‘This Is Water’ is a commencement speech presented by David Foster Wallace in 2005. In it he discusses the overlooked aspect of real life, and demonstrates the way humans are naturally self-centered. However, one of his more interesting ideas is his theory on higher education. He claims that education teaches you “how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what to pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience”. Wallace essentially claims that education teaches you how to choose what and how to think about something.
In this sense, I tend to agree with what Wallace claims, and this is most likely attributed to my recent experience with the literary work of Alice Munro. After Reading a wide range of stories written by Alice Munro, it is clear how being educated about the characters throughout the story may allow the reader to adopt new perspectives from which to think from. What makes Munro’s stories particularly convenient in demonstrating an understanding of Wallace’s theory is that they encourage the readers to think. Munro provides readers with so much insight into the relatable day to day lives of her characters. This also supports Wallace’s idea that it is most important to control your thoughts to survive day to day life. Therefore, when reading the story, the reader is encouraged to make assumptions about the characters and explore the way they think of them. At the beginning of ‘Royal Beatings’, we hear a description of Flo and the father, through Rose’s perspective and we immediately assume that the Rose leads a miserable life and think “what a poor girl”, this is supported by further descriptions of Flo as a repulsive woman. However, as the story progresses we see the other side of the story, and realize that Rose encourages Flo’s anger and frustration, and that Flo is attempting to connect with her new family due to her pity on the single father, despite her being slightly estranged due to her lack of education.
