David Foster Wallace’s theory on education
was that education shouldn’t solely focus on abundance of knowledge but also or
more so focus on simple awareness; he adds in his speech that college injects over-intellectualized stuff in our consciousness. Another intriguing aspect of his theory was
that true freedom is achieved when attention, awareness, discipline, effort,
caring and sacrifice for others are all involved. In his speech, he referred a
person who is able to practice as being ‘well-adjusted’.
This can be applied to the written pieces
of Alice Munro whose stories include awakenings of a female character whether
it is in terms of her true identity-like in Boys and Girls-or of her
surroundings-like in Moons Jupiter. A commonality of the 6 books is that the
female narrator experiences a turning point either by observing a certain event
second handedly or undergoing the event first-handedly; the narrator feeds to
the realization by being a ‘well-adjusted’ person just as David had mentioned
in his speech. For example, in Moons and Jupiter, the female narrator-mom- understands
her absent children and sick dad although it is done very inexpressively,
Another important notion David brought up
in his theory of education was the ‘reality’ and how self-centered mindset
cannot persist and shouldn’t persist, but rather having a mindset that is more
comprehensive. By comprehensive, I am referring to a mindset that is broad and
understanding enough to think for others; this is called, ‘Shared Humanity’.
In Munro’s short stories, we commonly have
a gist of shared humanity in a way that the female does break out of their
self-centered mindsets. The largest outbreak seems to appear in Passion where
the female narrator seduces her brother in law. Although it may be easily
argued that the narrator’s self-centered mindset worsened later after the
dramatic event where Neil and the narrator almost have a sexual relationship,
but after that event her guilt escalates and even more after she receives a
thousand dollar note, freeing up the follow up of the story’s ending for
readers’ own imaginations. However, as a reader myself I imagine a follow-up where
the female narrator matures and determine to care more for others-a typical
coming of age
