After reading David Sedaris' short story from the novel Me Talk Pretty One Day, I would like you to discuss how Sedaris' "speech problem" relates to the assumed gender roles that his family and friends expected of him.
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David's speech problem is related to the feminized gender role that he inherently possesses. Having a lisp does not directly correlate with being a homosexual, but having that lisp along with his feminine preferences might allude to being gay. From the story, I could not determine if David knew at the time that he was gay. Another key thing I noticed is that David does not want to change his speech impediment. He is fine with it and restricts his speech therapy, that may in turn be a ploy to make him more masculine and therefore not gay. Everyone wanted to change him, in regards to his speech and his hobbies etc., but the important thing is that he accepted himself the way he was. He liked who he really was, but had trained himself to respond to specific inquiries alluding to his masculinity. He was not his true self, and lied to let other people hear what they wanted to hear. But it all boils down to what he thinks of himself. If he's happy with himself, then that's all that matters. ASHLEY
ReplyDeleteI think that the strength and courage that David had when standing up to his speech therapist is encouraging to young people who are gay, or think that they might be gay. I think that he serves as a great role model for young gay students today. As far as the gender roles that are assumed by the way people speak has a lot to do with what society thinks of as masculine vs. feminine. A lot of men today feel that they deeper their voice the more masculine they are, and vice versa. So if a man has a more feminine voice they may assume that he is gay even if they don't know anything about that person. That is why I think that it is important to educate young people today so that they don't live their lives judging people based on stereotypes.
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