Summary Of The Short Story Attaboy

In this world there is a diversity in the human behaviour. Some people show good manners and character, whilst others do not. However, what is often forgotten and to some extend taken for granted, is that a great person does not immerge out of now where. It is through care and nurture from the parents that conditions the child’s willingness to show kindness and respond positively to discipline. Yet the arts of parenthood cannot be taught or understood by everyone, and results to an imbalance in the parenting, where it is either too loose or too uptight. This example can be seen between generations where the older generation was raised too strictly and the younger generation is being raised to softly. In the short story “Attaboy” written by …show more content…
In the short story “Attaboy” there is a usage of different humorous devices in order to uphold the reader’s attention. An example could be The Relief Theory. The narrator uses this device in order to make the reader appreciate the time they are in, where an example from the story could be, “my mother held my arms behind my back and he hit me with a golf club. In the balls.” Here the narrator points out how gruesome it was to be a kid “back in the day” since it once upon a time was legal and considered good parenting to beat discipline into a child.
Another humorous device used is black humour. By using this device, the narrator inflicts humour in a situation that in modern days would be considered serious. An example from the story could be, “Then, in full view of the crowd, they would have beaten me-not a couple of light stage slaps but the real thing, with loosened teeth and muffled pleas for mercy.” By using black humour the reader is able to understand what the protagonist really wants to point out, and thereby better understand the way the protagonist …show more content…
By being too strict, it can have negative effects upon the child and by being too soft the child never learns to respect their surroundings and what value actually means. David Sedaris is able to show the problem of parenting by addressing that the old is not equal to quality, nor is the new ways of parenting. By having a first person narrator, who from experience can compare the two methods, the reader not only gets a deeper understanding of the past and presence, but it creates a psychological impact on the reader. Because of the structure in the short story, there is a natural flow to the story, and manipulates the reader to reflects upon either their own parenting or their personal opinions. Furthermore, it also makes the reader more sceptical to what the older generation did; hence, the reader is able to create that middle ground, which neither generation had been able to do, according to David