In Me Talk Pretty One Day, I thought there was a really good use of dialogue. Sedaris used this to directly show how his teacher spoke to him. It allowed her harshness to be seen in full instead of being sugar coated by paraphrasing. Another thing that I thought was very genius was his use of the French words in his professor’s dialogue. This allowed the reader to feel just as lost as he was in this class. I know while I was reading it I was forced to just skip over those words because I had no chance at all of knowing what they meant, which I think was the author’s intended effect.
Sedaris also did a good job of showing how he was feeling. Toward the end when he said, “I knew my fear was getting the best of me when I started wondering why they don’t sell cuts of meat in vending machines.” (289). I thought this really showed the reader the fear the author was experiencing. It made me reflect on how desperate one would have to be to have a thought like that. This gave more insight than just simply saying he was frightened to talk to anyone.
He also characterized his teacher very well. He made her seem like Hitler’s sister or something along those lines. Again, as the reader, I felt that I would not want to be in a classroom with a teacher like this, and that I would drop that class after the very first day. The first thing that really caught my attention about this teacher being ruthless is when Sedaris said, “She hadn’t yet punched anyone, but it seemed wise to protect ourselves against the inevitable.” (288). That should be enough to invoke fear in any reader.
The author also did a good job of not adding a lot of ineffectual information. All of it seemed to have a purpose and reinforced his image of this evil teacher and the terrible time he had in French class.
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Amanda, did you really feel as though Sedaris was fearful? I just considered those comments funny, but maybe the humor is covering other emotions.
ReplyDeleteWere those actual french words, or rather just random letters that Sedaris wrote down to instill the confusion that he felt? Either way I liked your comment on this, for I too felt at a loss and had to skip over such foreign words while reading the essay.
ReplyDeleteI thought they were random letters to used to show how he did not understand at all what she was saying in some sentences.
ReplyDeleteIt can be confusing when reading different languages and the key-words are the unknown words and you are just left confused throughout the reading.
I too wasn't sure if those were real words or not. French is not a language I was familiar with but I also just kind of looked at the words and skipped them. I just decided to accept the fact that it was a word he didn't understand as well as me.
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