[C1] Both the speech “This is Water ” by David Foster Wallace and the essay “ Empathy is Overrated” by Paul Bloom share a common ground and that’s the darkness they both portray in their words. [I] Wallace goes into detail about adult life and [Q1] he states “ how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out” ( Wallace pg 5). [E] This quote from Wallace is showing to the reader that most people live a day to day life with one factory setting when they get to adulthood. It shows that many don’t see the other opportunities and other paths a life can have. [T] Bloom’s analysis on empathy plays an important role into the darker thought process both essays possess. [Q2] Bloom later states in his essay “ Actually, in the year of the Sandy Hook killings, more schoolchildren were murdered in one American city — Chicago — than were murdered in Newtown, and yet I’ve never thought about those murdered Chicago children before looking up that figure, and I’m not likely to think about them again . . . while my mind often drifts back to Newtown” (Bloom 2017). [CE] Both these quotes from both Wallace and Bloom play a role in each other and also show a connection to the deeper meaning. Both authors use humor and a darkness to their words that not only allows their point to stick out , but also to get their points across. They use the tactic of using the reader’s emotions to provide explanations to their claims so it keeps the reader reading , sort of like in a persuasive way.
