Importance of Kindness Voice

            In George Saunders speech Importance of Kindness, he tells a story about a girl that used to get teased all the time for being so shy an awkward, and for chewing on her hair a lot. He takes this story into a further movement and into this greater idea about kindness. Saunders first starts off telling the story about her and then saying, “Now why do I regret that? Why forty two years later am I still thinking about it? Relative to most kids I was actually pretty nice to her.” After questioning himself about feeling guilty towards the girl that got teased, Saunders takes that regret into a further idea and explains “What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there in front of me, and I responded sensibly, reservedly, mildly.”  He says that the reason he regrets not doing anything about the girl who was teased was because he could’ve been kind to her, but chose not to say anything at all, and he still thinks about it to this day. Saunders is trying to get across that the things you’re going to end up regretting are times when you could’ve been nice, but chose not to do anything.

            Saunders also goes on and explains how the girl who was teased felt, by using imagery and describing the way she looked “I still remember the way she looked after such an insult. Eyes caste down, a little gut kicked as if having just being reminded of her place in things she was trying, as much as possible to disappear.” He explains how depressed the girl was since no one was nice to her by describing how she looked after an insult, and how you could see her hurt. This shows that Saunders did notice that she was hurt, and could tell that people were being mean to her that it really did affect her, but he regrets not doing anything to change her, and make her happier, since he did nothing but be a bystander and let her hurt.

            The example of imagery that Saunders uses also shows how he notices things others may not. When he described her as having “eyes caste down, a little gut kicked…” other people probably didn’t notice the way she reacted afterwards, because they kept teasing her, or they didn’t care if it hurt her. Saunders noticed that it hurt her and felt sorry for her, and wishes that he did something to make her feel better. Others might not be as sympathetic as he was, and didn’t notice how hurt those words really made her feel.