Analysis Of Me Talk Pretty One Day Sedaris

The idea of success for some seems hardly attainable when recognizing the setting and one’s capabilities. Most seem to give up after a single failure or a voice of doubt belittles them. In the novel, Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris, Sedaris struggles with his ability to understand and speak French at his new school. Through his hardships, it is clear that an overall shift from an insecure to hopeful tone determines how success is most often accompanied by a form of doubt or failure. The shift from an insecure and sensitive to hopeful and humbled tone determines that Sedaris and his peers must first be humbled in order to succeed. On the first day of school, Sedaris narrates his experience claiming that “the students exhibited an ease and confidence that I found intimidating”

However, Sedaris’s discomfort is clear through his intimidation from his peers. Sedaris's discomfort produces an insecure tone. His insecurity is further displayed through the use of short sentences claiming “I understood only half of what this woman was saying” (11). Sedaris’s insecurity is rivaled by his confidence when he says that at the “beginning of school, there’d been no shutting me up” (14). His confidence is prevalent before his professors sarcasm and intelligence humble him. His incapability of understanding his professor is “an occasion for shame” (11). The intimidation of his professor and peers convince him “that everything I said was wrong” (14). The tone in the beginning of the passage mirrors Sedaris’s insecurity and his doubt in himself. The diction “intimidated,” “understood only half,” and “shame” portrays an insecure tone. However, this state of mind is necessary because without Sedaris becoming humble he would not have been able to appreciate his growth by the end of the semester. As his professor shouts at him, he claims that “it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying” (15).