Nuit+of+the+Living+Dead

"Nuit of the Living Dead" by David Sedaris is is told by Sedaris himself in a personal account of one very interesting night he had experienced while by himself in their country home in Normandy. The story starts out in the early morning hours with him explaining his plan in the event of a zombie outbreak and how he would wait out the attack out. While in his house alone he hears noises up in the attic which has been known to be mice in which his partner Hugh puts traps upstairs for them. Upon going up stairs he discovers one of the poor little rodents is struggling for dear life in one of the horrid traps. After a few attempts in trying to save the mouse Sedaris realizes he had hurt him more than helped and decides it is most humane to put him out of his misery; the best way to do so would be to drown him in a bucket on his porch. While on his mission to end the mouses life a van of lost strangers pull onto his property trying to be pointed in the right direction of their destination. At first Sedaris is uneasy because of the time of night and the fact that not many tourist come through this part of the country, along with the fact that his mind has already wandered into spooky places. Once he realizes all the strangers need are directions he invited the driver onto his porch, when he realizes the map the stranger has is of no use he invites him into his house to take a look at a better one. While the man is walking up the porch steps Sedaris realizes how in his efforts to save the mouse from his misery may look to the man whom he has never met. Once they enter the house all the things in his living room that he had always seen as normal are starting to have creepy tendencies. With the Visible Man model he had been working on a couple hours before to the true-crime magazines on the daybed with a victim that has been badly beaten on a camping trip on the cover of one of them. A couple of gun magazines here and there, then to top it all off the unnecessary meat clever lying on a picture of the neighbors grandchild. Everything in his house that he had not really thought about before had all seemed to develop the pattern of things you would see in a scary movie. After the tourist left back on his way, Sedaris realized that the darkness of outside was not the only thing for him to be scared of because now the inside of his house seemed just as creepy.
 * __Summary__**

__**Topics**__ The topics on the story are loneliness, paranoia, fear and conditioning from society/media of what to fear.

__**Evaluation**__ Upon picking the story the title, "Nuit of the Living Dead" gave me a little insight of what the story might be about. I had to look up what nuit actually meant, which is night in french. This fits the story very well because it takes place out in the country in Normandy, which is located right outside of France. As for the story line, I did not really expect it to go the way it did with Sedaris trying to down the mouse on his last leg and then with him creeping himself out with the items in his house that he has seen everyday. Our minds are so powerful that I feel most people have done something like this before. Seeing something that was not always frightening to you suddenly becoming scary because of the time of night and the places our minds have gone to at the same time. I did not see the ending coming where he invites the tourists to stay at his house after intially being afraid of them, but when he realized that he was more scared of being by himself than having people he does not even know staying in his home, it made sense. Overall, I think "Nuit of the Living Dead was a very interesting short story, I was able to get into the story and stay interested all the way through the end.

__**Works Cited**__ // David Sedaris " Nuit of the Living Dead". Literature and the Writing Process, // Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, Robert Funk, Linda Coleman. Tenth Edition. Pearson, 2014. 448-453. Print.


 * Wiki Part 2 **

__**Resources:**__
 * Internet resource-** Information on [|David Sedaris]

On the website, Famous Authors, they talk about David Sedaris' writing style and how he initially started on his career. The website also give a small timeline on his career and when his most popular works came out to the public. It then talks about his family dynamic and being raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. Along with his academic endeavors after graduation. On the [|Offcial David Sedaris Website] it gives more information on his just his writing. Mentioning the books he has written and the short stories. It gives fans information on his tour dates and ways to contact his publisher for speaking engagements and press purposes.

David Sedaris. 2012. FamousAuthors.org 1 April, [] The Official David Sedaris Website. 2015. DavidSedarisBooks.com http://www.davidsedarisbooks.com/index.html 
 * Database Resource-** Articles about "Nuit of the Living Dead"