Compare & Contrast

Morrison and Wallace discuss how we should live our life and what should be left in our wake. Although they differ in ways like the metaphor of life and what kind of perception we should have in our lives.

A negative tone is something both authors have in common. Wallace conveys this by saying that we are all self-centered, therefore everyone around us is wrong and “just in my way”. The boys from the Nobel Price lecture are portrayed as nuisances that waste time of the old woman. This hostility the authors put into the text allows readers to grasp that we take for granted the community and peers around us. Thus limiting ourselves to one lens or blindness. “This is water, this is water”, Wallace begins the piece with two fish swimming passed and older fish asking “what the hell is water”. This metaphor that he used is a reminder showing that that we often get caught up in the same day to day routine of life that we forget to realize what if right in front of us, what we have and that we spend too much time not closely paying attention to the things around us. The bird is what Morrison uses to convey life; this thing that has two options living or dead. And expressed that no matter what state the bird is in, it was created that way by our doing, “it is in your hands”. Breaking the norm, seeing more than what’s meets the eye, these are things both authors what the readers to do. Not to merely exist nor live life through only one lens, but taking the time to stop for a second step out to the daily routine and look at your surroundings in a different way.

                When our lives should count is when differences arise between the authors. Wallace believes that our lives should be all about the now. That we should challenge ourselves to be more than the walking dead, than the norm to the conformity of the brain and everyone else roaming around on default, because this this is the time to experience what’s waiting right in front of us to discover in a different and new way. “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do Language. That may be the measure of our lives” Morrison believes that dying is this event that happens and that living is just the thing before it, but the mark and language we leave behind is what really counts. Leaving behind our own individual marking on the world allows others to grow and learn from our lives. Valuing the present or the future to the next generation is where they vary.