Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Me Talk Pretty One Day, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Insecurity
Humor, Commentary, and Observation
Class and Belonging
Family, Love, and Support
Summary
Analysis
At a local fair in Normandy, Sedaris and Hugh attend a strange version of a bull fight, in which a group of volunteers run around a makeshift arena trying to play soccer while angry young cows charge at them. There are a number of “protective barricades” for the players to hide behind, but Sedaris finds himself hoping that he might actually see a confrontation between one of the volunteers and the cow. Thinking this way, he wonders what he would do if this happened. He is particularly interested in this question because he has been worrying about his morals ever since he and Hugh went to a fair in Paris and watched as a dangerous ride got stuck. One woman at the very top of the ride was hanging upside down, her protective harness the only thing keeping her from falling. Mesmerized, Sedaris was unable to look away.
A natural storyteller, Sedaris is the kind of person who can’t get himself to look away from calamitous situations. He has, after all, built an entire career as a writer crafting intriguing essays, so any moment worthy of attention becomes—for him—something to study in detail. However, he recognizes that there is something uncomfortable about his interest in disaster, correctly intuiting that his fascination is often driven by a morbid desire to see something extraordinary (or extraordinarily bad) take place. With this in mind, he doesn’t know what to think of his desire to see a man get mauled by a cow, nor does he know what to make of his inability to look away from a woman who is possibly on the verge of death.
Themes
At the fair in Paris, a crowd gathers beneath the broken ride. Hugh leaves, not wanting to see what will happen to the woman hanging upside down, but Sedaris only moves closer. All the while, he imagines telling this story at a dinner party, wondering how his friends would react if he opened with the line, “I once saw a girl fall to her death from one of those rides.” Because he never knew the woman personally, he figures that his friends wouldn’t feel awkward about pressing for details regarding her death. When one of her shoes falls to the ground, he imagines adding this detail, saying, “And then one of her shoes came off.” Finally, though, the police arrive and push the crowd away, saying that this is not a show—an assertion that annoys Sedaris.
While watching the woman hanging upside down from the broken ride, Sedaris has no choice but to acknowledge his appetite for danger and travesty. More importantly, his interest is motivated by his abiding desire to be interesting, as he fantasizes about telling a captivating story to his friends about this experience. Once again, then, readers sense that Sedaris is quite eager to present himself as an intriguing, entertaining person.
Themes
Soon enough, the emergency responders manage to bring the woman down. Sedaris tries to imagine telling his friends this story, practicing saying, “I almost saw this girl get killed,” but it’s not the same. Now, sitting in the makeshift arena and watching the angry cow try to maul the soccer players, he convinces himself that it wouldn’t be morally questionable if he saw somebody get killed in this context because he is simply “watching a scheduled event.” If something goes wrong, he figures, he will simply witness it but won’t have sought it out. And yet, this line of thinking doesn’t help him when one of the volunteers actually gets mauled by the cow—something that rattles Sedaris to his core, catching him off-guard and making him realize that he’s not nearly as tough and morbid as he thought.
As Sedaris sits in the audience and watches the volunteers try to dodge the cows, he worries about whether or not he’s immoral for secretly wanting to see things take a gruesome turn. This is a reasonable concern, since he does seem to lack a certain regard for other people, ultimately letting his desire to have a good story to tell eclipse all else. However, he’s relieved to find out that he actually does care about other people, as evidenced by the horror he feels when one of the volunteers gets hurt. In turn, he’s able to let himself off the hook, reassuring himself that he’s not a bad person—a fear that may have exacerbated his other insecurities.
Themes
