ELA 10 H (Satire in “MTPOD”

[Ms. Miller, MAED & MA]

In his essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” David Sedaris uses satire to explore the challenges and absurdities of learning a new language in a foreign country. Analyze how Sedaris employs satirical techniques such as exaggeration, irony, and humor to critique both the language-learning process and the cultural expectations placed on individuals in such situations. Discuss how these techniques contribute to the overall message of the essay. Provide specific examples from the text to support your analysis.


Word Count: Initial response 350 words. Comment on 3-5 of your classmates in a minimum of 150 words each.

[Josephine and Natalie]

The short story, "Me Talk Pretty One Day", Sedaris shows the ridiculous nature of a school environment where multiple languages are spoken without a fluent common one. The author first addresses this when the teacher asks the class what they like and dislike, without being fluent in a common language. They are unable to properly form sentences and express how they feel. With satire, the author weaponizes laughter to prove this point. For the reader, it is funny to see students struggle at something they think could be easy, introductions. The author uses examples of multiple races in the class to show the problem of xenophobia. For example, when a Yugoslav girl claims that she loves everything, the teacher accuses her of "loving her little war" and "masterminding a program of genocide". The teacher's actions are absurd, which adds to the satirical elements of the story. However, the teacher is not overly harsh. Being in an environment without a common language that everyone is fluent in leads to struggles and conflicts around communication. This makes it almost impossible to teach, especially when the students can't understand everything she says. The teacher takes her aggression out on the students through her humorous remarks and xenophobia. The author mentions several different cultures, such as Korean, Argentine, Polish, German, Italian, Japanese, Thai, Dutch, and Chinese. With all of these cultures in one place, it makes it difficult to teach and not offend anyone. Especially with something like language, where everyone is going to struggle with different elements of it based on their first language. Despite the teacher being fluent in five languages, she chooses to teach almost entirely in French, which may be cruel, but seems to help motivate the students. Towards the end of the text, the author is able to understand what the teacher says. He becomes elated by this idea and begs the teacher to continue speaking to him. The teacher's cruel nature ended up motivating him to work extra hard, and although he is not completely fluent yet, he is one step closer. The combination of cultures caused the French teacher to seem overly cruel, however her methods of teaching ended up being successful. This is ironic, as it seemed none of the students would progress in the classroom environment like this, especially since one of the students claimed they cried every night.

[Aaron W]

In the story "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris, the author almost exaggerates the usage of satirical phrases to help visualize the learning process and cultural expectations of learning French as a foreigner. One example of these quotes include, "'Were you always palicmkrexis?'" In this quote,Sedaris helps you imagine what French sounds like to someone who is foreign to the language. Furthermore, a similar example to this is, “‘If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good, we shall begin.’”Another quote from the story is of the author's French teacher saying, "'Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.'" The author makes use of this quote by exaggerating or making it easier to imagine the attitude of the teacher towards him because of his lack of understanding. The teacher also makes fun of other students. For instance, an excerpt from the text states, “The teacher proceeded to belittle everyone from German Eva, who hated laziness, to Japanese Yukari, who loved paintbrushes and soap. Italian, Thai, Dutch, Korean, and Chinese – we all left class foolishly believing that the worst over.” Another illustration of this is, “‘How very interesting. I thought that everyone loved the mosquito, but here, in front of all the world, you claim to detest him. How is it that we’ve been blessed with someone as unique and original as you? Tell us, please.’” In this quote, the teacher is making fun of the main character’s classmate, Anna. To help visualize the learning process, the author also explains what happens outside of the classroom. A quote from the text says, “My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide boulevards. Stopping for a coffee, asking directions, depositing money in my bank account: these things were out of the question, as they involved having to speak. Before beginning school, there’d been no shutting me up, but now I was convinced that everything I said was wrong. When the phone rang, I ignored it. If someone asked me a question, I pretended to be deaf.” This example illustrates the main character’s discomfort and insecurity in his own skill to speak French because of his situation and his teacher.

[quinc]

The essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” uses satirical humor to convey how strict and harsh his French teacher was. This challenge proved as a huge toll on the narrator’s (David) ability to learn French. To me, though strict and really harsh, the teacher used this tactic to encourage students to learn French to have the ability to retaliate against the teacher, and eventually prove the teacher wrong on how she thought none of the students would learn French; or in other words, were too stupid. Sedaris’s story starts off with the nerve-wrecking description of learning a completely new language in a foreign country. One example that was eventually said by the teacher was singling out a student as “unique, one of a kind” for disagreeing with the “mosquito.” This, to the teacher, was someone she has never seen anyone alike before. More and more examples, one being bringing up each student's different nationalities, contributed a great amount of humor to me. The cruel stabbing of a student’s eye with a pencil also caught my attention, showing how serious this teacher was. Speaking of serious, this type of satirism can be seen as juvenalian satire. This teacher uses every bit of irony along with bitter criticism to apply a humorous/angry moral indignation in the story. To many, it appears the teacher doesn’t even have a justifiable reason as to why she would be so harsh. One reason could be that she has to work with so many students with different nationalities and has to deal with so many students who are unable to speak the same language, eventually resulting in her getting tired of teaching over the years. Another possibility might’ve been how things at home may not have been so great, and as a result would be greeted with a teacher that has no patience. Overall, in real life, students with different nationalities result in different cultural aspects showing that respect is a must for real life scenarios. Patience may not even have to be granted because the teacher’s job is to teach with respect, and that may have to be given if the end result shows students who successfully learned French.

[Hayden Legere]

In the essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” the author is trying to convey how in this school their is not a common language. Everyone is fluent 1st in another language and it gets the teacher upset no one knows her fluent language. The teacher uses harsh humor to poke fun of her students. She does this in a joking manner that is still trying to be funny as well as making fun of the other’s culture. The teacher is trying to critique the language learning of the students even though they are all brand knew and learn differently.

[khushidesai]

In this story, David Sedaris uses satire through multiple techniques. This includes exaggeration, irony, and humor to challenge the language learning process and how the culture surrounds it. He exaggerates his struggles with French and shows them in a strange way. An example was when he described his nightmare of being lost in a supermarket and not being able to communicate. This example underscores the depth of his frustration. He shows irony by contrasting his high expectations of learning the language and becoming fluent in it very quickly. It highlights the disconnect between his high expectations and his actual experiences. His humor displays the harsh reality of the situation, more specifically in his description of the rude teacher. These references reveal the unrealistic and challenging experience of learning a new language while also referencing the pressure placed on the learners.

[sahaj]

In the essay, “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” Sedaris employs satirical
techniques such as exaggeration, irony, and humor. These techniques helped contribute
to the overall message of the essay because without the satire he used, the entire
essay would have seemed like a complaint. Since he had the use of satire quite
frequently, it made it sound more like a light-hearted summary of his experiences in
French class. Using satire, he described how he felt throughout the essay. At first, he
was hopeful and wanted to learn the language in that class. Then, overtime his interest
in the class changed and his attitude completely changed towards the teacher. For
example, he used satirical irony to describe how his teacher verbally, physically, and
xenophobically abused the class. He would describe an example of the teacher’s abuse
and would use sarcasm to make the sentence less serious. He would also target the
teacher in his satire. An example of how he used satire to give details in the story was
how he used satire to let the readers know about the teacher’s expectations. For
example, the text states, ““If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you
should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good, we shall
begin.” She spread out her lesson plan and sighed, saying, “All right, then, who knows
the alphabet?” This quote shows how the teacher immediately started teaching the
students as soon as she entered the classroom and was being too straightforward,
especially considering the fact that it was the first day. These techniques help the
overall message of the essay because it makes it more fun to read and the satire helps
the message stand out better. To conclude, the author uses tons of satire to add details
and humor to the essay/experiences of his French class in France.

[Avery Gass]

In the story “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris uses different techniques like exaggeration and ridicule to critique both the language-learning process and the cultural pressure put on individuals in this situation. One example of exaggeration: “Were you always this palicmkrexis? she asked. Even a fiuscrzsa ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine.” (par. 16). Sedaris uses stylized writing to show the main character’s confusion. I believe this shows satire against the language-learning process by using the teacher’s harsh words against the students just for a simple mistake. The main character, David, feels many different emotions throughout the essay. From being excited to learn in the beginning to feeling nervous to speak. “My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide boulevards. Stopping for a coffee, asking directions, depositing money in my bank account: these things were out of the question, as they involved having to speak.” (par. 22). The teacher’s harshness made David feel small. This feeling followed him outside of the class. Before the class he couldn’t stop speaking in french. “Before beginning school, there’d been no shutting me up, but now I was convinced that everything I said was wrong.” (par. 22). The French teacher’s cruelty haunted David, and discouraged his desire to practice.

[Alyssa Diep]

In the story “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris, the author almost exaggerates the usage of satirical phrases to critique both the language-learning process and the cultural expectations placed on individuals in such situations. It shows that the process of learning a language takes very long. The cultural expectations placed on individuals in such situations are very harsh especially because David is a foreigner trying to learn French. For example, in the story it says “When called upon, I delivered an effortless list of things that I detest: blood sausage, intestinal pates, brain pudding. I’d learned these words the hard way. Having given it some thought, I then declared my love for IBM typewriters, the French word for bruise, and my electric floor waxer. It was a short list, but still I managed to mispronounce IBM and assign the wrong gender to both the floor waxer and the typewriter. The teacher’s reaction led me to believe that these mistakes were capital crimes in the country of France.” The teacher then asks him “‘Were you always this palicmkrexis?’ She asked. ‘Even a fiuscrzsa ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine.” This line in the text shows that the teacher is trying to humiliate David in front of everyone like she did to the two Polish Annas and Yugoslav. The teacher is exaggerating the fact that David made a mistake and assigned the wrong genders to inanimate objects.

[jet]

    In "Me Talk Pretty One Day," satire is employed throughout the story as a way to create character development. When the students first joined the class, they weren't very fluent in French. They came from non-French countries around the world, such as Argentina, America, Korea, etc. As a result, cultural expectations would reckon the students as inferior and uncapable of learning the French language. The French teacher has these cultural expectations and doesn't expect the students to learn fluid French. In addition, her xenophobia demonstrated throughout the story worsens the situation for the students. As a result, the teacher gets easily frustrated and takes every chance she can to mock the students. For instance, the teacher made fun of Polish Anna's distaste for mosquitos and David's misuse of feminine and masculine terms. As I mentioned earlier, the teacher has evident xenophobia, leading to some heavy satirical jokes that seek contempt (Juvenalian satire). For instance, the teacher made fun of a Yugoslav girl by accusing her of masterminding a genocide. The students don't really understand what the teacher is saying, but they know the intent is cruel and shameful. However, as time passes by, the students find themselves understanding the teacher's insults more and more. One day when the teacher said "Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section," the narrator felt immense feelings of joy and relief for being able to understand the insult. The teacher's satirical and harsh behavior actually led to character growth in their ability to understand French. To encapsulate, character development is created from the satire implemented by Sedaris since the students went from novices in French to sufficient.

[Nathan Versteeg]

In “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” David uses satire to explore the challenges of learning a new language in a foreign country by using it, so he won't give up and instead works even harder. He uses satirical techniques like humor and irony to critique the learning process because the teacher is very hard on the students even though they aren’t very good at the language because David only took a 1-month class of the language. The text says, “The teacher’s reaction led me to believe that these mistakes were capital crimes in the country of France,” (13). Based on this, if David doesn’t know it very well then, the other students don’t either. The expectations that the teacher is placing on them are a lot. She expects them to know almost everything and if they mess up one word or even misgender items or nouns then she will lash out. He also uses satirical techniques to show how harsh the teacher was on all of the students. In the text it states “‘I hate you,’ she said to me one afternoon. Her English was flawless. ‘I really, really, hate you,’” (13). This shows how harsh she was because she was expressing how she hates this student which is verbal abuse. These techniques contribute to the overall message because it shows that using these techniques can help make you try harder.

[Olivia C.]

In the essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” David Sedaris’s use of satire and exaggeration was able to paint a picture of the environment the characters were learning in. Some examples from the text like “I absorbed as much of her abuse as I could understand, thinking...” and “We soon learned to dodge chalk and protect our heads and stomachs whenever she approached us with a question. She hadn’t yet punched anyone, but it seemed wise to protect ourselves against the inevitable” were able to describe the teacher’s harsh personality. He uses exaggeration and humorizes events that are traumatizing or hurtful to the characters. The discouragement from his teacher made the learning experience of a new language much more difficult for all the students, however for David, this acted as encouragement to prove himself, which eventually worked out for him in the end.

[Eslie Mackin]

Aug 16, 2024 7:16:39 GMT -8 Ms. Miller, MAED & MA said:

The techniques used to display satire in the essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris include exaggeration, irony, and humor. They contribute to the overall message of the essay by showing the difficulty of learning a new language in a foreign country. The author went to France to learn how to speak the language. He is in a class with many other students who also don’t know the language. Satire is displayed because it is an exaggerated account of how the teacher was rude to all of the students. The first example I found was in paragraph 3 on page 13. The excerpt says, “‘Were you always this palicmkrexis?’ she asked. ‘Even a fiuscrzsa ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine.’” This is an example of humor because it makes the reader laugh when the teacher makes fun of the student for not understanding the grammar of French. Another example of satire is on page 15, paragraph 2 when the author makes a sarcastic remark, “I settled back, bathing in the subtle beauty of each new curse and insult.” The author makes fun of how the teacher has made him feel bad, but he is also proud of how he can now understand all of the mean things that his teacher has been telling him.

[Tony Jiang]

Learning a new language is a complicated and difficult process. However having a teacher who is incompetent would make it even more difficult. In the story Talking Me Is Pretty, the author, famous French poet Mozart, uses satire to project the process of learning French from a xenophobic French teacher, to the main character.
The main character, who was very optimistic about learning French, encounters the French teacher, who immediately begins harass the students with her xenophobia, “The teacher killed some time accusing the Yugoslavia girl of genocide.” The teacher decides to waste time by harassing the Yugoslavian girl about the fact that her country, Yugoslavia had committed genocide in bosnia. Such tragic events have absolutely nothing to do with the girl, and is completely an absurd and disturbing thing to do as a teacher. The author uses such a ludicrous scenario of teacher to student harassment to create this satirical setting.
The main character was suddenly called to answer a question, in which he had accidentally “misgendered” a typewriter. ‘“Were you always this palicmkrexis?” she asked. “Even a fiuscrzsa ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine.”’ The French teacher begins to suddenly have an outburst at the main character, simply because he made a “grammatical error” in the French language. The author makes a satirical image of the French teacher shouting absolute gibberish to make a mockery of her incompetence.
In the short story Me Talk Pretty One Day, the author uses satire to criticize the process of learning from an incompetent teacher, who instead of correcting and assisting her students, chooses to use strong verbal language (gibberish) and xenophobic stereotypes to harass her students, therefore causing them to have insufficient performance in class.

[Tony Jiang]

author