David Sedaris’ “Me Talk
Pretty One Day”, follows Michael Harvey’s ideas pertaining to flow. “Good essays unfold like stories…” (Harvey,
23) and “Me Talk Pretty One Day” does that.
Overall, the story is in sequential order, and with a nice flow and proper punctuation and
paragraphs, it allows for an uninterrupted read. However, Sedaris gives many quotes in his story to act as examples, but
he fails to explain them effectively. As
Harvey says, “most mistakes in quoting stem from carelessness with respect to
clarity.” (61) This is exactly what
happened when Sedaris writes, ‘“I recalled my mother, flushed with wine…saying,
Love...I love…” My sisters and I leaned
forward, waiting to hear our names…“I love tums.”’ (2). This quote was confusing, and I understood
what he was trying to say, but after
he states the quote, he moves on, he doesn’t elaborate; therefore, the quote
felt out of place and awkward.
Concision is another
issue. While reading the story I noticed
that the narrator was constantly discussing his other classmates and their
interactions with the teacher. While these
interactions are good evidence for his essay, I was wondering, why would he not
talk about himself? Is it not he and his
progress that this story is about? His
progress was lost in all the other characters’ stories.
Sedaris gives ample
examples, and only in one of the last lines, “and it struck me that, for the
first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone
was saying.” (5), does the story come together and make sense. Although the teacher is mean, she is a good
teacher because her students do learn French.
In my opinion this is the point of the story, and it seems that Sedaris
gave too many explanations to say one important fact; and Sedaris adds it as
though it were a side note. The actual
point being made is lost because the whole essay is filled with too many
explanations. Even though Sedaris
finally states the one important lesson, he fails to elaborate on it. I found myself asking, why is the teacher
mean? Is it to make her students work
hard? Or is she a mean person? As a reader I wanted to know more about the
teacher, not the other students. Sedaris
builds up the teacher but only tells us that she is mean, thus leaving the
reader hanging and wanting more. The
message Sedaris is trying to convey is good, however, I think he could work on
concision to make his delivery more effective.
Overall the piece
flows. The introduction and the
reference to age and place are good. In
addition, Sedaris provides sufficient background information regarding the
narrator. Concision and placing of
quotes would help this piece read more fluently.
You have some errors in syntax early in this piece that interfere with clarity, and your critique sometimes seems to apply Harvey's ideas in odd ways, leaving me wondering whether you fully understood Sedaris' tone and main point.
ReplyDeleteSorry it took me a bit to clarify my remarks as you requested, Caroline--there are just a LOT of assignments to be graded this summer! =)
ReplyDeleteOne example of what I am talking about would be when you say
As Harvey says, “most mistakes in quoting stem from carelessness with respect to clarity.” (61) This is exactly what happened when Sedaris writes, ‘“I recalled my mother, flushed with wine…saying, Love...I love…” My sisters and I leaned forward, waiting to hear our names…“I love tums.”’ (2). This quote was confusing, and I understood what he was trying to say, but after he states the quote, he moves on, he doesn’t elaborate; therefore, the quote felt out of place and awkward.
Sedaris here is clearly setting up a punchline--it is expected that his mother will say that she loves her children. But instead she says that she loves Tums. It's really not confusing, and Sedaris isn't breaking any rules about quoting here.
Another illustration of what I'm saying would be
While reading the story I noticed that the narrator was constantly discussing his other classmates and their interactions with the teacher. While these interactions are good evidence for his essay, I was wondering, why would he not talk about himself? Is it not he and his progress that this story is about?
First you say that these details are good evidence--which contradicts any kind of claim that you might be making about concision (you don't really clearly make any claim about concision in this paragraph, incidentally--you are really talking about whether his details are relevant to his main point.) Then you ask a question using "I" (forbidden in literary analysis--had you forgotten?) making your reader question your authority--do you or don't you really know what Sedaris's main point is?
These are the kinds of things I'm talking about. They aren't huge, hideous problems. =)