The two selections, This is Water by David Foster Wallace and Toni Morrison’s Nobel Lecture are intended for two very different reasons, but share similar characteristics.
Wallace opens This is Water by posing the question “What the hell is water?” Wallace says he is “the absolute center of the universe,” which in his eyes, is the truth. We all have selfish tendencies, most of which we don’t even realize. Wallace explains this with great imagery of someone coming home from a long day, rushing, feeling that everyone is in their way and nothing's going right. I love this because he goes on to state how we as people have no idea the hardships those people “hindering” us are going through. Someone may be 10 times worse off than we are, and yet we still complain about the simplest of things. We as human beings have to open our eyes and think of others, not only ourselves. This vast ocean we are swimming in is reality, it may seem immeasurable but we have to remember, “This is water, this is water.”
In Nobel Lecture, Morrison tells a story of an old wise, but blind woman. This woman is confronted by several young people who try to challenge her wisdom. One of the youngsters holds a bird in his hand and asks whether it is alive or dead, a question obviously impossible for the blind woman to answer. The woman replies stating if the bird is not already dead, the one holding the bird has the power to kill it. She compares this to the power people have on language. People have the choice to either uphold our language or simply let them die out.
Both these selections make you open your eyes and think about things differently. Wallace makes you open your eyes and be mindful of others. Morrison makes you think about how we are killing language and we may not even know it.
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