Context of Me Talk Pretty One Day
The context for “” by David Sedaris is an older man moving to Paris to go back to school to study French. The purpose is to share the author’s personal story and experience. He uses a humorous and informal tone when recounting the story. By the end though it has an almost hopeful tone when he is excited about how far he has come in his learning of the language and what there is to come in the future.
He uses self-deprecating humor to help set the tone of the story. Also, when referring to the speech of the teacher he creates humor from her harsh words by replacing words he doesn’t understand with gibberish. Sedaris has a detail rich and satirical style of writing in his essay. I have learned that even though he is sharing a story from a difficult time in his life he is still able to look at the humor in the situation.
Taking a closer look and analysis of his story you can learn a few things. He shares his experience learning a new language. His style of writing makes it a relatable experience. Even if a person hasn’t specifically started to learn a new language it can apply to learning anything new for the first time.
He structures his story to start by sharing his nervous excitement about starting the new class. As he continues, he shares his difficulties learning the language which is exacerbated by his mean and sometimes spiteful teacher. However, he continues to persevere and work through his difficulties until the end he is noticing his improvement in understanding her speaking.
In “Me Talk Pretty One Day” David Sedaris has an informal and funny approach to his storytelling, but I do believe he is effective in getting his point across to the audience. I came to this conclusion because in his recounting of his personal story it is very relatable to his audience. Learning a new language is tedious, time consuming and requires consistency and practice.
As his audience many of us relate to such an experience. His fellow students in his story can relate to the difficulties he experienced. While his audience may not have the same experience, a lot of us have had to learn something new, something we were intimated by. His story gives others hope that even if you think you are to old or to hard you can do something if you put your mind to it.
