The subject of this essay is a comparison of male to female. We see this with the first line of the essay which says, “The primary difference between men and women is that women can see extremely small quantities of dirt.” From this we know what are subject is, and during the middle of the essay he makes a comparison this time talking about “men and sports.”
The year that this essay was written in is, 1988. We know this from the little insert at the beginning of this essay talking about the essay. Besides the paragraph at the beginning of the essay you cannot find anywhere else in the essay where it would allow you to infer the time period.
The audience this essay was written for is, middle-aged men and women. This is illustrated by the anecdotes he uses to prove his points. One is the use of a young boy, and the other, watching a World Series game when you’re supposed to be having conversation with the wife and friends. Both of these things took place during his middle-age (30-50).
The purpose of this essay is to entertain. He doesn’t use any hard facts or brings any strong resources. He just keeps using anecdote after anecdote to try to prove his point. Or he brings stuff into the essay to strengthen his argument; which doesn’t fit but he tries to make it work with what he is saying like his comparison of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe and the television and radio waves coming from the World Series game. Since he is writing with a humorous tone on a not-so-serious topic we can infer that the purpose of this essay is to entertain.
The speaker of this piece is the author himself. He uses First Person view throughout the whole essay. He uses personal anecdotes from his personal life to support his argument. The speaker plays a role in such that since he’s a humorist this paper is going to have a humorous tone to it.
The tone of this essay is humorous. We see this from all over. The essay starts off with something “humorous,” “The primary difference between men and women is that women can see extremely small quantities of dirt.” From this very first sentence you can infer that this isn’t going to be a very serious essay on a very serious topic. His use of personal anecdotes that are funny to support his argument, just lends more to the humorous tone. The fact that he is a humorist, can give you the cautionary to look out for this essay to have a humorous tone. The humorous tone helped the essay in that it made it funnier, thus more entertaining which was the purpose.
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