Discussion Topic
John Updike's tone, attitude, and point of view in "Ex-Basketball Player."
Summary:
John Updike's tone in "Ex-Basketball Player" is nostalgic yet critical, reflecting a sense of lost potential. His attitude is sympathetic towards Flick Webb but also subtly condemning of his inability to move beyond past glory. The point of view is third-person, providing an external perspective on Flick's life and his fall from a promising basketball career to a mundane existence.
What is the tone of John Updike's "Ex-Basketball Player"?
I think that one tone that can't be ignored is the reminiscent tone. The speaker is somebody that lives in the poem's town, and is somebody that used to watch Flick Webb play high school basketball. Several of the poem's stanza are the narrator's reminiscences about how great a basketball player Flick was.
However, I don't think that "reminiscent" quite captures the main tone of the poem though, and that's because reminiscent is a fairly emotion-neutral word. I can be reminiscent about all kinds of different things, and I will have a different attitude about many of them. I might be happy, sad, or remorseful for example.
I think the speaker's main attitude regarding Flick Webb is a mixture of remorse and sympathy. That tone I really get from the final stanza.
Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods
Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
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Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.
He never learned a trade, he just sells gas, Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while, As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
There is a forlorn reminiscence to the tone of John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player.” The poem details the adult life of a former high school basketball star named Flick Webb. While in high school, he had a special talent for the game, held records that were never broken and had hands that “were like wild birds.” In high school, he excelled at basketball, but “He never learned a trade, he just sells gas, checks oil, and changes flats.” Occasionally, he bounces a tire inner tube the way he did a basketball, but for the most part, he just works at the garage where the tools do not know his special talent. He works at the garage by day and hangs around the local diner in the evening. Flick’s life has changed from one of athletic prowess to a mundane, repetitive existence.
In "Ex-Basketball Player," what is John Updike's attitude?
In poetry, the attitude that is felt in the verse is much like the tone. Tone is often derived from direct statements, but it frequently resides in three other areas of a poem:
- The manner of presentation of certain images
- The implied meanings of words and sentences
- The rhyme and rhythms--the "music" of the poem
--Presentation of images
Throughout the poem entitled "Ex-Basketball Player," there are certain images that convey the straightforward tone and attitude of the speaker as he describes the dead end of the trolley tracks that "stop" and are "cut off" without having "a chance to go two blocks."
This matter-of-fact tone continues throughout the poem as the narration describes in free verse the glory of Flick's great history as a hero of the basketball team. He scored hundreds of points with his "hands...like wild birds." Now, he merely "dribbles an inner tube" and holds a lug wrench in his dead-end job.
--Implied meanings of words and sentences
The disappointment of the basketball star having been reduced to a mediocre job and life is suggested by the figurative meanings for words such as Pearl Avenue's being "cut off" beyond the high school lot /"[B]efore it has a chance to go two blocks." For like the street, Flick's life of fame is also abruptly ended after he leaves high school. Further in the poem, "Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps." The implication of this sentence is that Flick now is part of a scene of ludicrous things as, like the pumps, his long arms hang "loose and low."
When he is not working, Flick "hangs around" Mae's luncheonette. He has little to do, and he has lost his admiring crowd. Now he merely "plays pinball, smokes thin cigars," and nods to a rack of crackers and other snacks.
--The "music" of the poem
The parallel structure of the phrases,
...just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats...,
causes Flick's job to sound routine. In the last stanza, Flick is "grease gray" as he "plays pinball." The alliteration of these phrases creates a swift movement that suggests the wasting of his life. Then, as he nods to the "bright applauding tiers," they are but a reminder of Flick's sad misfortune as now the tiers are merely filled with only "...applauding.... Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads."
Clearly, then, the tone of John Updike's poem, "The Ex-Basketball Player" is one of nostalgia, disappointment, and loss.
References
What do you mean by attitude? You might find it helpful to expand on this question and make it more specific? Do you mean what attitude does Updike have about Flick Webb and his situation in life? I think we can clearly infer that Updike feels great sadness for Flick Webb, who, like Pearl Avenue, has started off with so much hope only to be curtailed suddenly:
Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks...
The geography of the streets matches the trajectory of Flick Webb's life: both are "cut off" before they have a chance to go anywhere. In addition, you might like to consider the way that Updike presents Flick Webb as a character who is haunted by the ghosts of his former victories, which is made all the more poignant by the way in which his current life is so devoid of success, meaning or purpose. Consider the last three lines of the poem:
Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods
Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.
The way that the metaphor in these lines is used to compare the tiers of candy to the "bright applauding" bleachers of his former matches creates a pitiful picture of a man who cannot reconcile his early success with his present mediocre existence.
What is the point of view in John Updike's "Ex-Basketball Player"?
John Updike's “Ex-Basketball Player” is a poem about a former high school basketball player named Flick Webb who becomes a gas station attendant after high school. The poem expresses a melancholy wistfulness, born of the drab life Flick leads following his basketball glory days.
Point of view is a literary element that has to do with the perspective from which a story is told.
An omniscient point of view gives the reader an all-knowing perspective—the writer can tell us anything: past, future, present, as well as the thoughts of any characters.
A third-person point of view focuses on one character, usually the protagonist. The writer can reveal details about that person only. Other characters are only seen through the main character's eyes. The reader can only know them to the degree to which the main character knows them.
The first person point of view incorporates the writer as a character. You will notice pronouns like “I,” “me,” “we,” and “us” when you encounter the first person point of view.
Although “Ex-Basketball Player” reads like a third-person piece most of the time, with the focus on Flick alone, it is actually told in the first person, as revealed by the following lines:
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game.
And
Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
But most of us remember anyway.
The pronouns “I” and “us” show that we are receiving the information from the speaker. This means that we have to consider the speaker's motivations and perceptions in any judgments we make about Flick, because he is being described by another person, not an “all-knowing” God-like narrator. It may be that Flick himself is not as sad about the loss of his earlier fame--perhaps the speaker is just nostalgic and sees it that way himself. Then again, the speaker might be perfectly correct in his observations of Flick.
References
What is the message of "Ex-Basketball Player" by John Updike?
Almost every school has a sports hero, someone who is natural at the game. Like the glittering stars whose brilliance fades overnight, some of these bright heroes seem to dim after graduation. Flick is such a person. Note how the first three lines act as a symbol of his life:
Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks.
In the same way, Flick's life has been "cut off" before it has had a chance to go further than High School. Although he was "the best" and "The ball loved Flick," his life now is wasted working in a gas station, because "He never learned a trade." Although his hands "are fine and nervous" this clearly makes no difference whatsoever to his undemanding and demeaning job now. Updike is thus making a sad point about so many students who seem to have such promise but whose future life harshly belies the dreams they may have once had.