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University of North Carolina at Charlotte

An Analysis of Go Carolina by David Sedaris

Micayla Rose
Professor Cassandra Blandford
UWRT 1101
8 September 2015

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Through his own experience, David Sedaris illustrates a child who feels isolated from his
peers due to his speech impediment. During therapy sessions, David realizes that his voice is
high-pitched compared to the other males in his class and that he gravitates towards what society
views as more feminine things. He does not fit in with the other kids and tries to avoid saying the
s sound because of his severe lisp. Therefore, it can be implied that David is insecure and that
he is a homosexual.
Being insecure means having little to no self-confidence. Davids insecurities stem from a
combination of his speech impediment and his closeted homosexuality. He feels as if he does not
belong like a suspect being interrogated. It was the first battle of my war against the letter s,
and I was determined to dig my foxhole before the sun went down. This quote shows that David
will go to extreme measures to cover his lisp in order to seem normal. His extreme measures
include carrying around a thesaurus to look up alternative words that do not include the s
sound. On the days I was absent, I imagined [my teacher] addressed the room, saying, Davids
not here today but if he were, hed have a speech therapy session at two-thirty. This gives a
glimpse at how a child of Davids age thinks. David is embarrassed by these therapy sessions and
feels like a failure. These emotions are reiterated when he does not tell anyone about his sessions
except his mother. David seems to be paranoid because he does not feel like he can be himself
without being judged and humiliated by his peers. Paranoia is not a normal emotion displayed by
someone of Davids age. The emotional weight being carried by David at this point in his life is
unusual for a child, and the paranoia forces him to overthink every aspect of it. He believes that
the other children are judging him. In reality, kids his age do not think about these issues as
anything more than what they seem. To his peers, David is just a kid who needs speech therapy.
When noting who entered and exited the speech therapy door, David realized that no one who

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was popular had this same issue. His adolescent mind connected the dots having a lisp is
related to being a homosexual.
David is ashamed of his insecurity and just wants to fit in, but sometimes it is hard to
conform to societys expectations. At such a young age, it is rare that someone like David is even
aware of his sexuality. In the fifth-grade, most students have not hit puberty yet and are unaware
of topics as heavy as sexual orientation. David is not only aware of his own sexual orientation,
but is terrorized by it on a daily basis. None of the therapy students were girls. They were all
boys like me who kept movie star scrapbooks and made their own curtains. David realizes that
he is different from the majority of other students and that there are some different things going
on. He is interested in activities that are typically labeled as feminine. Were they able to spot
future drunks and depressives? Did they hope that by eliminating our lisps, they might set us on a
different path, or were they trying to prepare us for future stage and choral careers? Davids
tone expresses his sarcastic and irritable demeanor. What is wrong with him? Why can David not
be who he is and who he wants to be? The pressure put on by his speech therapist and teachers
causes David to become lazy and not want to pursue a future without a lisp; David turned to
avoiding an s sound whenever possible. By pushing David so hard, he became quiet and
reserved, and felt like he could not grow up to be anything but a monk.
As an adolescent, David Sedaris struggled to fit in with the norm. His speech
impediment took control of his life it consumed his thoughts, which influenced his everyday
actions. Sedaris uses humor to describe this childhood event, in which he feels different and out
of place. He also has an underlying bitter tone towards his speech therapist, Miss Samson. At a
young age, David veers towards feminine traits and notices that his voice is abnormally highpitched. Because of these mannerisms, one can conclude that a young David Sedaris is insecure

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and shows early signs of being homosexual. However, somewhere in his life, David gained the
self-confidence to write a memoir about finding his true self.