Us and Them The document is a text, extract from a novel written in 2004 by David Sedaris entitled Dress your family in Corduroy and Denim . This excerpt’s title is Us and Them and indeed it opposes a community’s way of life to the Tomkeys’ way of life as far as television is concerned : that is, the Tomkeys have no television , contrary to the other “normal” , as we may call them , people . First , we’ll deal with the different points of view given in the excerpt, that is the community’s, the narrator’s and the author’s . Then we’ll focus on the television and its roles.

First, let’s consider the different points of view we’re acquainted with in the extract. To start with the narrator, he is a small child who lives with his parents as we can read on line 12, and who goes to school with the neighbor ‘s children (line 34) even if not in the same form. We don’t read about any brother or sister. At the beginning, we learn that he comes from the country and his vision of life in a city is quite amusing since he expects to “witness a murder”. Thanks to this quote, we can also infer this child may be a boy. He is fascinated by his neighbors, especially as they have no television. He wonders how they can cope without a TV set and so spies on them but yet he never interferes with them: “we never spoke” ( l. 34) , “friendship would have taken away their mystery” ( L.43 and 44). He is shown as a spectator who is so puzzled by the Tomkeys’ odd behavior that he can’t help spying on them to try to solve their mystery. Then the community has an important role in this society. Indeed, it has a major influence on the little boy, for example. In fact, gossips seem to be the major way of communication: everything is known and largely commented on. “This was told to us by ..” (l.7) , “you began hearing …” ( l. 16) , “word spread that …” (l. 16) , “it was reported that …” (l. 47) . One of his “mother”s friend especially appears as their informer. Whereas the