David sedaris halloween essay

PAGE

Us and Them

‘Us and Them’ is a story done by David Sedaris in the year 2004. The story is about a family that lived in North Carolina. It comprised of mother, father and two children. This was the first time they had settled in this area. The family first occupied a rental house that was only several blocks from where the children went to school. However, plans were that this would be a temporary place where they would live for a while before moving out. For this reason, the mother saw no reason to make good friends with the neighbors. After a while the family moved out to a house that was only a mile from their previous homestead. There were no hard feelings amongst the family members as they left their first abode in North Carolina. The distance between the first and second homes was too short to necessitate any emotional goodbye.

Before moving into North Carolina, this family lived in New York State. Here, they were no street lights or sidewalks. The author states that the streets were isolated for majority of the time. For North Carolina, the case was a little bit different. There were many houses neighboring them. After dark, the majority of the families stayed indoors to watch television. However, this was not the case for one of their neighbors by the name Mr. Tomkey. It was believed that Mr. Tomkey had no believe in television. This was according to a friend of the family. This lady had a weird way of giving information or stories. That day she came to tell about Mr. Tomkey, she carried a basket containing okra. She was the kind of people who would tell you anything and then leave it up to you decide on whatever she had said. To her everything she did was always like a test. The basket containing okra was also a form of test.

For the case of Mr. Tomkey, believing in television was way much different than saying that you do not totally care about television. The author states that the move by Mr. Tomkey to refuse to buy a television was selfish and unjust. He acted selfish by forcing his family to live under circumstances just because of what he believed in. However, for the case of the blind, the lack of sight helps them to develop a strong sense of hearing. The same must have applied to the family of Mr. Tomkey. If they did not watch television, there had to be another method they used for them to obtain information. It could have been through reading or listening to the radio. None of the neighbors was particularly sure of the method they used to obtain information.

This led to high levels of curiosity in one of the children. To satisfy his curiosity, this kid began to sneak into Mr. Tomkey’s backyard and peep through the window as they took their supper. During day time, he would stand at a position right across Tomkey’s house and watch them through the windows. The young child noticed that during supper, Mr. Tomkey would pound the table while at the same time point the children with a fork. The kid got the impression that the father was probably imitating someone because the family would all laugh as soon as he finished his antics.

In school, Mr. Tomkey’s children acted ignorant and blonde in almost everything that they did. The teacher ones imitated a character in one of the programs on television and the children had no idea what she was talking about. The author says that the children probably thought that she was about to suffer from a heart attack. This made the young child to greatly sympathize with the Tomkey’s children. Around the start of October, Tomkey bought a boat for his family. It was believed that grandfather to this family owned a house at a place by the lake and would thus use the boat to move throughout the lake. The child thought that weekends would be an appropriate time for him to bond with Tomkey’s kids. However, an afterthought told him that this would end his curiosity in respect to this family.

Halloween came and the Tomkey’s went to the lake. On the other hand, the other family went with the mother to but outfit for the occasion. They were late to go to the stores and therefore did not get the specific type of attire they wanted to wear for Halloween. Despite this, they bought other clothes for the day. The kids thought that the absence of Mr. Tomkey and his family form their house would be a good way to end their curiosity. They went to their house only to find large amounts of bad looking gumdrops.

The night after Halloween was a weird one for the curious kid and their family. The Tomkey’s family came to visit. This was unusual because the family hardly got any visitors. The Tomkey’s had come to ask whether they could find extra candy. Luckily, the children had some candy in their bags and so their mother sent them to get it. For the boy, he did not want to give his valued candy to the Tomkeys’. To avoid this, he selected all the candy he loved and began stuffing it into his mouth. The fear of her mother knocking at her door and snatching all the chocolate made him to gulp more of it. Downstairs, the boy would hear the mother struggle to make a conversation with Tomkey. Soon she got impatient of waiting and went to the son’s room only to find him eating large chunks of chocolate. She snatched all the chocolate she could place her hand on and quickly went downstairs to give it to the Tomkey’s. They quickly gave thanks and left.

However, back in the house high levels of guilt began eat up the young boy. He even struggled to go downstairs and join his family for dinner. The thought that his mother saw him as selfish really hurt him. Eventually he managed to downstairs and join the family to watch television. The images on TV helped him to get over the night’s ordeal. However, deep down the boy, there were large amounts of resentment for the Tomkey’s family.

Work Cited

Sedaris, David. “Us and Them.” NPR. 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.