Ex-Basketball Player

by John Updike

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What literary devices are used in "Ex-Basketball Player"?

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A literary device is any technique that an author uses to achieve their goals in a particular work, especially in regard to aesthetics. The numerous literary devices in the poem include direct characterization, second-person point of view, personification, internal rhyme, alliteration, consonance, assonance, and allusion.

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The term literary device is very broad. It refers to technical features of a literary work. A specific device may be any technique that the author employs to carry out their intended purpose. Most often, these goals relate to the aesthetics of the work but may relate to other aspects as well.

John Updike includes a large number of different devices in this poem. Some of the prominent devices that he uses throughout are direct characterization and second-person point of view or perspective. Other recurring devices include personification, alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Internal rhyme and allusion are also featured.

The poem as a whole is devoted to direct characterization of Flick Webb. The narrator focuses on a number of specific features that distinguish this individual, such as his height and his “fine and nervous” hands. The poem’s speaker uses second-person point of view, which is often called direct...

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address. This means that the narrator uses “you” in addressing the reader or audience, as in “you'll find Flick Webb … .”

John Updike frequently uses personification, the attribution of human characteristics to animals, things, or abstract concepts. This extends from line 1, when Pearl Avenue is personified through description of its movements, through the last two lines, in which candies are presented as “applauding” people.

Repeated sounds are used at several points. Related devices are alliteration, the repetition of initial consonant sounds, and consonance, the repetition of consonant sounds within a word. The author often combines these with assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds. Although the poem is in blank verse with no end rhymes, Updike occasionally includes internal rhyme within a line.

In two lines, he uses internal rhyme, consonance, assonance, and alliteration.

…the old bubble-head style,
Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.

The internal rhyme appears in the second line, with “elbows” rhyming with “low.” This is combined with assonance and consonance using O and L in “old” in the line before. Assonance and consonance are also combined in the soft U and the B sounds in “bubble-head” and “rubber.” “Loose and low” is an example of alliteration.

In another line, he uses alliteration twice with the GR and P sounds: “Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball….” This line also features internal rhyme, of “gray” and “plays.”

Sibilance is a particular kind of consonance using hissing sounds, often produced by S or SH. This appears in the line, “One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyes….”

Allusion is a reference, often indirect, to an actual person, thing or a literary work. Rather than name the brand of gas at this station, Updike alludes to it by identifying the initials on the pumps with elements of personification. These letters spell out E-S-S-O, referring to the former Esso gasoline brand, which is now part of Exxon-Mobil.

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Poets use literary devices, methods of using language to create new ways of perceiving things. In "The Ex-Basketball Player," while Updike's recurring character of the former high school athlete who has missed his chance for success works at Berth's Garage reminisces about his former glory days, Updike portrays this reminiscence in creative ways.  He uses the literary devices of imagery, simile, metaphor, and personification,

Personification  [the  attribution of human qualities to non-human things]

That Pearl Avenue "runs" past the high-school lot and "Bends" with the tracks, then "stops, cut off" suggests life on the street and helps the reader to visualize the settings.

The gas pumps are described as "idiot pumps" with "rubber elbows" and "nostrils" and "squat, without a head"  like a "football type."  This personification underscores the ex-basketball player's failure as it suggests that only the idiot pumps now are Flick's audience.

Flick nods to "bright applauding tiers/ Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads."  The only audience he has is not human; behind Flick is merely a counter of snacks.

That Flick has such "fine and nervous" hands "makes no difference to the lug wrench" suggests that the lug wrench can think.

Simile [a comparison using like or as ]

In describing Flick, the Updike writes, "His hands were like wild birds."

Imagery  [descriptive language to recreate sensory experiences]

In stanza two the image of Flick towering over the "idiot pumps" suggests that at one time Flick was like nobility among the townspeople.

"the bright applauding tiers" suggests the crowds that once came to watch the town's superstar.

Flick now is no superstar; he is "Grease-gray," dirty from his menial job.

Parallelism [two or more lines are directly related in structure]

The parallel structure in the verb phrases "just sells gas,/Cehck oil, and changes flats" creates a routine sound to Flick's menial job.

Each stanza is six lines long, with each line about the same length.  This appearance also suggests the routine life of Flick now in contrast to the excitement of having been a basketball star.

Blank verse

The poem is written in blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter which lends the poem a natural feeling, almost conversational.

Metaphor

The poem has a controlling metaphor in which Flick is like the street of the first line.  He was once a "Pearl," but because of missed opportunities, he also has been "stopped" and "cut off" before having "a chance" to go further in life.

All of the above-mentioned devices contribute to the theme of the poem.  For, with the use of these poetic devices, John Updike captures the poignancy of the misfortune of people who miss opportunities to capitalize upon their talents. 

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