Compare and Contrast

When I read both speeches I noticed one thing in particular that stood out to me and that was the differences in the tone of each speech. David Foster Wallace gave his speech to a graduating class from Kenyon College and Toni Morrison gave hers in 1993 when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature. I feel both of these works served as a sort of warning to their audiences.
 Wallace has a light hearted aspect when he describes a terrible trip to a grocery store after a long tiresome day at work followed by sluggish traffic. His descriptions of the people and the normal attitude about them made me chuckle at times because I have been there myself. When he points out that other people in our lives are experiencing a rough day, I realized that I slumped into the self centered thought he describes. This self centered thought process of humans can lead people to believe that the only reasons others are around is to get in their way and interfere with their agenda. He says it's really a choice we make to either think in a "default-setting" manner or think outside of yourself and continue to grow.
In Morrison's speech her audience is not a group of students leaving college into the world for the first time. She's speaking to other authors and educators. I feel as if her speech was colder in nature. She speaks of language as the measure of our human lives. Without language our only purpose is to die such as the bird she refers to in the young boys hands. The use of oppressive, sexist, and racist language has only one purpose in her eyes and that is to oppress the language and expression of others. She says that not only is she to blame for the demise of language but everyone who uses it.
Both speakers seemingly warn their audiences about the self centered way of thinking. Not thinking of others with your actions. Wallace uses one's self as an example of oppressing knowledge and Morrison uses the power of others as her example of knowledge not being furthered.