An Alien in the Foreign

In David Sedaris' 'Me Talk Pretty One Day', the story is told of a man who travels to France to take a language class.  He is already scared to begin with, and is then thrown into a foreign country with its social and linguistic norms.  He exclaims that "...it's everybody into the language pool, sink or swim." (219)  He feels so out-of-place that he even resists going shopping or out because "...those things were out of the question, as they involved having to speak..." (221)


He is then introduced to his language class where the teacher is the opposite of what we would have expected.  Perhaps there is extreme satire in the teacher's character or perhaps she is being rude for a purpose.  She seems to motivate her students by acting rude and insulting.  Her diction and mockery makes her students fear her and her class, which helps them work harder than they probably would have if she was easygoing.


Sedaris says things like "...we would now be scolded for..." (221) which illustrates the idea that they are consistently ridiculed for even the simplest of things.  And quite harshly at that.  He says later in his memoir, "The teacher's reaction led me to believe that these mistakes were capital crimes in the country of France." (220)  He and the other students were shamed for not being completely fluent in the language.


Gabby brought up an interesting point in class.  She said that it was interesting that the author could speak publically and write flawlessly in English but had the hardest time even constructing a single sentence when he visited France.