WT2 Outline for This is Water How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?
• The division of two separate audiences is addressed along with the interpretation a younger reader or audience would have about Wallace and their reaction towards him and his speech.
• The relatability between Wallace and his older audience is further investigated while also diving into the feedback he might get from both audiences concerning the text and it’s concepts.
• Further analysis on both the audience’s interpretations on Wallace and how his overall disposition also influences how the readers will interpret the text.
Juliana Kosai
AP English 3B
Mr. Knight …show more content…
It is because of these differences why I think that the commencement speech, “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace would be up for various interpretations by two distinct people born in separate generations. Culture, social status, everything from gender to age, have an effect on how we decipher language and its translations. So, in the event when a person reads David Foster Wallace’s speech, it will have a particular impact on that person depending on the involvement in which this person has had to the exposure of life’s realities. This specific speech opens the mind to the unseen, but obviously important truths of what we, as humans, find the hardest to address and talk about and it is when he confronts the matter of our “awareness,” is where I believe the differing interpretations …show more content…
This particular group of people from the “older” generation, would have possibly come to some type of similar conclusion that Wallace had come to, maybe not in the same context, but an inclination of what these anecdotes and concepts hold in essence. It is by this that Wallace shares a sort of empathy between the speaker and his older audience. The connection is, I’m sure, something that he wanted to establish in order for his actual audience, the students, to fully understand the magnitude of what really goes on in adult life, and how to handle it and it’s choices by forming a perceptive understanding between himself and the parents. By doing this he instills in his younger audience a sense of ethical authority that endows in him the impression of being wise and experienced. Once this is accomplished, it leaves open an opportunity to convey his belief in choosing what has meaning and significance to you, whoever happens to be reading. The appeal in this remark that the students would find interesting is that a feeling of power is perceived at the ability to choose for themselves and the freedom to rule over your own mind, becoming aware and building up an immunity to our own “default setting.” The allure of this declaration is not lost on the “older folk”, but they have a more experienced understanding on the