How Does George Saunders Use Satire In I Can Sneaker

The short story “I CAN SPEAK!”, by George Saunders is about a salesman who writes back to a mother who is unhappy about purchasing a baby mask from a company. The salesman writes back about her issues. Saunders uses satire to critique upon the flaws of the consumeristic society that exists today, from both the consumer and producer sides. The system is not perfect because consumers are too gullible to realize they are spending too much on useless products. In the text, the mother is disappointed of the product and writes to the company. The salesman replies, “First, may I be so bold as to suggest that your disappointment may stem from your own, perhaps unreasonable expectations? Because in your letter, what you indicated, when I read it, was

In the text, the salesman writes in the letter, “Now, Mrs. Faniglia, you may be thinking, Hold on a sec, of course this guy loves his I CAN SPEAK! He probably gets his for free! But not so, Mrs. Faniglia, I get mine for two grand, just like you.” (Saunders 88). The salesman is relating to the mother by saying that he also gets his for the same price. This gets the mother thinking that since the salesman is paying full price, she is getting a good deal by getting a complimentary upgrade to the latest model. This is also seen when the salesman talks about his own child using the mask. He says, “Since we upgraded to ICS2100, things have been great, Billy looks almost identical to himself, and is not nearly so, you know boring as before, when we had the ICS1900, which (frankly) says some rather predictable things, which I expect is partly why you were so unhappy with it” (Saunders 88). The salesman is again trying to make it feel as if the mother is talking to another person with similar issues rather than a large company just trying to sell a product, which is ironically what they are doing. This makes the consumer more inclined to purchase the product. Saunders is criticizing companies for using this technique to sell products, especially useless items such as this baby