Wallace and Munro analysis

David Foster Wallace's commencement speech "This Is Water" is an extremely powerful text, that I have had the pleasure of reading. Wallace's ideas about the way we think have caused many people to check how they interact with the world around them. In This Is Water, Wallace states, that we as humans tend to think in a very dull and monotone way. Our lives are ruled by our personal emotions, gain, causing us to become trapped with ourselves. As a result of this, we tend to view the world purely as we see it in our first glance around, our instant emotional reaction to the situations that we are in results in a narrow and dissociated view of the world. Consequently, he proposes the idea that we must relearn to think. We as human beings must learn to re-examine the things around us, and consider different viewpoints, however unlikely. We must inspect our initial emotional reaction to our surroundings and ask, “What if this isn't the way that life is?" Because almost nothing is impossible. Wallace supplements this thinking with the example of a tired person in a supermarket, showing how they don't care about anybody else, and their interactions with others are just in their way. This then leads to a lot more of a discussion, where you would consider the person in front of you, and how they were doing, ultimately changing your perspective. Writers have recognized the importance of the emotional connection with the world around us for centuries. Alice Munro being one of them, her stories are plainly based on emotion and the real life experiences of the character. Rich characterization, plot development, and an outstanding view into the inner thoughts of a human character. However, it's not just the content and characters of her stories that seeks to persuade the reader to look outside their own perspective, it’s the base of her as writer that allows for such impactful texts, which aids in her choices for setting, characters, plot etc. Flashbacks to the past, narratives and anecdotes can be found throughout her stories, having meaning and emotion that positively forces the reader to reconsider what they already about the individuals they read about within her texts. With this, Munro can share all of her messages and ideals, as well as show us that we should question the societal norms, similar to Wallace’s way to relearn, this show a real connection between different writers, with both having you relearn your thought patterns to understand where they are coming from.