Rather than giving a traditional cliché commencement speech of encouragement and inspiration for a bright future, David Foster Wallace chose to take a different approach by giving the graduates a taste of real life and opening their eyes to the boring routine of adulthood. The fact that Wallace makes his speech different was an effective method to open the eyes of the graduates as the message of the speech clearly pertained to these graduates who would soon be out in the real world as adults. Had the speech been given at a different occasion I don’t feel it would have grasped the attention of the audience in a way that would be life changing and inspiring. Wallace is attempting to prepare the graduates for what he views as the capital T-Truth about adulthood. In my opinion, this makes Wallace appear as cynical and pessimistic as his outlook on adulthood, and the graduates’ futures, is one of boring routine that is unavoidable. Wallace assumes that everyone in the audience will go into adulthood with the same “hardwired” mindset. He says they will all go through the same annoyance of everyday stress from work and having to maneuver through a crowded grocery store. His idea has some truth, however, I feel he went wrong in the way he presented it. The idea that I got out of his speech is that we have the power and the brain capacity to think for ourselves and choose what we want to think. However, I believe that not only do we have the power to think for ourselves, but act for ourselves as well. We can choose to not think of adulthood as routine and boring, as well as actually not make it routine and boring. Wallace’s point that we choose how we think is a great point and a great life lesson to give to the graduates, however, telling them that their lives from this point forward will be boring is something that I disagree with and I feel Wallace could have done a much better job reaching his point across in a more positive manner.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Kenyon Commencement Speech
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Kaitlin, when reading through the speech for the first time I thought it was powerful, honest, and touching, but when I put myself in the shoes of the audience, it does feel to be really depressing! Wallace took a backwards way to motivate the graduates. He was warning them, but the inevitable boredom threat shows how tortured Wallace really was. Did you pick up on the fact that he seemed to suffer with great depression? I didn't from just reading the speech, but after researching I found out he was medicated most of his life before committing suicide. As more balanced people, we take control of our lives and understand that it is what we make of it, like you said. You made a good point by saying that the speech would make less of an impact if it was not graduation day, although I think the lessons taught in the speech are applicable on any given day. Do you agree? Although Wallace seems extremely pessimistic, do you see how the overall message can be seen as uplifting and empowering? Or is that just me? lol
ReplyDeleteKaitlin, I agree with you on the fact that Wallace took more of a negative approach for his commencement speech for the graduates but I believe it was for a positive outcome and I have to disagree when you say he could have done a better job getting his point across. In my opinion, Wallace does a fantastic job with his commencement speech. If you think about it, what better way is there to prepare these graduates, or more so up coming adults, than to paint a portrait for them? Not a portrait of the American dream that every person hopes and wishes for, but a portrait of the capital T- Truth; life in reality. Wallace describes the ideas and thoughts of the everyday struggles in an adult’s life and notes that his so called “cynical and pessimistic” thoughts are examples of how not to think. I believe the point to his speech is to have each of the graduates take a look at what they are in for as adults and to make the decision to live their life as they wish to. He also wants them to keep in mind that the obstacles of their own day can be mere irritations when compared to the persons to there right or left. Most essentially, awareness is shown to be his main point and Wallace succeeds beautifully in teaching and giving that to the graduates.
ReplyDelete