David Sedaris, author of Us and Them, recounts the events after hearing of a television deprived family who lives down his street, the Tomkeys. Confused, Sedaris sets out to find what they could possibly be doing if not getting their information from a daily dose of T.V. “so [he] began peering through the Tomkeys’ windows.” (799) What he found intrigued him. The Tomkeys were “forced to talk during dinner,” they hadn’t a clue “what dinner was supposed to like or even what time people were supposed to eat” (Sedaris 799). Sedaris enjoyed the mystery and the “good feeling [he] got from pitying them”. He felt like their keeper, but that all changed once their ignorance interfered with one of his favorite activities, Halloween. The Tomkeys had spent
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When they should be learning from their surroundings, not secluding themselves from them. Knowing this, the target of Sedaris’s scrutiny is simple. Anyone and everyone who can open up their minds and break down the walls. Throughout Sedaris’s essay, Us and Them, he artistically creates and extended metaphor using satirical language, contextual irony, and symbolism to effectively criticize how society can, so quickly, separate the normal from the …show more content…
He often comments or acts in ways contradictory to his thoughts and actions from earlier in the essay. One instance is as he is sitting in class, his teacher makes a pop-culture reference about a robot on TV. Sedaris contemplates that the Tomkeys must have thought she was having a heart attack due to her excessive movements and their lack of TV knowledge. He wonders, “what must it be like to be so ignorant and alone” (Sedaris 800)? But he should be all to wise in this matter. After his mom told him there was no reason to make new friends since they would be moving again anyways, he adopted this way of thinking saying “it allowed [him] to pretend that not making friends was a conscious choice” (Sedaris 798). Or in a different instance, Sedaris is contemplating how much trouble he and his sisters would be in for the delaying giving the Tomkeys candy, and he says “while I was in trouble for not bringing my candy sooner, my sisters were in more trouble for not bringing them at all” (Sedaris 803). However, as we just read, he did not bring the candy either. His mom had to go in his room and “[snatch] a roll of Necco wafers” from the ground (Sedaris 803) and give it to the Tomkeys. Even situationally, Sedaris’s ironic rhetoric is found when he is pondering his actions from earlier that night. He felt “generous” to the Tomkeys for giving them the gift of his curiosity and pity,
When they should be learning from their surroundings, not secluding themselves from them. Knowing this, the target of Sedaris’s scrutiny is simple. Anyone and everyone who can open up their minds and break down the walls. Throughout Sedaris’s essay, Us and Them, he artistically creates and extended metaphor using satirical language, contextual irony, and symbolism to effectively criticize how society can, so quickly, separate the normal from the …show more content…
He often comments or acts in ways contradictory to his thoughts and actions from earlier in the essay. One instance is as he is sitting in class, his teacher makes a pop-culture reference about a robot on TV. Sedaris contemplates that the Tomkeys must have thought she was having a heart attack due to her excessive movements and their lack of TV knowledge. He wonders, “what must it be like to be so ignorant and alone” (Sedaris 800)? But he should be all to wise in this matter. After his mom told him there was no reason to make new friends since they would be moving again anyways, he adopted this way of thinking saying “it allowed [him] to pretend that not making friends was a conscious choice” (Sedaris 798). Or in a different instance, Sedaris is contemplating how much trouble he and his sisters would be in for the delaying giving the Tomkeys candy, and he says “while I was in trouble for not bringing my candy sooner, my sisters were in more trouble for not bringing them at all” (Sedaris 803). However, as we just read, he did not bring the candy either. His mom had to go in his room and “[snatch] a roll of Necco wafers” from the ground (Sedaris 803) and give it to the Tomkeys. Even situationally, Sedaris’s ironic rhetoric is found when he is pondering his actions from earlier that night. He felt “generous” to the Tomkeys for giving them the gift of his curiosity and pity,