Tyler Tran

Pd 5

Speaker The speaker is Tara Westover, a writer who authored ​Educated​ and graduated
college after no proper education coming from a family in Idaho that opposed
systematic education.

Purpose The point of her commencement speech was to get graduating students to look at
what they’ve done so far to get there that they wouldn’t normally project. The
message was to embrace yourself for who you are instead of who you mold
yourself to seem like (often online) because it’s the hard work and sometimes the
rough times that get you that far. Look at all of who you are. Look at all of the
things you worked for and accomplished that you may not project.

Audience The targeted audience is the graduating Northeastern University students in 2019.
Her speech is a commencement speech for the school’s graduating class. She
often related the whole message to the fact that they were graduating on that day.

Context This speech was given in 2019 to the graduating class of Northeastern University.
Over the most recent couple years, social media has grown immensely large and
people often only portray the wondrous aspects of their lives and who they want
others to see rather than their shortcomings. This relates to her speech, which is
about not only looking at your idolized self (like on social media) and paying
attention to yourself as a whole.

Exigence The experiences of having a “virtual avatar” is not unfamiliar with Tara. She had
had these experiences in her past where she looked at who she projected herself
as to others and recognized that it wasn’t her true self, and from that she learned
to appreciate more of who she and how her “un-instagramable self” has done.
These experiences might resonate with the students and she wants them to take a
step back and look at who they are and what they’ve done so far as a person and
not only to look at their projected selves.

Choices One of the biggest components about her speech is that she often relates some of
their experiences to her own. She starts off kind of talking about her graduation
and what she thought, the photos she took, etc.. Giving this anecdote helps the
students relate to her as they are going through something similar right now.
Another aspect was her use of the second person and in using “we” or “our” and
it helps encompass everyone under her examples. Something that I liked was how
she used the term “Un-instagramable self” for the person you are that you don’t
project to others. The term makes a reference to social media and how all of the
posts are of your idealized self rather than your whole. This helps to make it more
clear for people to understand and relate to. The whole aspect of her speech and
relating to her and other peers helps bring in a sense of togetherness as well as to
help confide in you and the tough things everyone goes through.
 Appeals One of the main appeals was to pathos. All throughout the text there are these
appeals through her own personal anecdote and her examples of the
un-instagramable self. There is a strong feeling of relating to this, that everyone
has had shortcomings that they don’t fully embrace. There are appeals to how the
students might have felt the same way, how they felt that there was a different
person they portrayed to others and online. Another slight appeal was made to
ethos. She makes clear statements about how it’s possible that everyone has a
different person they show as well as in her examples of how the hard and
grueling work leads to all of your significant accomplishments.

Tone The tone throughout is mostly encouraging and slightly contemplative at points.
There are times where she talks about your projected self is a lie, which isn’t
necessarily encouraging. There are also points where she talks about her own
history which add a bit of a flat feeling. The rest of the speech she more talks
about the good things about yourself that you don’t show, your true self and this
is done in a very encouraging manner which is shown in her voice and use of
words. There is a shift from where she talks about her own graduation leading
into her speech about showing your true self. The former is not as encouraging
but rather more sedated.

I think this does relate to some of the texts that we’ve read this year more than others.
The ones that stick out to me are ​1984​ and ​A Doll’s House​. In 1984, the people were always
surveyed and sometimes their own kids would snitch on their parents if they acted up or showed
any unwarranted opinions or actions. This is obviously very related because everyone would live
their lives as a lie to their true selves or they would be punished. There were some people that
were against the government and wanted a revolution but they couldn’t be open about it. When
the news was deleted and the government claimed to only be at war for one country and always
having peace with another, everyone contorts their lifestyles to believe in this lie and to live in
the lie they project themselves as. In ​A Doll’s House​ Nora had to constantly lie about how she
lived and she just accepted it before and simply lived like how Torvald wanted. She had to hide
that she helped Torvald act and had to conform with the norms at the time. At the end, she
expresses how living with him wasn’t her true self and that she was living as a doll, controlled by
Torvald.
I didn’t really find parallels in the other texts we’ve read like ​Maus​ or ​Their Eyes Were
Watching God​. In TEWWG I felt like Jane mostly lived as who she wanted to, especially at the
end. There were some parts where she had to just live by Jody and I guess in that sense she
was hiding who she actually was, though I feel like this doesn’t relate as much because it was
more imposed by her husband than herself.