Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris Book Analysis Sample

David Sedaris has developed a well-crafted story that plays to the minorities in “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” The narrative begins with Sedaris in a classroom being taught French by an oppressing teacher. During this encounter, the teacher criticizes Sedaris’s incorrect French by asking, “Were you always this palicmkrexjs?” Sedaris doesn’t understand what is being said to him but accepts the brutal encounter. She continuously berated students for the rest of the term.  After receiving character assassinations throughout Sedaris’s French class, he learns that these hardships have taught him to understand French better. Sedaris gets personal during the story, citing his childhood and past experiences. He personally ties this ongoing verbal assault to when his “kindergarten teacher pried my fingers off my mother’s ankle and led me screaming toward my desk.” Throughout this whole article, the author seems depressed and self-deprecating. Sedaris is a pessimist who begrudgingly gives the instructor a slim chance. 

Upon closer analysis of Sedaris’s claims, we can learn the author has years of experience with carelessness, anger, and lack of self-worth which causes him to accept the teacher’s methods as a form of vilification that leads to a valuable lesson. The structure of the author’s writing shows morose thoughts and personal memories that link the teacher’s defamation to his self-worth. Sedaris writes in such a roving arrangement that the reader is brought directly into his morbid thoughts that borderline self-hatred induced by lack of knowledge. By studying Sedaris more closely, we can learn a palpable statement that by experiencing pain, you may stand out. This is expressed after he has received multiple days of verbal torture, only to fully comprehend what the teacher is saying. 

As stated earlier, I strongly believe Sedaris's purpose behind his writing is to motivate and engage the audience, albeit in a strange manner. I feel he plays to the minorities, such as those who have received verbal abuse and self-loathing. Due to his restricted audience, not everyone would see the purpose of his work. He continuously brings up his classroom trauma and how it affected his life outside of the classroom. At one point even saying “My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide boulevards, where, no matter how hard I tried there was no escaping the feeling of terror I felt…”  Sedaris briefly touches on the fact that he learned a lesson through all the torment. Anyone not in the minority audience might miss out on this enlightening lesson. He stated that “…it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying.” This leads me to believe Sedaris intended for us to develop the lesson that through pain comes growth.