How the purpose & audience of "Nobel Lecture" and "This is Water" is reflected in how they are written

 In Toni Morrison`s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “Nobel Lecture”, she conveys to her audience the power of language, and the ability it has to push people down. Her message is simple, as people we have the power to oppress others with our words, therefore we should exercise caution when speaking our thoughts aloud. In contrast to the simplicity of her message, the fashion in which her speech is written can seem complicated to some. As a reader I could tell that she was speaking to professors, scientists, authors- people who had a higher level of learning and could comprehend her extensive vocabulary, as well as connect with the messages she was relaying in a way a person who is just starting out in the world could never do. There is also a sense of formality that is very present in her writing; this is where “Nobel Lecture” and “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace differ from one another. “This is Water” was little less formal considering it was presented as a commencement speech for Kenyon College`s class of 2005. David Foster Wallace, had a younger audience of people, this is made obvious by the slightly casual and joking tone that starts off his speech. Due to the fact that the audiences these speeches were presented to were so different the content of them were also very different. Morrison`s speech contains a story that she uses as a tool to make her message clear to her audience, Wallace`s speech is more advice driven. The message he is trying to convey to his audience is more along the lines of “you may think your life is bad, but you have no idea how much worse someone else’s life could be in comparison to yours”, whereas Morrison speaks about the power of language. The styles of writing are completely different than one another’s because the audiences of each speaker are completely different from one another. Morrison has a crowd of extremely knowledgeable people whereas Wallace has a group of students who are fresh out of college and still have a lot of life to experience.