David Foster Wallace was a witty and blunt author from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. “This is Water” was a commencement speech at Kenyon College’s graduation. To sum up the whole speech, Wallace was trying to get his point across to all of the graduates that life isn’t always a joy. One has to pursue his or her dreams and not get into an everyday routine that is mundane. If you’re having a bad day, someone else might be having a worse day. You sometimes need to look through other people’s eyes. Throughout the speech, Wallace uses many negative adjectives and repetition referring to death. That is something that you would not usually hear in a commencement speech. Starting out the speech by saying, “… this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.”, isn’t very promising for an uplifting speech (XI). He is already starting out with an unpleasant voice.

One of the first references to death that comes up in the text is about committing suicide. Wallace states, “It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head” (XIII). Now, suicide is not a light subject so it’s quite strange that he would bring this up to a whole graduating class going off into the real world. He is attempting to make the point that no one should get into the “natural default setting” because it will just become frustrating and boring. Wallace talks about suicide like it’s a normal thing (comparing it to a ‘day to day’ routine). He puts them back to back in the writing to make them seem similar. In his eyes, committing suicide isn’t out of the ordinary. It happens and life goes on. In the beginning of the speech, he says “…but if you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don’t be” (X). This quote is just the start of him saying that he’s been through many different experiences and he’s just trying to warn all of the graduates of what they might see.

Wallace then talks about going to the grocery store. Shopping is usually just something everyone does so they turn a blind eye to the annoying little incidents that happen but Wallace wants to point out every little thing that happens. He states, “… and you get told ‘Have a nice day’ in a voice that is the absolute voice of death” (XIV). This refers back to death again. Such a simple act bothers him so much that he has to relate it to death speaking to him. People telling him to have a nice day or the “soul-killing muzak” grinds his gears to no end (XIII). By using adjectives like “stupid, hideously lit, confusing, creepy”, etc., the connotation of the speech starts to become more depressing than anything (XIII). 

While concluding his speech, he brings up religion again. Religion and faith were brought up in the beginning (also related with dying and God saving the man). Wallace states, “The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death” (XVII). This is where he brings everything back to education. When religion is brought up in anything, heaven and hell are thought of. That’s just an immense part of any religious belief. He is saying life is about worrying what’s happening now, not what is going to happen after death. Embrace the education you’ve received, notice small things that are always happening around you. “This is water” is representing a sigh of relief almost. In other words, Wallace is saying don’t worry so much. Issues come up, but at some point they will resolve.

After reading and discussing this passage, I found out that David Foster Wallace committed suicide a couple years after presenting this speech. In my personal opinion, I believe he referred to death and death-related terms so much throughout the speech because he was describing how he felt on a day-to-day basis. Death was used to describe different actions and every day run-ins someone might have. Not everything is what it appears to be. Repetition in this passage draws out Wallace’s perspective on life. He places a bad connotation on normal everyday activities.