What is the author's main goal in Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris?

Me Talk Pretty One Day is a collection of non-fiction essays by David Sedaris that covers various events in his life. The book is divided into two sections; the first section is made up of thirteen essays that cover a range of topics, from making fun of overly-prepared elaborate foods (“Today’s Special”), describing the deaths of his childhood pets (“The Youth In Asia”), and his foray into the new world of the internet (“Nutcracker.com”), while the second section centers around experiences based of a move to France.

A standard English Composition class teaches that there are a possibility of five basic “goals” or “aims” that a writer might take into account while crafting a piece: to inform (such a journalist giving us the facts), interpret (when you might talk about or interpret something for the reader), persuade, entertain, and express (such as a love letter expressing feelings).

There is often more that one aim at work. Typically, there is a primary, or main, aim, and secondary, or underlying, aim. In Me Talk Pretty One Day, one could make the argument that Sedaris’s primary “goal” is to express his feelings on whatever topic or situation he is talking about. One could also say that his secondary aim is to entertain. He is a humorist and a satirist, after all.

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