Graduation is a time for recent graduates and their families to rejoice over the accomplishments that they have just been rewarded for.  Usually the graduation speaker is extremely positive talking about the amazing things that the graduates will end up achieving and how exciting their futures will be.  David Foster Wallace in his commence speech at Kenyon University took a slightly different approach in his obscure graduation speech.  The prompt for the speech was to talk about the value of a liberal arts degree, and Wallace believed that there is more human value in receiving a liberal arts degree over anything else.  David Foster Wallace’s speech titled “This is Water” is a warning to young people to stay conscious and mindful of the world around them so their lives do not become boring and meaningless; he does this through his diction, imagery, and sentence structure. 

Wallace throughout the speech uses diction that relates to death. Graduation speeches are usually uplifting and celebratory of the achievements that graduates have made. Instead of doing this, Wallace takes the opportunity to express what their liberal arts education can lead them to do, “Your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out” (XIII).   The use of diction in this quote shows how mundane life could become if meaningful effort is not put into day to day life. The words “dead,” “unconscious,” and “slave” all describe being detached from the present, as if you are sleepwalking through life. The diction that Wallace’s uses throughout the quote have negative connotations.  They all suggest not being self-aware of your surrounding leads to an unhappy and regretful lifestyle.  Using these unconventional words for a graduation speech grabs the attention of the audience. It is also a wake-up call to these graduates to not be unconscious throughout their lives.

The next example of diction that Wallace uses displays the un-mindful way of thinking that people get used too.  Wallace describes through this speech that humans tend to think a natural setting where they focus solely on themselves.  The natural setting that most people operate in is shown in the diction that is used, “It’s the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center if the world”(XV).   By using the words automatic multiple times an unconscious it expands upon the idea that this way of thinking is normal and in order to change effort needs to be put in.  Also the words boring and frustrating have negative connotations that most people do not wanted connected to their lives.

The imagery throughout the story is used as a way to warn students of their possible future, but to also inspire and enlighten them on how they should try and conduct themselves.  One of his first examples is going to a supermarket after a long day at work, “the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it’s pretty much the last place you want to be but you can’t just get in quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff,” (XIII). Wallace uses descriptive scenarios of situations that all people can relate too.  This example is universal because in one way or another, everyone in the audience, graduates and family alike, can relate to a mundane shopping experience.  The quote creates an image of a cold, melancholy environment that no one really wants to be in.  The description of the lighting of the store as being, “hideous lit,” and the aisles being “confusing” makes the reader feel the restlessness and unhappiness this type of situation puts one in.  

Wallace uses imagery again and mirrors the style of the first image to further show his point of not being mindful.  As he describes how he can think about life through a more socially conscious perspective.  He once again uses a relatable situation to help describe this  train of thought, “I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV’s and Hummer’s and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas”(XIV).  Once again he uses an everyday experience to make the audience relate to the speech.  Using multiple adjectives to describe the cars makes the readers able to picture these massive cars that are blocking the roads.  

Both of the example of imagery use sentence structure helps convey how exhausting and boring this environment is.  The sentence is extremely long and very descriptive which creates a dull and tedious feel.  If shorter sentences were used this dragged on effect that these long sentences have would not be able to shine through.  Wallace is encouraging in this speech that these graduates try and stray away from this dragged on monotonous train of thought and try and stay conscientious about the world and people around them by being able to sympathize and relate to other individuals.

       What can be learned from “This is Water” is that even though living in a constant state of awareness is something that is extremely hard to do all the time, living more consciously and being more self-aware ultimately makes a better happier person.   Living this way would lead people to be less selfish and more sympathetic to other’s feeling and situations.  It would make society less singular and it would bring people together.  Wallace shares these ideas on how to not become bored in your life by his use of detached diction, descriptive imagery, and his use of sentence structure.  Being mindful allows people to be sympathetic and conscious in our day to day lives rather than being mundane and unhappy.