Attentiveness In David Foster Wallace's This Is Water

244 Words1 Page

Attentiveness is characterized with being more observant, thoughtful, and considerate of others. This specific trait will help us understand one another and the world around us much better because it allows us to see and appreciate the little things we often take for granted. Being attentive helps us see the world more clearly because only then are we not blinded by our own thought and feelings that we are unable to see how similar we are to one another; we all share the same thoughts and feelings. In “This is Water,” David Foster Wallace stated everyone is always rushing to get to different places; placing our needs and wants above others and how this lack of awareness of the world around us is only drifting us apart. Wallace uses an example

Show More
Related

  • Analyzing Marie Howe's Poem 'Watching Television'

    949 Words  | 2 Pages

    Everyone feels alone at times, but the way we cope with it internally, is different. In Marie Howe’s poem Watching Television she starts by telling us about a mother spider who has a hundred babies, who were learning how to spin their webs. But, the poem switches and she starts talking about herself and how she imagines herself places where she is isolated. She explains that she is arguing with the man she loves, she hasn’t heard from him and she stands and waits for him to show up, but he never does. She finishes the poem with saying “Anything I’ve ever tried to keep by force I’ve lost,” which is a harsh ending.

    Read More

  • Now You See It by Cathy Davidson

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    A video is put on, and in the beginning of this video your told to count how many times the people in the white shirts pass the ball. By the time the scene is over, most of the people watching the video have a number in their head. What these people missed was the gorilla walking through as they were so focused on counting the number of passes between the white team. Would you have noticed the gorilla? According to Cathy Davidson this is called attention blindness. As said by Davidson, "Attention blindness is the key to everything we do as individuals, from how we work in groups to what we value in our classrooms, at work, and in ourselves (Davidson, 2011, pg.4)." Davidson served as the vice provost for interdisciplinary studies at Duke University helping to create the Program in Science and Information Studies and the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience. She also holds highly distinguished chairs in English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke and has written a dozen different books. By the end of the introduction Davidson poses five different questions to the general population. Davidson's questions include, "Where do our patterns of attention come from? How can what we know about attention help us change how we teach and learn? How can the science of attention alter our ideas about how we test and what we measure? How can we work better with others with different skills and expertise in order to see what we're missing in a complicated and interdependent world? How does attention change as we age, and how can understanding the science of attention actually help us along the way? (Davidson, 2011, p.19-20)." Although Davidson hits many good points in Now You See It, overall the book isn't valid. She doesn't exactly provide answers ...

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Nya's A Long Walk To Water

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    In A Long Walk to Water by, Nya’s section demonstrates determination and how determination is an important attribute for people to succeed and survive. Nya, an eleven-year-old Nuer girl who is living in Southern Sudan during a drought is required to walk back and forth to and from a pond to get water for her family. Firstly, Nya spends most of her days getting water from the pond but she is determined to provide her family with water so she continues her journeys to the pond and back for quite a long time. For instance, the text in A Long Walk to Water explains, “Waiting for water. Here, for hours at a time. And every day for five long months. Until the rains came and she and her family could return home”, (Park, page 27). Nya knows that she

    Read More

  • The Symbolism Of Water In 'Gem Of The Ocean' By August Wilson

    946 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gem of the Ocean was written by August Wilson. In the play, Wilson uses many symbols to convey various messages. One symbol in particular stood out the most. The question of how is water symbolic throughout the play came to mind, when reading. In Gem of the Ocean, August Wilson uses water to symbolize deliverance through new beginnings, death and hardships.

    Read More

  • A Response to Good People by David Foster Wallace

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    The thought of good people brings warmth and joy to my heart. On a daily basis I would like to think that most, if not all, of the people we surround ourselves with strive to be good people. My initial thought that came to mind before I began to read David Foster Wallace’s “Good People” was that this would be a story about all the people around each other doing good for one another bringing happiness to me as a reader. The story took a huge turn as it did not talk about the good of the people, but the expectations and judgments we hold for others to be good people. My eyes and my heart opened up, as Wallace’s story unfolded, in which he used a controversial issue to make a point by tugging at the emotions of the reader. I now know that this story was not to make a statement about a very controversial issue, but to make us realize that being a good person doesn’t always mean we have to follow by the expectations or rules that have been set for us, but by being who we truly are and having an understanding for one another.

    Read More

  • Motif Of Water In Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend '

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    Elena Ferrante develops the theme that education paves the future for growing adolescents in the novel, My Brilliant Friend, through the motif of Greek and Latin, the foil characterization of Elena and Carmela, and the motif of water. Elena, the protagonist, lives in a neighborhood filled with low-level occupations and constant violence. She hopes to use her newfound education as a way to depart from her violent neighborhood.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Michael Lewis Wading Toward Home

    485 Words  | 1 Pages

    Michael Lewis is a best-selling nonfiction author and an investigate journalist. His work examines success, innovation, and the financial world. The following is an excerpt Wading toward Home from a longer feature he wrote about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans for the New York Times. Michael Lewis dispels the myths about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and shows rich and poor feared each other.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

    1595 Words  | 4 Pages

    The quote written by british novelist Laurence Sterne, “No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time.” ties to the life of Laura Wingfield. Within the play, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Laura feels her mind being pulled in two directions, both by her family, and herself. Surrounded by a broken family, Laura shapes the play as a symbol of her family's relationship as she begins the play “crippled”- symbolizing a broken home- and heals over the course of the play due to conflicts and self realizations; showing the families final healing, even in an unconventional manner.

    Read More

  • Short Story Analysis: We Live In Water By Jess Walter

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    How do humans find ways to create empathy for others in modern society? With the walls that people build around themselves and the way society is constructed, empathy for one’s the fellow humans can be quite rare. In the collection of short stories We Live in Water by Jess Walter, the author constructs tales of troubled characters in a way that allows the reader to feel empathy; two of the author’s stories that exemplify this empathy are “Anything Helps” and “The Wolf and the Wild”. The short story “Anything Helps” tells the tale of a homeless man’s journey to buy his son a Harry Potter book as well as dealing with his own inner conflicts. “The Wolf and the Wild” is the story of a rich ex-con who works with kids for community service and his struggles to find his place in life after his own demons with his job and family. Jess Walter uses interior monologue and dialogue within

    Read More

  • The Waterboy Movie Essay

    612 Words  | 2 Pages

    The film, The Waterboy, revolves around the story Bobby Boucher (Adam Sandler), a waterboy for the University of Louisiana Cougars. Due to his lack of social skills and frequent stuttering, Bobby is the victim of constant abuse by members of the team and there head coach, Red Beaulieu (Jerry Reed) who eventually fires Bobby. Bobby eventually finds another waterboy job at South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs led by Coach Klein (Henry Winkler). After being mistreated by Mud Dog players, Coach Klein convinces Bobby to stand up for himself. Bobby sprints off the sideline and tackles the quarterback who was making fun of him, displaying an unexpected amount of physical prowess. Realizing his potential, Coach Klein offer Bobby

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Raymond Carver's The Bath

    1226 Words  | 3 Pages

    Raymond Carver’s The Bath is a revised version of his early work of A Small, Good Thing. In his two pieces of the short story, the length of the story significantly varied as The Bath is a lot shorter. Moreover, his former work has more detailed emotional expressions while The Bath lacks communications and leaves to the reader a suspenseful ending. The story begins in a third person view with a mother has her son’s birthday cake made to order at a bakery. Then his son is hit by a car when crossing the road. The mother and father come to hospital and exchange words from the doctor. Finally, the story ends with an unfinished ending which doesn’t show any sign of boy’s fate but a strange phone call that says the son’s name. There are several things

    Read More

  • The Swimmer By John Cheever Analysis

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    James Baldwin in The Creative Process states, “The artist is distinguished from all other responsible actors in society-- the politicians, legislators, educators, and the scientists-- by the facts that he is his own test tube, his own laboratory, working according to very rigorous rules…” (Baldwin 874). He claims that artists are easily distinguishable and identified in society by their creative works. An author is an artist who is able to create his characters with his own imagination, his own set of rules, and dictate how those characters learn, evolve, and behave in the world in which they are placed. John Cheever demonstrates in Expelled, The Swimmer, and Geometry of Love, the character development of his characters as their world around

    Read More

  • Julian Falls Into The Water: A Narrative Fiction

    683 Words  | 2 Pages

    Splash! A huge wave erupted from Lake Washington as Julian fell into the water. This happened during the summer of 2017 on the 18th of July. I was hanging out with my friends I had met at summer camp, Elijah, Radley, Kate, Julian, and Kayla. That day the group had decided that we should go down to my grandmother’s dock. Julian falling into Lake Washington was a shocking, but hilarious experience that my friends and I still make fun of to this day.

    Read More

  • Descriptive Essay: Deep Blue Water

    604 Words  | 2 Pages

    It’s the summer of 1945; the eight of us 17 crazy and running wild. It’s essay to forget about all the real world issues surrounding us, especially on a perfect summer night when the night sky becomes alive with an explicit amount of warmth overshadowing the dark cold bitterness that engulfs the night sky in the dead heat of winter. The eight of us, we come from the city of Marquette, Michigan located in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Marquette is home to about 16,000 people making us the most populated city in the upper peninsula. We sneak off to Lake Superior around 11:48 for a midnight swim. The water never truly get’s all that warm, but we seek our selves out to be rebellious because we believe that rebellion is the only thing keeping

    Read More

  • Personal Essay: My Journey To Success

    902 Words  | 2 Pages

    way that can be a distraction, will be set aside and focus only on what is important.

    Read More

More about Attentiveness In David Foster Wallace's This Is Water

Open Document