible that these are the true feelings of Wallace, and why he inevitably committed suicide himself because he felt as if he were already figuratively dead. By divulging these intimate thoughts to the audience, Wallace is in a way foreshadowing his own fate. 

Wallace claimed “it is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out” (Wallace, XVII). With the knowledge we have now, that in 2008 Wallace committed suicide, it drastically changes the way in which this speech can be interpreted. Through analyzation of the tone and different portions of content of the speech, such as Wallace’s beliefs of worship and his mention of suicide, the commencement speech can be interpreted as a forewarning suicide note that hinted at the future fate of the author. The tone’s strong tendency to be negative displays the overall unhappiness of Wallace with the world and humanity. His description of the self-centeredness of humanity in such a hopeless way provides the evidence to make the claim that even three years before his suicide he felt strongly enough that humanity and life was not worth living. Wallace’s belief that whatever a person worshipped was unobtainable also exhibits why he might have committed suicide. According to his own philosophy, he would never achieve what he most desired. Therefore, he could have rationalized that there was no purpose to his living when his life would never feel complete or his purpose for living accomplished. By Wallace’s mention of suicide in the speech, it demonstrates that he had at the time contemplated the rationalization behind suicide, thus being the utmost proof that the speech serves as a foretelling of his committing suicide. While there are underlying signals that could have been indications of his future actions, there is also evidence to indicate that the speech was Wallace’s own personal attempt to warn the graduates and make them evaluate their individual lives before they found themselves in the same mindset that he held. However a person interprets Wallace’s speech, whether it has indicators of his fate or not, it can be agreed that his speech broadened the mind of the audience a bit, at least for a moment to make them more self-aware. 
