"Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa": Comparison to Hugh

In ‘Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa’ David Sedaris writes about his childhood experiences and compares them to Hugh. Sedaris describes how boring his childhood was compared to Hugh’s. Where he speaks of the exotic and marvelous things Hugh has done in his childhood in Africa while he was in North Carolina.

Sedaris uses different scenarios and goes point by point to describe the differences between them. Where Hugh experienced going various times on vacations with his family, watching a movie and later seeing a dead man hanging and having a monkey and a horse.

He also mentions while living in Ethiopia, Hugh is taken on a field trip to a slaughterhouse and actually sees how they slaughter a live pig. This violent act is nowhere permitted in the U.S and is basically illegal. And then compares how he didn’t do such things when he went on a field trip. He says ‘When I’m told such stories, it’s all I can do to hold back my feelings of jealousy’.

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‘An Ethiopian slaughterhouse. Some people have all the luck’ (7) where he gives a clear understanding to the audience of how badly he envied Hugh’s life. Throughout the essay, he portrays his life as boring and devastating, but Hugh’s childhood as exciting. He often mentions in paragraphs 8, 20, and 21 Hugh’s pet monkey to symbolize how cheerful his life was compared to his. ‘We had a collie and a house cat. They had a monkey and two horses named Charlie Brown and Satan’ (8).

Throughout his paragraphs, he starts a conversation to bring out his present feelings about his childhood. Wondering what was going on with Hugh, he practically felt normal on those trips. That is when he knew his feeling towards Hugh was brought by very normal conditions.