Abbie Clark English 102 Summary Rough Draft January 24,2016 Kenyon Commencement Speech Summary
“Greetings and congratulations to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005” (198). David Foster Wallace addressed the audience at the 2005 Kenyon commencement ceremony. In the article “Kenyon Commencement Speech” the reader gets a look into the words of advice Wallace had for the graduating class. He used anecdotes to introduce each of the main parts of his speech. The life-lessons that Wallace shared were: the most important realities are the hardest to see, egocentrism is an easy routine to fall into, and the only choice people get in life is who they get to worship. First, Wallace opened with an anecdote about a group of fish in the sea. His point was that although the fish had lived in water their whole life, they had no idea what water was. In Wallace’s view, “. . .the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see . . .” (199). He uses this point to launch into the rest of his commencement speech that he gave to a group of liberal arts majors. Wallace told the graduates that daily rituals adults have could potentially have a “life-or-death importance” (199). He gave this message to the audience in order to show the importance of being aware of society surrounding them. Next, Wallace went into a description of daily adult life. He mentioned the long hard days of working in a business, the traffic, and the errands to follow. Wallace spoke about the anger a person can feel when confronted with cars in the way when driving or rude people in the grocery store (206). Wallace then introduced a new way to look at situations like these when he stated, “. . . it is actually I who am in his way” (206). This point does not only refer to the car being in the driver's way, but also the way a person can get in the way of someone else no matter the circumstance. Wallace went on to discuss that the “default setting” in human nature is to believe that one person’s immediate needs are what should control what the world considers a priority (206). He thought this point should be made clear to young people that were preparing to enter the adult world in hopes they would be less egocentric and more sympathetic. Lastly, Wallace referred back to earlier stories to bring up his final point. He began to discuss the daily habits that adults find themselves in and the effects worship can have on a person. According to Wallace, “The only choice we get is what to worship” (207). Wallace told the students of this graduating class this because he believes that there is no limit to what a person can worship. He goes on to discuss that worshiping a spiritual or moral hierarchy is much better than anything else because “anything else you worship will eat you alive” (207). The “anything else” Wallace spoke about are short-lived attributes like beauty or sexual allure, which he noted would only make a person feel ugly (207). Wallace intended for the graduates to grasp his idea in order to get them to consider what they will choose to worship. David Foster Wallace concluded, “I wish you more than luck” (209). Throughout this “Kenyon Commencement Speech”, Wallace brought up tough life lessons. He felt these points were ideas the graduating class of 2005 would need to know before facing adult life: the most important lessons can be hardest to see, selfishness is a default setting, and the only choice in life is picking your devotion.
Works Cited
Wallace, David. "Kenyon Commencement Speech" They Say I Say With Readings. By Davil Wallace . Ed. Russel Durst. 2E ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 198-210. Print