SOAPSTone: November 7, 2011

Subject

The subject of Dave Barry’s “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out,” is that men and women have vastly different outlooks and priorities in life. Men and women viewing the same dilemma differently is illustrated with the cleanliness of Robert’s bathroom. Barry is the typical man, if it looks clean and doesn’t have any obvious spills or piles of dirt then the room is clean. On the other hand the wife sees even a messy stack of papers as filth and clutter.

Occasion

“Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out,” was written during the 1980’s. The essay’s time of creation is illustrated by the source of the essay, Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits (1988). The essay would have had to have been written before 88 but not long before it. The probable place of the essay’s creation is America or Miami because Barry began writing as a humor columnist in Miami in the 80’s.

The time and place of the essay’s creation influence the essay in what stories he told from his life to support the points he was trying to prove. When Barry talks about the amount of housework men do compared to women he talks about how the man does very little, showing he is out of the time period when women were believed to do 100% of the cooking and cleaning.

Audience

Dave Barry’s specific audience for “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out,” is a father or a married man. The author’s target audience is exhibited by how Barry always talks about the way he does things and the way his wife reacts to them and never the other way around. By never giving how Barry reacts to things his wife does that he asks her to do shows that he is targeting this piece to married men.

The author’s general audience for the essay is men. The author’s general audience is shown by the constant explanation from the man perspective of everything.

Purpose

Dave Barry’s purpose in “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out,” is to express a man’s viewpoint vs. a woman’s viewpoint. Situations are viewed differently by men and that is illustrated with, “She is in there looking at the very walls I just Windexed, and she is seeing dirt! Everywhere!”(230). Barry thought that he had cleaned the walls; however, they were not up to the wife’s standard of being clean by any means. The purpose is further revealed by the statement, “Soon all four of us were in there, watching the Annual Fall Classis, while the women prattled away about human relationships or something,”(231). The men could have cared less what the women were talking about as long as they got to watch the baseball game.

Speaker

Dave Barry, receiver of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize, believes men view life differently than women. The value is illustrated by their wanted to watch a baseball game instead of socializing. Men value sports as a higher priority then being social.

Dave Barry, Haverford College graduate, also believes men have lower life standards than women do. When Barry cleaned his son’s bathroom, it was not to suit for his wife. Her level of clean is vastly greater than his.

Dave Barry’s use of word choice is evident in his description of his reasoning for things and the feel of the piece. When he is discussing the 600 action figures you can feel his frustration but also his light heartedness of the situation.

Dave Barry’s use of structure is evident when he discusses a point and then gives personal explanations of it. He talks about how men have a different view of what clean is and then he gives and example of his definition of cleaning the bathroom compared to his wife’s.

Tone

Dave Barry exhibits a humorist and serious attitude about men and women life viewpoints in “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out.” These attitudes are expressed with filthy, dirt, and social gaffe. He is putting emphasis on filthy and dirt to show how serious his wife took cleaning the bathroom, yet he is serious in some sense because he uses academic words, phrases, and tones every now and then.