This is Water Analysis

 In what ways could Wallace’s theory about education be applicable to the writing of Alice Munro? Justify your conclusion.

David Foster Wallace was known for being an American writer and university instructor. One of his most intellectually instigating and inspiring commencement speeches is commonly known as This is Water and was published in 2009. In this speech, Wallace aims to address the reality of education towards intellectuals specifically, seniors in order to provoke a thoughtful response about our own human nature.

 In the beginning of the speech,Wallace uses a parable as he depicts an image of two fish swimming in the water. When the old fish meets up with the young fish, one of them replies with: "What the hell is water?" To justify, the young fish are symbolic of the guileless youth as we are unaware of the striking reality and the "default-setting" that we are not cautiously aware of. Instead, he intensively expresses how adulthood will not discourage you to think out side the box, but rather conform to this realm of operating through your default-setting. We know this because, he further showcases the notion of a typical "day in day out" day in America, where most people go through the same struggles in life as they all face "boredom, routine and petty frustration.". This is apparent as he creates a realistic image of daily encounters at the supermarket that almost everyone endures after a tiresome working day where he's "worked really hard all day and is starved and tired and can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid god-damn people." Moreover, Wallace's blunt and frustrated tone establishes an aggravated mood in order to reinforce the importance of cautious decision making. 

There is no doubt that Wallace essentially champions the idea of being cautious about our surroundings, thoughts and actions due to the fact that we as humans, perceive freedom as: "being able to truly care about the people and to sacrifice for them, over and over again". This ultimately contradicts to what is seen as the default setting, in other words the "rat race" that is known as the endless, self-defeating and aimless pursuit of life we end up living. Obviously, most adults end up getting lost in their own bubble, completely brain washed by their own brain ,their default-setting. However, his whole purpose of delivering this speech is to address the sad reality of adulthood in order to convince seniors at Kenyon Collage to be cautious about their choices, specially when it comes to education.

This brings Wallace back to his opinion towards schooling, specifically, the importance of choosing the correct system. He continues to manifest the essence of our human nature coinciding with real education, which really has no correlation with intellect. Instead, it has to do with our awareness and cautiousness with our surroundings, but most importantly, being cautious of our inner thoughts and well-being. This can be further supported by an article published by the New York Times, titled: For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov. In this article, the writer Bellock addresses the importance of literary fiction that enables students to have a creative imagination of which stimulates better emotional intelligence. Of course scientists recently discovering the value of emotional intelligence in fields like medicine, law and engineer thus, encourage the preservation of literary fiction and are in a journey to encourage such books across all schools. 

Ultimately, Wallace's theory about education can be applicable to the writing of Alice Munro due to the fact that Munro also writes about human experiences. This means that her variety of short stories such as: Royal Beatings, Passion, Boys and Girls, Moons of Jupiter and Runaway all hold great value in regard to human relationships within literature as the readers are able to experience the characters lives as well. This is because her distinct style of writing where she writes about our own human nature enables readers to spiritually and emotionally associate their own personal lives with the experiences/conflicts of the characters. By doing so, Munro inevitably stimulates a chance for readers to acknowledge the value of literary fiction on an empathetic and emotionally intelligent level. This essentially allows them to apply such stimulating knowledge to the real world. To justify, this palpable social perception enables readers to reshape their own thoughts, values and ideas in the real world as they are now socially aware of their surroundings, shapes them to make cautious and well-rounded decisions.   All in all, the coexistence of such shared humanities of both literature and education re-invents the way we perceive certain circumstances. This is because both Munro and Wallace's ideologies  exchange with one another that undoubtedly, transcends between contexts, thus re-inventing the function of literature.