Compare and Contrast

            Nobel Lecture by, Toni Morrison and This is water by David Foster Wallace are two passionate essays written by two different authors who shared the same idea. Being educated is worth more than knowing things. In the Nobel Lecture we are presented to the idea of Language and how it can often be used as oppressive. He presents this idea in form of a tale of a woman who is blind and is mocked by her disability. In the essay This is water, Wallace often states the proposition of giving people the benefit of the doubt and how we really never know what is occurring in their lives, but when Morrison gives us this example of this blind woman we are able to notice that if we were to expose our vulnerabilities and disabilities there would be people who would use oppressive language towards us, which at a point does more than just express violence “it limits knowledge” (Morrison 2). Isolation is also represented throughout the essays and how we refuse to acknowledge and learn from the wisdom of others because we think that we are the “absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid person in existence” (Wallace 2). While Morrison’s essay is more oriented towards racial issues it also involves the language in which she demonstrates her concern. On the other hand, Wallace’s speech involves having empathy and the ability to choose how to perceive others.