barry and britt
Rose Claire E. Villarson
“Batting Clean Up and Striking Out” and “Neat People Vs. Sloppy People” Dave Barry’s essay “Batting Clean Up and Striking Out” was written during the 1980s. This essay is from the collection of essays in the book Dave Barry’s greatest hits written in 1988. Suzanne Britt’s essay “Neat People Vs. Sloppy People” appears in Britt’s collection show to tell. Both essays have severe differences in their tones and organization but they share allusions, symbols and an element of mess that give each of them certain particularities. Britt’s organization is subject by subject. She started talking about sloppy people first and neat people after and at the end, sum up their similarities and differences. For example, Britt says: “for all these reasons and more, sloppy people never get neat. They aim too high and wide” (256). She continues on like this talking about sloppy people. She does the same while talking about neat people: “Neat People are bums and clods at heart. They have cavalier attitudes toward possessions, including family heirlooms” (256). This method by discussing sloppy people fully and then turns to the discussion of the neat people makes her essay less funny. However, Barry’s organization is point by point. He considers one point at a time talking up men and women alternatively. He says: But somewhere during the growth process, a hormonal secretion takes place in women that enable to see dirt that men can’t see, dirt at the level of molecules, whereas men don’t generally notice it until it forms clumps large enough to support agriculture” (261).
This type of organization keep his essay organizes by keeping each point men and women together. So the reader doesn’t have to remember too much information when reading the essay. Britt’s subject is
“Batting Clean Up and Striking Out” and “Neat People Vs. Sloppy People” Dave Barry’s essay “Batting Clean Up and Striking Out” was written during the 1980s. This essay is from the collection of essays in the book Dave Barry’s greatest hits written in 1988. Suzanne Britt’s essay “Neat People Vs. Sloppy People” appears in Britt’s collection show to tell. Both essays have severe differences in their tones and organization but they share allusions, symbols and an element of mess that give each of them certain particularities. Britt’s organization is subject by subject. She started talking about sloppy people first and neat people after and at the end, sum up their similarities and differences. For example, Britt says: “for all these reasons and more, sloppy people never get neat. They aim too high and wide” (256). She continues on like this talking about sloppy people. She does the same while talking about neat people: “Neat People are bums and clods at heart. They have cavalier attitudes toward possessions, including family heirlooms” (256). This method by discussing sloppy people fully and then turns to the discussion of the neat people makes her essay less funny. However, Barry’s organization is point by point. He considers one point at a time talking up men and women alternatively. He says: But somewhere during the growth process, a hormonal secretion takes place in women that enable to see dirt that men can’t see, dirt at the level of molecules, whereas men don’t generally notice it until it forms clumps large enough to support agriculture” (261).
This type of organization keep his essay organizes by keeping each point men and women together. So the reader doesn’t have to remember too much information when reading the essay. Britt’s subject is
Cited: Barry, Dave. “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” The Bedford Reader. Ed X. J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy and Jane E. Aaron. 11th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2012. 261- 263. Print. Britt, Suzanne. “Neat People vs Sloppy People”. The Bedford Reader. Ed X. J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy and Jane E. Aaron. 11th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2012. 255-257. Print.