Failures of Kindness by George Saunders Speech Analysis

📌Category: Speech
📌Words: 708
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 21 March 2022

As George Saunders stands in front of Syracuse University’s class of 2013,  he shares his life experiences that shaped his beliefs today, the true importance of being kind. Seemingly simple, yet so difficult for some. He has been through continuous ups and downs and at his age, he has had many experiences  to grow from his mistakes and regrets of not being  kind. In George Saunders speech, “Failures of Kindness”, he conveys the deeply rooted societal issue, that everyone is inherently selfish and has failed in kindness, but as you grow as a person, so will your heart and compassion. He supports this through selective diction and his own immersive narrative.

Starting off, George Saunders uses diction to persuade us to break our natural habits of selfishness. As he writes, he italizes many words or phrases, primarily to emphasise his key ideas. He chooses to italize things such as, “What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness”, and “Try to be kinder.” (pg.2) Italizing has significance, bringing attention to what he seems to stress as the main idea and also the title, “Failures of Kindness.” What he didn’t do, his regrets, George hopes to encourage others to do differently. After italizing “try to be kinder”, Saunders allows us to be insightful. It brings up a rather obscure question the reader/listener wants to answer, what does it mean to be kind? In the same way, he explains that our natural selves are greedy and being so wrapped up in our own lives, we can’t even go out of our way to be kindhearted. Furthermore, the developed idea is that true measure of growth as a person is when you grow in your compassion. “And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love,” and, “It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish- how illogical,really.” (pg.3) The speaker/authors’ diction is strong and allows his point to come across. The colon creates emphasis of what comes after it in both quotes, describing that as time passes by, after experiencing it all, you are able to be good-hearted, or you can stay your selfish ways.The words, “diminish” and “selfish,”  are powerful words that make the audience more attentive. He chose the word,“selfish” because it is the opposite of kindness and illustrates that at a point, there is no use in thinking about yourself all the time. That the biggest regrets in your life will be not caring enough for others. 

Along with diction, throughout his entire speech/writing, he likes to use his own narrative or point of view. He is knowledgeable through his stories so that the audience knows he is credible.  We respond to stories because they cultivate emotion and a sense of togetherness- a connection. It allows to connect on a deeper level with the audience. This is precisely why he uses it. “But here’s something I do regret: In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class… So she came to our school and our neighborhood and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased. I could tell this hurt her… Sometimes I’d see her hanging around in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded… sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.”(pg.2) While Saunders uses his personal experiences, the last sentence creates a sense of guilt. Although he didn’t have bad intentions, he regret how he didn’t act. Applying to our own lives, it makes us question how many incidents where we stood by, and why? Maybe it's because it's inconvient. Maybe because we are too worried about what others will think of us. Pushing past these worldly troubles makes us stronger as a person. Several other examples are incorporated in his speaking/writing, as he talks about accepting yourself as a big step to loving others the same way. That with the right motivation, anyone can be kind.

Overcoming these anxious anticipations and our egotistic habits to have growth in graciousness is the ultimate step into becoming warm hearted person. Though it's difficult to understand the benefit of being nice on yourself, we learn that sometimes it's the best thing to do. With the use of word choice and person anecdote, George Saunders, in his speech and writing, “Failures of Kindness”, characterizes humanities’ nature of selfishness and advises us to grow in our character, and our kindness will grow with us.

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