74 pages • 2 hours read
David SedarisMe Talk Pretty One Day
Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
The French Language
Sedaris’s pursuit of the French language makes up much of the narrative of Part Deux of Me Talk Pretty One Day. When Sedaris describes his relationship to the study of French, he tends to characterize the process of language acquisition as full of comical errors and clumsy attempts. For him, the French language represents access to another culture that may permit him better understanding of his own. Through learning another language, he begins to question what he knows about American life and customs.
The French language also provides an entry point for Sedaris’s personal growth. He writes, “What I found appealing about living abroad was the inevitable helplessness it would inspire” and that there is excitement in “overcoming that helplessness” (155). This seems to be the defining personal pursuit behind Sedaris’s desire to live abroad. Learning the French language is his way of overcoming his sense of powerlessness as he attempts to gain agency over his life.
New York City
Sedaris’s New York City is the backdrop of many of his social critiques and frustrations. Characterized as excessive and driven by competition, Sedaris paints many unflattering portraits of a city where he has spent significant parts of his adult years. New York City is where he projects his fantasies of wealth, only to have those dreams dashed by his working-class reality. He regards the city as “oppressive” (118) while also admitting the awe he feels towards it.
In France, he returns to his memories of New York City, slowly reconciling his feelings about a city that he has had such a tumultuous relationship with. While in France, he enjoys movies set in “cities of my past” and describes New York City as one of those “people I could still sleep with if I wanted to” (209). While his feelings about New York City are not completely repaired, he expresses a desire for the city that he can only act on from a distance.
Soap Operas
Prone to high drama, Sedaris has his love of soap operas to thank for his theatrical expressions. Rather than turn to canonical literature for storytelling inspiration, he turns to soap operas. As a writing instructor, he has incorporated the watching of soap operas in class to teach lessons on narrative. Selfishly, it is a way for him to watch taped episodes of One Life to Live in class so that he can catch up on All My Children during dinner. Despite his self-indulgent reasons for showing soap operas in class, he also insists on the “seriousness” (90) of his writing assignments related to soap opera narratives. He has a genuine fascination with their story structure, the predictability of their narratives as well as the surprises they yield.
Soap operas also enable Sedaris to become an active agent in his own life. After meeting Hugh for the first time, he plots to make him his boyfriend, drawing upon his knowledge of soap operas to convince Hugh to fall for him. He writes, “In order to get the things I want, it helps me to pretend I’m a figure in a daytime drama, a schemer” (155). In this humorous admission, he confesses to drawing from soap opera characters whose dramatic actions set many things into motion.
Puns
As an extension of Sedaris’s unique brand of humor, punning is the author’s way of playing on the subject of language as a storyteller. In titles such as “The Youth in Asia” and “I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing,” he puns on words and their approximate terms to locate the humor in double meaning. As many of the chapters utilize multiple stories in their narrative arc, punning is an additional way of pointing to the plural meaning of his work. Whereas “The Youth in Asia” doubles as a reference to the Japanese program Sedaris used to watch when he was younger, it also refers to its homonym, euthanasia. “I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing” is a play on the phrase, “I’ll have what he’s having,” referencing Sedaris’s father’s compulsion to eat food past its prime and the obsessive quality that he inherits from him.
Technology
Sedaris’s technological blunders are a big source of humor in Me Talk Pretty One Day. Resistant to new technology, his insistence on using older forms of modern devices, such as the typewriter over the computer, are a source of irritation for others around him and an act of insubordination for Sedaris. When confronted about trying to bring his typewriter onboard a plane, he responds cheekily, “It’s a typewriter” and “You use it to write angry letters to airport authorities” (146).
Sedaris’s relationship to technology marks his personal growth over time as well as his resistance to change. His love of going to French theaters, for instance, is born from his disdain for American theaters, which he complains are overrun by talkers and excessive concession stands. The French movie theater is a specific cultural and technological marker that allows David to participate in French life while revisiting his home cities through their portrayals onscreen. While his visits to French movie theaters are transformative for him, he acknowledges that there are myriad things happening around him outside of the theater, but when the theater darkens, he declares, “I love Paris (209). While this is a marginal transformation, it is a significant move for Sedaris whose obstinance is a defining trait throughout the book.
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By David Sedaris
