Question 2: Compare and Contrast

Both of these speeches are the same in the sense of death. Whereas in This is Water, by David Foster Wallace, the type of death he is talking about is death by suicide mentally. He says "...the truth is that the most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger (3)", basically that we kill ourselves in the mind long before we do with our bodies. It is kind of ironic he brings this up especially since he committed suicide after this article was published, it seems almost like a cry for help when you read it a second time. However, in his speech he goes on too say that we mentally kill ourselves due to a lack of what is around us by focusing on ourselves too much. We naturally are very selfish people because we only care about our problems. Does that eventually us to kill ourselves physically because we've already killed ourselves mentally long before?
           In the Nobel Lecture, by Toni Morrison, language is now dead in our society. It is dead because of centuries and centuries of regurgitated words put constantly in our mouths. Their is no originality anymore and is it brought on by politics, religion and sex, it is one big controversy. It "stalls conscience, suppresses human potential(11)", it doesn't allow us to think for ourselves than rather constantly being told being what to do and what to say. When we do speak, it is censored and censoring (11)". We have freedom of speech ,but is it really freedom? We all know saying certain things can cause people to look at you differently or makes people uncomfortable due the unnaturalness of the topic. Language is installed in us since we are born, as children we are taught exactly what language is however, is this right? Suppressing innocent minds of their potential and ability to think and do great things. As the women says in Morrison's speech,..."tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children (13)", we commit language suicide as children and then grow up as adults with our innocence and imagination being taken away. It is interesting that Morrison brings that up as Wallace says the same thing as suicide kills you long before your already dead, mentally or with language.
             Furthermore, they are different in the sense of attitude however, I feel like in This is Water by David Foster Wallace, he comes across very snobby vs. in the Nobel Lecture by Toni Morrison, he comes across more as more humble with his message. Once you learn more about Wallace's back story you feel more compassion for him and what he was going through. When i first read This Is Water, i thought the guy was a prick however, once you read the deeper meaning it makes more sense. I felt like i could agree with him more about sometimes being a selfish person when their is a whole world around you. In addition, Morrison's lecture was not as in your face with his central idea being language has become dead over time due to the limitations and lack of originality. He uses examples in his lecture to further convey his ideas and relate to the audience. Their difference in attitude's is most likely due to the very different audiences they are addressing in their speeches. Their environments very much affect the language and attitude of the speaker.