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When Sedaris discovers that French people have different Easter traditions than Americans do, Easter becomes a representation of the ways in which cultures vary from each other even when they seem fairly similar. When one of Sedaris’s foreign classmates asks the class to tell her about Easter, Sedaris explains that the Easter Bunny delivers chocolate to children. Hearing this, his French teacher corrects him, saying that the French version of the story is that a bell flies in from Rome to deliver the chocolate. This makes little sense to Sedaris, who asks how a bell could possibly know where to take the chocolate. However, his teacher turns this question back on him, asking how a rabbit would do this. In turn, Sedaris recognizes that French culture is even more foreign to him than he originally thought. What’s more, he’s also forced to more closely consider his own culture. As a result, Easter becomes a catalyst for him to reexamine the things he takes for granted about his home country, ultimately demonstrating how necessary it is for people to remain open-minded.
Easter Quotes in Me Talk Pretty One Day
The Me Talk Pretty One Day quotes below all refer to the symbol of Easter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Big Boy
Quotes
One more flush and it was all over. The thing was gone and out of my life. […] And I was left thinking that the person who'd abandoned the huge turd had no problem with it, so why did I? Why the big deal? Had it been left there to teach me a lesson? Had a lesson been learned? Did it have anything to do with Easter? I resolved to put it all behind me, and then I stepped outside to begin examining the suspects.
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Jesus Shaves
Quotes
In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn't believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I told myself that despite her past behavior, my teacher was a kind and loving person who had only my best interests at heart. I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the next. The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the countless miracles—my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.
A bell, though—that’s fucked up.
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Easter Symbol Timeline in Me Talk Pretty One Day
The timeline below shows where the symbol Easter appears in Me Talk Pretty One Day. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Jesus Shaves
...chair and shouts out the answers. However, when the teacher asks what people do on Easter, the Moroccan woman asks, “Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?”
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Sedaris doesn’t care much for Easter. As a Greek-American family, the Sedarises always celebrated Easter according to the Greek Orthodox tradition,...
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When Sedaris’s French teacher asks who brings the chocolate on Easter, Sedaris raises his hand because he knows the French word for “rabbit.” “The Rabbit of...
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After trying to describe Easter to the Moroccan woman, Sedaris wonders if he and his classmates would have been able...
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