Article review; ‘Us and Them’
This review focuses on the article ‘Us and Them’, from Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. This article evaluates the relationship by people to a person they consider odd. The narrator in this story is a young boy who chronicles the adventures of his family through the various neighborhoods they have had to settle, and the peculiar habits exhibited by people in those residential places concerning socializing and fitting in the society. The narrator and his family do not strike as the most social of personalities as the narrator’s mother observed once, it was no need knowing their neighbors while they would soon have to say goodbye. However, the family in focus in this article is the Tomkins.
The Tomkins have a reputation in the neighborhood as a somewhat odd family with the singular most indicator of their oddness being their lack of an interest to the television, a position, as we learn through a friend to the family, imposed upon them by Mr. Tomkins. The society was keen on evaluating phenomena they perceived as odd, and speculation begun as to what they could possibly do in substitution for the T.V. The narrator makes it his mission to find out what they engage in by spying upon them, his curiosity only mirroring a shared interest in all the neighborhood inhabitants.
While David, the narrator, had previously taken it upon himself to take pity and care for the Tomkins, the events around the Halloween broke the straw. The Tomkins had recently acquired a boat and were not present for the Halloween festivities, but rather had taken to a lake house owned by Mr. Tomkins’s father in law. David has a hard time bearing their absence, not that it would have made any difference, but the chance at missing the Tomkins’s misery was just unfathomable. The day after the Halloween, the Tomkins showed up at David’s house to ‘trick-or-treat’. According to David, that was the height of greediness, and that act replaced the little compassion he might have felt for the Tomkins with a deep-rooted hatred.
This article is as relevant as it is informative. The setting for the story is a place where everyone can relate to, the estate. The social interaction of the people in the estate mirrors what we experience every day. People take pleasure in analyzing the circumstances of others and taking pleasure, albeit in disguise at the misfortune of the others. While being unique in the world is not a bad thing as it adds diversity to society, the only uniqueness recognized and appreciated is the innovative genius of a few people. While their uniqueness earns them this admiration and recognition, it is a reality of life that people who cannot fit in are segregated from the rest.
The view of the world as an accommodative place, where amiable co-existence can freely happen comes across as a little more but an illusion. The Tomkins in David’s text are subjected to their fate concerning the perception David’s family is to afford them, way before they even know them. A friend to David’s mother makes it her business to inform them of the neighbor hood weirdoes, in the Tomkins. This approach to human relations is flawed; David and his family stood a better chance at developing a better relationship with the Tomkins had they had the chance to know them personally, and in first person. It is hard to relate with people whom the society has already branded as somewhat outcasts, the social risks associated with being spotted with them is too great even where you hold a favorable review of them
David takes great care and employs a great narration style to this story, which comes to great aid in comprehension of the context, and the various perspectives held by the various characters in the article with the flow making it a joy to read. The article is a great addition to the literary world in explaining modern urban culture and human relations.
Society continues to perpetuate traces of segregation up to today. It is common for people to be avoided by the others in a community for things like the color of their skin, and other issues like that. In a reported case in Uganda, in Africa, the local people there made news when they went about hunting down and kidnapping people who had defects in their skin pigmentation. It was a case of ignorance as it was of discrimination. People can hardly learn to accept what they do not understand.
