David Sedaris example essay topic

Once, you could " ve called him to clean your house and sometimes, you still can. First discovered by Ira Glass of NPR, David Sedaris has become a sort of "minor phenomenon" (Marchese). Renowned for his humor and identified by his style, he has had his works featured on "Morning Edition" of NPR, written for numerous publications, and multiple offers as a television writer. Despite these achievements, his greatest work lies within his books. These collections of his essays, uncut and uncensored, reveal David Sedaris as much more than a diligent housemaid. Sedaris possesses blatant, shameless honesty.

He doesn't water-down his pieces in order to appease an audience nor to achieve political correctness. He says what he wants, as long as there exists good reason to include it. Oftentimes, this tactic manifests itself in his choice of vocabulary, his generous use of lively words. For example, in reference to his unique work experience as Santa's helper, he describes the costumed worker of another marketing ploy as a "son of a bitch", while his own position made him "look stupid" (Sedaris, SantaLand).

The Jenny Jones makeovers "are shows in which gruesome teenagers are forced into a variety of dull, conservative outfits. Following their transformations, the girls appear... looking like disgruntled house cats... ". (Sedaris, Confessions). This does not limit itself to the usage inappropriate language. Sometimes, his dialogues exemplifies this characteristic of his writing: "Here I am with a 130 IQ, and they " ve got me sweeping up sawdust.

A 130! I'm serious, man. I've been tested... In case you didn't know, that's genius level."Congratulations."With a mind like mine, I could be doing something, you know what I mean?"Absolutely."A 60 could do what I'm doing.

That leaves me with 70 extra IQ points sitting around in my head doing nothing."They must be bored" (Sedaris, A Smart Guy). His dialogue is lively, simply by the realistic quality in his words. One can easily imagine such a dialogue between two everyday people, and Sedaris, as usual, speaks nothing less than honesty. He never strays from the usage of this type of realistic dialogue. His shameless honestly is also easily recognized in situational contexts. As he fought his learned addiction to television, Sedaris creates humor in his suffering by raising it to the level of severity as alcoholism".

[His] withdrawal was not easy", and "there were days when [he] would have done anything just to watch a single Huggies commercial, yet [he] held fast and sweated it out" (Confessions). As Sedaris recounted his IQ testing, "a series of recent events" reassured him that his performance would outdo the performance of his base comparison. Yes, he was wrong, but that situation alone elicits no emotion as it was simply predictable. The degree in the fallacy of his assurance produced the humor.

Or, as Sedaris describes the situational setting of his elfish workplace: It's beautiful, a real wonderland with 10,000 sparkling lights, false snow, train sets, bridges, decorated trees, mechanical penguins and bears, and really tall candy canes. One enters and travels through a maze, a path which takes you from one festive environment to another. The path ends at the Magic Tree. Once you pass the Magic Tree, the light dims and an elf guides you to Santa's house.

The houses are cozy and intimate, laden with toys. You exit Santa's house and are met with a line of cash registers (SantaLand). A magical paradise tarnished by a price tag, this kind of sudden burst of honest reality is often incorporated at precise instances to snap the reader back into the realization that your mind is directed by David Sedaris. As a writer of experience, Sedaris composes all his works to encircle the recurrent topic of "I."Life was good for the first forty-one years.

Then I took an IQ test" (A Smart Guy). "Years ago, while living in Chicago, I took a job stripping woodwork with a fellow named Harry" (Confessions). "I was in a coffee shop looking through the want ads when I read... ". (SantaLand).

This theme is not placed sparsely throughout, but instead is spread thickly throughout his works. As Sedaris composes his essays, he utilizes a highly effective and well-implemented structure. Ironically, this is the lack of structure. For instance, he begins "Confessions of a Daytime Television Addict" with a short description of the procession of events that led to his addiction and the pleasure which he describes as "intoxicating" (Confessions). Next, an equally short description of the uneasy withdrawal process is provided.

The rest of the essay is about the Jerry Springer Show. He shows his emerging curiosity testing his resolve. He continues to proceed to illustrate the "epic" cursing, the "compelling" themes, and the "tribal" audience. Finally, he concludes the work with his experience with Judge Judy. Sedaris only succumbs to the structure imposed by the necessity of chronology. David Sedaris writes to entertain.

He doesn't write to inform; he doesn't write to express an opinion; he doesn't even write to share his personal anecdotes. All of these are merely to encase the humor into a coherent and liquid entity. Why exactly is David Sedaris so amusing? Because, he's fearless.

He has a fearless attitude in his opinions and towards the truth. He says what he thinks and nothing less. David Sedaris is one of the most observant and pithy writers in the world today. His essays move from squeamishness over the emotional violence in each scene to laugh-out-loud hysterics in the absurdity of any given situation. This ability, the ability to sense the hint of humor however so slight in any situation, gives him the power to entertain. His humor is not aimed at a specific crowd, just the general crowd.

And I, as an exemplary member of the general crowd, will testify to this genuinely laugh-out-loud quality of his creations.