David Sedaris comes from North Carolina, raised in a family with 6 siblings. He began his career in comedy after dropping out of Kent State University to travel around the United States and read excerpts from his diaries at local clubs. He then went on to reading these hilarious stories on the local radio station, eventually publishing these stories into several books.
This section was composed of 3 short stories about the holiday season. He describes events in past holiday seasons that he finds humorous and can effectively describe in order to make his audience laugh. Out of the 3 stories in this section, my favorite was the first, which described his short-lived career as an elf in SantaLand of Macy's in New York. His portrayal of his time working as an elf was funny and entertaining to read about.
The context of this book is David Sedaris' holiday tales as told by him to his fan-base.
The purpose for which this book was written is to tell readers about the hilarious stories of Sedaris' holiday seasons.
The audience for whom this book is intended is those interested in Christmas and the holiday season. Also, it is mainly written for fans of Sedaris and his writing style.
Rhetorical elements of this book include:
- satire- Sedaris consistently creates humor out of every situation he describes. He describes in detail very funny stories that have actually happened in his life.
- syntax- Sedaris uses extreme punctuation such as repetitive exclamation marks (!!!) to express emotion in his writing. He uses them to show excitement and loudness.
So far, I think Sedaris semi-accomplished his purpose. I am not fully satisfied with his sense of humor as I sometimes find him offensive, though that clearly is just his style. I think that certain parts of his stories are funny though and have made me laugh out loud.
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