Sedaris made the choice of creating his story in an airport because
it is a very heavily populated place. It also draws in many different cultures
and people from all around the world. Drawing in people from all around the
worlds means there are a lot of different opinions on each other’s culture, maybe
what how they dress or what they say or even how they speak. Sedaris used the airport to his advantage because
it could be claimed as one of the most judgmental areas around the globe.
His choice of creating the setting in an airport was for him
to give many example of how judgmental people are no matter where they are from.
His purpose was to tell his readers to not judge a book by its cover. Using an
airport you could say there are many different people each having their own “cover”
and look past that and mind your own business if you don’t know how they are
then they are not your problem.
Sedaris would have chosen to write this because he sees a
lot of judgments that are negative towards other people. He made this very
clear to his reader by picking some of the worst example/experiences he himself
had had in an airport. He chose to choose the worst because if people can just
look past other people flaws then people could get along and remove the
negative judgments in society. Also if he would have picked his good experiences
in airports then that would have weakened his support of his opinion.
Using negative example/experiences
in his story had a huge effect on his reader. He wanted to show them the worst
so they could see how bad it is and maybe how they did not want to experience It
themselves. You could say he wanted to show them the silver lining on the dark
cloud. Although he never really said that he is against judgment he shows
support that pushes it towards that fact that it is the problem with society.
That people care to much about what other people think and not their own lives.
This choice relates to the date and place where Sedaris choose
to have the story take place. He made it take place after the tragedy of the
twin towers terrorist attack. He wanted the reader to make the connection that
the attack could be connected to airports and that people are uneasy in
airports after such a tragedy struck America. He wanted to show that people are
uneasy and can make them act weird so. So their always a back ground story of
why someone is acting or dressing the way that they are.
I like how you make the distinction about airports that they are a global area where people come from various cultures. This makes it different than a setting like a grocery store. What is interesting, however, is that the people Sedaris includes as examples all appear to be from the United States. Why do you think this is?
ReplyDeleteYou say, "That people care to much about what other people think and not their own lives" and that is partly why Sedaris decides to critique others. But isn't he judging people in this piece just as much? Isn't he being hypocritical?