If Toni Morrison and David Foster Wallace were to sit down
and have dinner with each other the conversation would be interesting as they
both see life in different ways. Toni Morrison believes language is the most
important factor in life today as David Foster Wallace believes life is about
simple awareness. I think Morrison and Wallace would both agree and disagree
over topics. As they both imply that one is in control of their own thoughts,
Wallace goes a little deeper into that topic and says you have to be aware of
what is always around us in order to be in control of what you think about. For
most of us live day by day as a motion, not a picture. Morrison and Wallace
would both agree that when you don’t exercise a part of your brain, whether it
is language or awareness, it will die. According to Wallace, if you worship
other things, you will slip into your “default settings” and no longer be free
of fear, anger and frustration. As Morrison believes if you aren’t open to new
ideas, language will eventually die from disuse, carelessness, etc. Both
believe there is meaning to life and if we don’t soon become aware of these
important contributions, they will die and this worried them. The moral I pulled
from both of the speeches is that if you live day by day without looking
closely at what is right in front of you, you will live a scripted life instead
of shaping your own journey.
I think you are mostly correct but I feel that they would have some disagreement about the kinds of change that people create and how. Toni Morrison talks more about ideas and people’s actions, and how they cause outward change. While David Foster Wallace talks more about thoughts and how to cause change within oneself. Wallace also talks about making sure our thoughts are open to possibilities that we may not have thought of. Morrison seems to focus on the actions that the thoughts create and not so much just the thoughts. They both do agree that change occurs, but they differ in where the change occurs.
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