Rhetorical Analysis Of The 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address
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To begin the 2005 Kenyon Commencement address, David Foster Wallace greets the parents and students, telling them to go ahead and perspire if they need to, because he will. Wallace proceed to tell them his story of the two fish. An old, and a young fish that are swimming and the young fish ask the old fish, “What the hell is water?” Page 1
Wallace explains that this is a parable like story is a necessity in United States commencement speeches, but that his commencement will not contain one. He connects to one of the deepest meanings of a liberal arts degree, that we can miss the most obvious thing that is right in front of us.
To continue, Wallace states “The main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about your liberal arts…show more content… It doesn’t teach us how to think, but teaches us what to think about and how we think about it.
Wallace continues talking of how no college seniors understand what the day in day out ritual of adult life involves. He gives an example. He puts you in the shoes of someone who has a white collar job, and after working your eight hour day, you just want to go home and relax, but you remember as you’re leaving that you don’t have groceries for dinner. You now have to go to the crowded, confusing store. You finally get your groceries and now have to wait in line because there aren’t enough checkout line to help the end of the day rush. All the graduates here have done this, but not as continually as you will.
Now you get to drive through the traffic with lane blocking V-12 pickups, hummers and other giant SUVs. Then, you get cut off by some man in a Hummer. Our first reaction is to get upset about how he could do this to ME. This is how not to think. We must chose to think maybe that man has a sick child, and is trying to get to the hospital, and that it is I who am in His