David Sedaris Let It Snow Analysis

Snow days are special in the eyes of children. When they happen to children in Ohio, we may take it for granted as we are near-guaranteed to have a few every year. To children in warmer regions, snow days are extraordinary. David Sedaris captures this feeling in his short story, “Let It Snow.” The plot follows the mind of a fifth grade Sedaris and his struggle with his mother, his parents’ marriage, and her idea to lock Sedaris outside with his siblings.

People of all ages are uneasy when it comes to talking about parts of their lives they are not particularly proud of, or do not fully understand. Sedaris uses the snowstorm as a diversion from the deeper underlying problems that are presented to him in his youth. He describes his mother’s drinking problem, “Normally she waited until five o’clock to have a drink, but for the past few days she’d been making an exception” (Sedaris). The more frequent drinking may have been a product of the strain of Sedaris’s mother and father, which is referred to later in the story. “He’d gone to work specifically to escape our mother” (Sedaris).

Children are not the most prime candidates to make life-changing or life-affecting situations. Looking back on the idea of

“Let It Snow” shows just how uneducated and naive young teens and children are about these difficult topics. The ending signifies something almost everyone can relate to, which really sells the story for me, the unconditional love that a child has for their parents. I have had situations in my life where my parents have really upset me, or vise-versa; but at the end of the day, the love between myself and my parents is never tarnished. Sedaris’s choice of words when he says, “surrounding her tightly on all sides, we made our way back home” (Sedaris) signifies that no matter how much their mother may cast them out, they're willing to stink by their