Wallace Commencement Speech Analysis

The most recognizable characteristic that contributes to the effectiveness in Wallace 's speech is his style. The first component of his style begins right at the start of the speech when he tells the story of the fish. This is a parable and he uses these as a technique to engage the audience. Each of these parables have a different message behind them, but each meaning contributes to Wallace 's main purpose of this speech. For example, the story of the atheist and the religious man demonstrates blind-certainty and close-mindedness. Wallace tells this story to introduce the idea of thinking critically about others ' views, but more importantly to have the audience question their own beliefs. The use of these stories is a clever strategy because

He acknowledges the fact that his speech is different from other commencement speeches, almost as if he is self-conscious of the fact that his is not like those. We all know the many clichés that come with any motivating speech, and so does Wallace when he states, "Please don’t worry that I 'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues" (Wallace). Wallace wants the graduates to know the truth about life after college, point blank, with no sugar coating like normal commencement

He acknowledges the importance of what he is advising to the audience by using examples like suicide mentioned before. However, although he stresses the importance, he doesn’t force the advice onto the reader with an aggressive tone. This can also be a technique used by authors in order for them to get their advice across to the audience. In the novel Out of Sheer Rage, the author Geoff Dyer writes about how he is always disappointed in his life and actually enjoys this. In Dyer 's novel, his message is the complete opposite of Wallace 's and his tone throughout the excerpt is also the complete opposite. After Dyer explains that he mutters and curses under his breathe whenever something goes wrong he also states, "On the surface I may grin and bear it but in my head I am thinking of wreaking a hideous vengeance on whoever it is that seems responsible for whatever small inconvenience I have suffered" (Dyer). In my view, using the aggressive tone is very ineffective because it feels as though the author, Dyer in this case, is attacking the