Both Wallace and Morrison have similar appeals on their audiences. Both authors have a pathos approach that tug on their readers emotions. Wallace and Morrison force their readers to think of their own daily situations and how the choices we make later affect our mood, outlook, and perspectives and others around us.
In "This Is Water", Wallace uses the typical routine of an adult's life as an example. This particular adult is stuck in traffic and keeps getting cut off by douche bags, and just wants to get home to eat and "wind down". This adult is frustrated at everything and everyone around them, but doesn't realize that if they made the conscious choice to think that maybe all the people who are making their life completely miserable, actually have a significant reason for cutting them off. Wallace also portrays through his writing that if we, as humans, are purposely aware of things in front us,in plain sight, it may change our whole perspective on every situation. We have to keep reminding ourselves that the events that occur in life just happen and there is really no way we can change them, but we can change the way we are affected by them.
Morrison's speech focuses more on on the direct way we can change our outlook, particularly with language. In this story, some young people ask and old, wise, blind lady (or man) whether or not the bird in their hand is living or dead. The woman replies" I don't know". The woman replies this way because she can't change whether the bird is dead or living; if it is dead then it remains dead, but if it is still breathing then the young people have the choice to kill it. It is completely and totally up to the kids decide the birds fate. In the same way, what we choose to do with the way we speak, our language, is one hundred percent, our choice. Whether we decide to speak words with a positive or slanderous purpose is our decision. And through this mindful decision we first have to change our thoughts.
Toni Morrison like David Wallace both speak about choice. Toni in the sense that we have to make deliberate decision that what we say and how what we speak effect others. David's attitude leans more toward our thoughts, what we choose to think and how it affects how we look at the world. Both authors insist us to choose how our thoughts and language change our perspective, mood and outlook.
I completely agree with your post, especially at the fact that Wallace uses real-life experiences of his routine adult life. You also point out that Wallace mentions that if we actually realize and see what life really is, it might change our perspective. You mention that in Morrison’s Nobel Speech, as the young kids had the choice to either kill the bird or keep it alive, we also have the ability to decide how we can use our language to affect the people’s lives around us, and I really do agree with the metaphor you used there. Finally, you chose to end your post pointing out how Morrison and Wallace’s speeches help us change our perspectives and emotions towards events in life, and in reality we really should try to see things in a different perspective, and maybe we can learn a thing or two while doing so.
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