David Foster Wallace Use Of Persuasive Speech

In the words attributed to Socrates in Plato’s Apology, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” David Foster Wallace expands on this idea in his “Kenyon College 2005 Commencement Address,” pointing out the importance of awareness and escaping the natural, default-setting of an unconscious, self-centred life. While commencement speeches are typically epideictic—celebratory—in nature, Wallace takes a deliberative rhetorical stance. According to Fahnestock, deliberative discourse is used in order to persuade in “the best possible course of future action” (1998, p. 333). Abizadeh argues that character and emotion are “constitutive features of deliberation,” and that deliberation cannot be “reduced to logical demonstration” (2002, p. 267). In his speech, Wallace uses a blend of Aristotle’s persuasive appeals—logos, pathos, and ethos—in order to effectively persuade his audience.
The most obvious appeal used by Wallace is Aristotle’s logos. Logos is an appeal that is perceived by the audience as logical or rational. Connors (1979) maintains that there is a difference between the presentation of logical arguments in writing and in speech. According to Connors, in speech, each word is “shaped, sent, and given up forever” (p. 288) after it is spoken. The audience has no way of returning to hear part of the message again, and therefore the message must be understood at the time of delivery or “the speech is a failure” (p. 288). In order for speakers to avoid this failure, Connors proposes that speakers must be repetitious of logical concepts. Wallace uses repetition to add to the effectiveness of his speech in a few ways. The words unconscious and conscious are repeated throughout the speech, as the message of the speech reli...

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...1) are what help Wallace establish his credibility since, of course, the ability to connect knowledge to lived experience is a persuasive resource (Myers, 2003).
Deliberative discourse is used to persuade an audience in the best course of action and Wallace effectively does so with his “Kenyon College 2005 Commencement Address.” The speech given by David Foster Wallace is widely discussed and analyzed. It is thought provoking and leads to higher ontological questions such as “Isn’t questioning everything the essence of what it means to be alive?” (Roiland, 2009, p. 97). Wallace clearly states and restates his thesis as the important of awareness and self-reflexivity—of choosing to think consciously. Wallace’s thesis is essentially his logos appeal, but it is his clever entwining of pathos and ethos appeals that enable him to effectively persuade his audience.