SOAPSTone- Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out

           The subject of Dave Barry’s “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” is that women are very different from men. This subject is illustrated through the author’s examples of the differences between men and women such as most women’s’ ambiguity toward sports and their obsession with cleanliness. This helps illustrate the differences between men and women by comparing their reactions in similar situations, such as cleaning a bathroom, or missing a World Series game.

          
           “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” was written during the late 1980s. The essay’s time of creation is displayed in the introduction to the piece, but can also be guessed at more broadly from the casual, modern theme that still lacks the hardened cynicism of the 21^st century. From the carefree and light tone but the modern theme, you can tell that this is most likely from the 1980s or -90s, which is confirmed in the introduction from a secondary source, stating that this was written in 1988. The time and place of the essay’s creation influence the essay by contributing to the casual tone and making the subject more relevant. It makes the subject more relevant because it is so recent, not much has changed between then and now, so the subject still applies to us today. It contributes to the casual tone because the essay is from a decade that encouraged comedy and casualness. If this piece had been written in this decade, it probably would have been slightly more satirical than funny.

            Dave Barry’s specific audience for “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” is men who have a hard time understanding women. The author’s target audience is exhibited by his attempts to explain some aspects of a woman’s nature, while at the same time empathizing with the audience because he doesn’t really understand women either. He is clearly trying to explain his interpretation of women’s behavior to help out men who don’t understand them. He is also trying to connect with his audience by identifying himself as one of them. The author’s general audience for the essay is anyone who is willing to read it. The author’s general audience is shown by the fact that the comedy in this essay can be appreciated by a broad spectrum of readers; men who understand women can laugh at Barry’s ignorance, while women can either laugh at themselves or at Barry’s stupidity. The author is reaching out to a more general audience by making the humor more accessible to different types of people.

            Dave Barry’s purpose in “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” is to state his opinion about women and try to teach men about their nature. This is illustrated when he opens his piece with “The primary difference between men and women is that women can see extremely small quantities of dirt.” Barry gets right to the point, presenting and sharing his opinion about the difference between men and women. He is stating his opinion, and using his opinion as a basis to try and teach men about women. He also presents another opinion when he says “[Sports] is an area where men tend to feel very sensitive and women tend to be extremely calloused.” Here Barry is not only presenting his opinion about women, he is comparing it to information that his audience is already familiar with, so that they can put his opinion into context better and learn from it.

            Dave Barry, who is a humor columnist from Miami, believes that women are bizarre and complicated. This value is illustrated by the simple fact that he wrote this piece, in order to try and explain women, and the fact that the oddities of women are a common topic in his articles. This is important because if he didn’t think women were weird, he wouldn’t have written an article trying to explain them. Dave Barry also believes that anything can be made funny. This is illustrated by how he takes what would normally sound like the complaining and griping of a confused guy and makes it comedic. He has done similar things with topics such politics, finance, history, sports, and parenthood. This belief contributes to the purpose because since he’s trying to make this article, he’s coming up with ridiculous opinions and trying to teach them as fact.

            Dave Barry exhibits a joking and carefree attitude about the differences between men and women in “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out.” These attitudes are expressed with phrases such as “doing an important project on my Etch-a-Sketch,” “they could crush my skull like a ripe grape,” and “the women prattled away about human relationships or something.” The first phrase contributes to the joking attitude because the author is creating humor by saying that he was doing something ridiculous and nonsensical. The second quote also contributes to the joking attitude by giving a hyperbole that leaves an interesting mental image and creates humor by comparing the author’s head to fruit. And finally the last phrase adds to the carefree mood because the phrase “prattling away” is used to demonstrate that the women are carefree, and the phrase “or something” demonstrates that the author doesn’t care whether the women are carefree or not. This overall tone supports the purpose because it is more likely to put at ease and open the minds of the audience, so that they will be more perceptive to Barry’s opinion.