Comparing Poems 'Casey At The Night And Bad Day'

Bad at Bat We do not live in a utopian society. Utopian societies do not exist for many reasons. Our world is not perfect, failure exists and we have to learn from our failures. Everything is not easy in our world, we sometimes have to experience tough times, but we have to learn how to adjust to them. Two pieces of lyrical work, the song “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter and the poem “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, direct attention to non-ideal situations through similar and different lights. While both of these pieces have different literal aspects such as setting and type of situation, “Bad Day” and “Casey at the Bat” both emphasize similar ideas about life through themes and a multitude of literary elements including narration,

In “Casey at the Bat” the speaker may be a sports announcer announcing the play by play of the game or simply just a spectator of the game. In “Bad Day” the speaker seems to be speaking for a group of people that he is a part of. Something different about these speakers is the fact that “Casey at the Bat” is recounting a very specific story, while “Bad Day” is recounting a general time of life that people experience. Both of these stories are easily relatable for readers. For “Casey at the Bat” readers may recount a time where they were under great pressure resulting in a failure. For “Bad Day” readers may recount times where they just had a bad day. In fact, the story told in “Casey at the Bat” could be an example of the times Powter describes in “Bad Day” since “The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day” (270). In both situations, the speaker is the story teller for the work. In “Casey at the Bat”, the speaker is recounting what they see and hear at that direct time. We are never directly told Casey’s thoughts while at bat, but we can make impressions based on his actions as described by the speaker. For example, after Casey’s second strike, Thayer writes, “’Fraud!’ cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered ‘Fraud!’/ But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed” (41-42). Based on the “scornful look” described by the speaker, we as readers are able to assume Casey is annoyed. In “Bad Day”, the speaker is speaking for a group that he is part of and provides the readers with his direct thoughts and feelings. The difference between these two speakers is the difference between objective and limited omniscient narrators. In “Bad Day” the narrator is classified as limited omniscient because they know almost everything about the characters. In “Casey at the Bat”, the narrator is classified as objective because they do not know any more