People’s minds are like galaxies. In these galaxies every star is an idea that was once shaped by a personal experience. Everyone’s thoughts and interpretations depend on what they are going through in their lives at the moment or important things that happened in the past. Since everyone’s lives are so different, so are everyone’s thoughts.

One of the most important parts of reading is the way the reader interprets every single word. Material things like the success of a book rely on this. Why and how people like the book will highly influence how many copies are sold, etc. What is more important than this, is how a book can affect someone’s life. 

The different usages of the word “crowded” by Wallace can cause serious effects on people’s interpretations of the whole reading. One of these effects worth focusing on is the aspect of confusion. Confusion can cause someone to highly dislike the book, and think the message Wallace is trying to send through the book is something else. 

Wallace uses the word “crowded” several times in his writing and with a lot of different meanings. Also, the word “crowded” is really important as he uses it to describe situations which will help us understand the reading. 

“So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded…” (Wallace XIII).  In this line of “This is Water”, Wallace uses the adjective in its literal sense. In this context, he’s telling us that there are a lot of people in the supermarket in order to help the reader understand the situation and the way Wallace feels. Everyone should know the literal meaning of the word crowded, but not everyone necessarily interpreted it that way in this occasion. This is the first time that Wallace uses the word in his writing so there might not be confusion yet. However, it is important that the word has a literal meaning here because “crowded” is the heart of this sentence; the adjective is describing the whole situation. Understanding the situation during the whole writing is crucial since the author’s message talks about something people experience in their every day life: routine. If people are not able to relate, the reading will make no sense and the author would have made all this work for nothing. We would have lost our time reading something that did not help us at all.

“Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines…” (Wallace XIV).  Again, Wallace uses it in its literal sense describing the situation. This time he’s being a little more specific and talking about the aisles in the supermarket at the end of the day when everyone’s out of work. The main effect this will have on the reader is making them think how annoying it is to be in that situation after a long today of work, and this will make them relate with Wallace. The author uses the word “crowded” so much in this reading because it’s all he is able to think about when he is tired and trying to get home from work. Even if the readers do not have any idea of how the author is feeling, they will know that the only place they want to be after a long day of work is home and the only one they want to be with is themselves; not crowded places. Wallace keeps describing “crowded” situations and offering some more evidence about how he is feeling through the book as he tries to look for different ways to not only break his routine, but to not think about it. He often writes about focusing in the lives of the ones that surround him and trying not to be so pessimistic about the situation he is in. It is important that we, readers, feel this oppressive crowding in order to fully understand the reading because as I said before, there would be no point in reading something if you are not fully understanding it. Also, the content of this reading can help us in reality, knowing that we are not the only ones that feel that way can be a very heartwarming feeling. Wallace tries to make a connection with the readers through the word crowded, since almost everyone can relate to a situation when they do not want to be surrounded by a bunch of people, regardless of the reason.

At this point, the writer has already introduced the readers to the word “crowded” in the same usage two times; this has to mean something. Here is when the analyzing part becomes important, and when the readers have to make sure they understand every single word as the writer means it. The author starts to describe more and more situations with this word, and not in a positive way. Every time a place is crowded, Wallace just wants to get out of there. 

“It’s the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life…” (Wallace XV).  The usage of the word crowded in this line is not so literal anymore. The parts of adult life are not a place, therefore they cannot be crowded with people the same way the supermarket and the aisles were. In this context, Wallace is trying to tell us that it is one of the moments of an adult’s life where there is always something going on. That part of life where you are really tired and there is that one additional thing to do before you go home to get some rest and since you are so tired, that last thing seems to be taking forever. This can be really frustrating, as he mentions right before the word “crowded”. Here is when confusion may come. There are a lot of people in this world who take every single word by its literal meaning. This may be because this is how they were taught as kids, or for other reasons. Wallace is using the word as a synonym of “stressing”. He is trying to send the message that a crowded place is always stressful. Regardless of the different interpretations and meanings “crowded” can have, the stress related one is the most recognized by people and by Wallace.

The word “crowded” can also be used as a verb, unfortunately Wallace doesn’t use it that way in his writing, he constantly uses it as an adjective. For example, “everyone crowded around the trophy”. It no longer means that there are a lot of people, but that they came closer together. May be it is a good thing that he did not overwhelm the readers with so many usages of the word; using the word as a verb when he already used it as an adjective to describe the supermarket and the aisles would have brought a lot of confusion. Especially because “crowded” is most commonly used to describe an action, not as the action itself.

So, when it comes to Wallace’s use of the word “crowded”, it went from the literal use of the word to a very figurative one to make the readers have the necessity to analyze his writing in order to comprehend it and get something out of it.  He is trying to create a picture in our heads. He repeats “crowded” so many times, giving us an image of a place full of people and a feeling of wanting to get out of there. Wallace uses the word “crowded” to describe every situation and always gave it a very negative sense. Once the reader understands that, the message is a lot clearer; do not put yourself in situations you will feel “crowded” because you will feel like Wallace did, stressed and claustrophobic. 