First off, I believe that both speeches were affected in some way
by the circumstance which they were presented in as well as the audience they
were presented to.
On that note, the commencement speech by David Foster Wallace was
given to students at a liberal arts college which gives the immediate
impression that the harsh, yet blatantly unfiltered review of the human nature
and its organization in society would give Wallace more time and room to add
detail to his philosophical thoughts in a speech that is to be presented to
many students that would be able to not only understand the message he was
trying to convey, but also appreciate the humor and satirical metaphors wrapped
around these ideas that are ‘as noticeable as water’. But to tell you the
truth, after reading ‘This is Water’, I don’t even think Wallace cared about
how many people would understand and appreciate what he was trying to say; I’d
go so far as to say that he wanted people to be confused, and even doubt his
ideas so maybe, just maybe, the grim truth he was speaking about concerning the
lives around him and probably mostly his own, wouldn’t be so horrifically
lonely and pointless. I think that David Wallace didn’t want to believe what he
was saying because he realized all of the pessimistic truths that were pointed
out in his speech applied to him as well, and to make matters worse he seemed
to be the only one to see them, so asking ‘how the audience affected his
speech’ is a waste of a question, and to truly understand what affected his
speech and how he wrote it, you need to ask the question of why he wrote it.
One could simply make the claim that he was assigned this speech or possibly he
was awarded the right to do it, but why he wrote it the way he did has nothing
to do with materialistic awards or a simple task or even the audience he was
presenting to, because he elaborated not only on a commencement and life lesson
that he believed the graduating class would benefit from, but also one that
affected him so deep down and personally that the ease and comfortability which
he writes it in makes you think that the world that he sees, and maybe the
world that we should all see, is utterly and simply a depressing nightmare.
On the other hand, Toni Morrison’s speech was much more poised and
fit to make an understandable yet powerful statement that highlighted her
beliefs because of the rigorous use of life lessons and metaphors. It’s also
easy to see that the audience which she presented her essay to could be
compared to a group of friends around the cool camp counselor in the summer of
an early teen year. It’s like they are drawn to every word she says because it’s
expected to be powerful, due to Morrison’s involvement in the two minority
groups of female and African American, and it’s something that might scare the
kids huddled in the circle or possibly leave some brave thinking they were
unaffected by it, when in reality when all of them think about it later in the
night when they’re busy doing something else or maybe sleeping, they think of
the importance and possible relevance to the story they heard and it leaves
them wondering deeply in their minds. Toni Morrison’s idea of the importance of
language and all that comes with it makes sense when accepting a Nobel Prize in
literature, so speaking to this ‘group of friends’ gives her the power to be
comfortable with her beliefs and trust that her audience believes what she
means and her motives, so writing it was similarly comfortable like that of
Wallace’s speech.
All-in-all, both writers were given an opportunity to give a
speech on something that they had a very personal opinion on, and from the perspective
of the writer or speech-writer, to be more specific, each public sermon or
vocal essay has the same magnitude if it’s coming from within.
No comments:
Post a Comment