"Guy Walks into a Bar Car" by David Sedaris

A man describes his crazy experiences throughout his years of rigorous traveling on a train. He talks about the people he has encountered, the things he wishes he had done, and his viewpoints on traveling.

            Sedaris describes homosexual people and how they seem to him. He is credible to speak of this subject because he is gay as well, making him share a special connection with the homosexuals. Also, he talks about his relationships with past boyfriends and brief encounters with strangers during his travel.

            Sedaris is a big fan of smoking. He begins his essay with how travel used to be. People could smoke anywhere. Smoking cars existed in the early 1900s. But that is out of context because the Sedaris is retelling his story during a time when the concept of smoking in cars did not exist.

            Sedaris’s purpose of writing this essay is to show how frequent travel has changed him and how he has learned about himself as a person more because of traveling and meeting unique people.

            He is writing to people who understand his viewpoint of traveling and love affairs with strangers. He is writing to those to have experienced being crammed with others on a train or have seen people similar to the ones he has encountered.

            Sedaris uses many rhetorical devices in his essay to express what he sees. He describes his travel friend, Basir who he has just met, by using a simile. He says, “It was as if someone has coaxed the eyes out of Bambi and resettled them, half asleep, into a human face” (177). This shows that he was meaning to portray Basir as beautiful.

            David Sedaris successfully accomplished his purpose. He wrote an essay to show his views on traveling at the same time relating to any person who has traveled for many hours before. Despite if the reader was homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual, the reader could have related to David Sedaris’s essay, whether it was meeting a new person, feeling a strong connection with a random stranger, or traveling, for what it seems like interminable hours.

Traveling- You will be surprised to see the types of people you will meet as you travel. (www.pcmag.com)