In the article it states that Sedaris’s “stories require more than twenty drafts to get right.” I could not rewrite a story that many times, but it must be satisfactory for him otherwise it would not be a part of his process. Another part of it is that he wants to balance humor with sadness, because he says that every humorous story needs “sorrow to give the laughter a bit of weight.” I disagree with this; a story can be solely made to evoke laughter, but those are not the type of stories Sedaris creates anymore. For example, he could write a story about his own jealousy. He knows that his audience will not judge him negatively for being jealous, but relate to it. This is because we all experience that feeling at some point, so writing
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The beginning has two dogs presumably from his early childhood, while the ending has one dog belonging to his post-retirement father, and an interlude with Sedaris’s own pet cat. The sorrow in this story derives from the tragic demise of all the pets mentioned in it. Fell down half-dead and escaped to the wilderness were the fate of the first dogs. The last dog was an untimely replacement to another one named Melina that “against all advice, my father simply could not bear to let her go.” This implies it was incredibly painful for his father to let this dog die. Sedaris’s own pet was …show more content…
The first one is parental fawning over anything that is not their own children, and the consequential rejection of children that follows. This is seen when his parents receive Melina the Great Dane, “and soon their hearts had no room for anyone else.” On one occasion this dog attacks Sedaris at the behest of his mother, which she finds entertaining, but implies Sedaris has a certain disdain for this dog. I feel a lot of people experience some form of parental neglect at some point in their lives; it may be addiction, obsession, or general apathy. Sedaris is connecting with those readers by detailing his parent’s obsession with their dog Melina, and the subsequent indifference he felt from them; his readers can then reflect on their similar
The beginning has two dogs presumably from his early childhood, while the ending has one dog belonging to his post-retirement father, and an interlude with Sedaris’s own pet cat. The sorrow in this story derives from the tragic demise of all the pets mentioned in it. Fell down half-dead and escaped to the wilderness were the fate of the first dogs. The last dog was an untimely replacement to another one named Melina that “against all advice, my father simply could not bear to let her go.” This implies it was incredibly painful for his father to let this dog die. Sedaris’s own pet was …show more content…
The first one is parental fawning over anything that is not their own children, and the consequential rejection of children that follows. This is seen when his parents receive Melina the Great Dane, “and soon their hearts had no room for anyone else.” On one occasion this dog attacks Sedaris at the behest of his mother, which she finds entertaining, but implies Sedaris has a certain disdain for this dog. I feel a lot of people experience some form of parental neglect at some point in their lives; it may be addiction, obsession, or general apathy. Sedaris is connecting with those readers by detailing his parent’s obsession with their dog Melina, and the subsequent indifference he felt from them; his readers can then reflect on their similar