David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water” commencement address to the Kenyon college graduating class of 2005 is a highly contested item as far as commencement addresses go. Wallace’s speech is later to be acclaimed as one of the most inspirational and important commencement speeches ever given. The speech is interpreted in this fashion because David Foster Wallace’s style of how he worded his speech as well as how he utilized rhetoric devices to get his point to his audience. By looking at the address David Foster Wallace gives we see that many of his ideas are very contrary to societal standards even taboo, which is important because as soon to be “adults” his crowd for his commencement speech needs to understand that they life they are soon going to be enduring does not sound “fun and breezy…” but instead is “the capital-T truth.”

Wallace in his commencement speech immediately in the introductory portion twice references “water” clearly illuminating it as a significant topic to the overall address. When he speaks of “water” he is using water in its standard depiction like when he references he is talking about fish. At this point it is a very tasteless and cliché commencement speech being given some type of wisdom filled story or parable; This is until Wallace himself inserts commentary that this is not one of those speeches and that a normal commencement speech is the not the purpose he is trying to accomplish. Wallace’s comment, a completely inverse idea immediately shifts the tone to that of one being much more analytical to that of the situation of life and human nature. The reference to “water” and “the fish in water” remains constant in the third paragraph as Wallace, describes another liberal arts education cliché. This particular cliché being that you are taught “how to think” which for a large percent of students at least is definitely untrue. Wallace instead explains to his crowd that is simply a shorthand thought. Educational institutions are not teaching “how to think,” “but rather about the choice of what to think about.” (Wallace xi)

Equally important to the address, the tone later in the essay shifts to a more serious level. Wallace in a way informs the crowd that they are all narcissistic and when going through their days are only concerned about themselves, stuck on a “default setting” which is not thinking of or being considerate of the lives of others within our own lives. He does admit though, that it takes extreme attentiveness to remain off of this default setting and willingly empathize with others. However, it is at this point where he makes a reference to suicide and those who commit suicide being dead for years before they actually commit the action. This very taboo topic, is inserted to catch the emotional response connected to the deed that is suicide. Although it is a very sad and emotionally unnerving situation, Wallace uses it intentionally of course as an example to describe people’s gross self-thinking only. It is in this particular situation a darker tone is formed and he exclaims the boring repetition of daily life and its affects. Still though, suicide in many cases is viewed as a way to get away from issues one is dealing with and it is very selfish as it doesn’t solve the issues; it instead leaves the issues them for someone else to deal with.

Generally speaking, Wallace is in his commencement speech very ironic with many of the clichés he is utilizing at first but then speaking down upon. One of the best examples of Wallace’s ability to utilize irony to influence is his audience begins by describing how inherently “me, me, me” humans think. He describes how people precisely feel which is thinking about “MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and how it’s going to seem for all the world like everyone else is just in my way.” (Wallace xiv) Wallace even goes as far as showing the pathetic whining that we all think “and look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.” (Wallace xiv) In showing the whining that we all subconsciously do, it is impossible for his audience to not think “do I really sound like that? Am I that selfish in my thinking?” Adding insult to injury Wallace in just a few paragraphs after gives a number of things that could be going on in the lives of others. One such of these being “or that Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.” (Wallace xv) Wallace in his including of this statement in his commencement speech is to induce a guilty feeling to his audience; many of the audience members of course recalling situations where they on their “default setting” thought this and about themselves first before the lives or value to other people.

Concluding, Wallace states “This is water, this is water” as a reinforcement to his address. Throughout the entirety of his commencement speech is attempting to generate a tone and a thought pattern within the students to think broader than of just themselves. The emphasized tone through the text is based on progressing from what starts out as a “normal commencement address” to becoming a “this is life it’s not going to be easy or fun, really it’s going to be very repetitive and miserable… but its life.” He entirely utilizes his analogy of a fish in water; the fish, being completely ignorant to what water is and not thinking about it. The water and knowing what it is, is awareness. The fish in water analogy is concurrently synonymous to humans and our “default setting,” where we are unwilling to recognize and empathize with others and instead care only with what ails us as individuals. The elaborateness to David Foster Wallace’s writing style is itself an analogy to the message of the piece as a whole; Wallace wants his audience to be aware of the hidden complex world we live in and not to only think of oneself in their “default setting”Wallace explains this awareness is what has value in a real education; the “awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves: this is water. This is water.” (Wallace xvii) 
