Throughout the poem “Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt,” literary devices such as imagery, symbolism and setting are all different ways in which David Bottoms conveys the intricate relationship between a father and his son. This profound poem describes a boy who can’t stop looking at the center-field fence to learn about the all important, but not so exciting bunt. In this way, this poem is a prime example of the importance of selflessness. In “Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt, ” David Bottoms stresses the importance of selflessness and the fundamentals in baseball and in life through the use of effective imagery, powerful symbolism and a timeless setting.
The setting of the baseball field in “Sign for my Father who Stressed the Bunt” is revealing of important and major themes throughout the poem. By using words such as “rough” and “hand-cut” he establishes the setting of a rural baseball field where the majority of this poem takes place. Although time passes and the son gets older, the father still is trying and failing to teach his son to appreciate the bunt in the timeless “hand cut” baseball field. The son never seems to understand the father and his endless antics about the basics of bunting. The son comments, “I admired your style, but not enough to
…show more content…
The bunt is a symbol of self-sacrifice for the greater good and not just for yourself. The home run is a symbol of selfishness and arrogance. Although home runs can help a team easily score runs in baseball, it can also be very risky and dangerous if everyone on the team is swinging for the fences. Every team needs at least one kid to do what is most important for the team, not just for himself, and in “Sign for my Father who Stressed the Bunt” the father is trying to help his son become that
In the poem “Casey at Bat” and story “David and Goliath,” a comparison of David and Casey shows differences and similarities. The differences are that David could have been killed in his situation and in Casey’s, he will be safe and will get paid either way. David was fighting a giant and could have died, and Casey was just playing a baseball game. Both had problems to face, and both had that task finish and only one of those people did their job. Both of these characters had confidence, David knew that with God he could kill the giant and Casey was a little over confident because he waited to his last chance to attempt to hit the ball.
In the workshop, “What baseball taught me about diversity,” Antonio D. Evans explained the way diversity connects to every aspect of playing baseball. His experiences throughout his baseball career taught him how to be culturally diverse and how society can become culturally diverse. He mentions that he played on teams with people who didn’t think like him, act like him or look like him, but he accepted them as a human being. Evans’ also states that baseball is a good teacher of life and you can be bad seventy percent of the time and still be one of the best.
This illustration similarly makes use of the notion of his fantasy materializing. He feels as though he is living in a fairytale now that his childhood ambition of becoming a baseball player has come true. Later in the story, when the tone changes from joy to disillusionment, we see a difference. In order to illustrate the disparity, Updike writes: "They no longer even attempt to turn the bends when it comes to me; they simply put it down the road.
The Sports Illustrated “Pat Tillman” cover has a symbolic design. Tillman runs off the field with his helmet raised in excitement, revealing long, brown hair flowing behind him. He screams, out of happiness or anger, we do not know why; all we know is that he belongs there playing the game that he loves with a passion (Biography.com Editors n.pag.). Red seems to embody his warrior like spirit (SI “In” n. pag.). To appeal to their audience, this magazine cover uses certain techniques.
The story “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer is a story about a baseball player who everyone thinks will hit the ball to win the game. Casey is similar to music idol Taylor Swift because they both have fans who believe they are almost perfect people. In this poem, the author shows Casey’s power over the fans as well as how this affects Casey’s attitude and his performance in the game through a simile and by writing the phrase, “There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face” in the characterization of Casey. Thayer uses a simile to show Casey’s power over his fans in the poem.
He had poems all over the glove, and he said that he did it so “he’d have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was at bat” (Salinger 43). The innocence that is displayed in just the simple fact of he just
“Execution” by Edward Hirsch is about an adult recollecting his thoughts about his high school football career and especially how his coach inspired him because his authoritative role model was battling cancer. The speaker talks about the coach’s goal for “perfect execution” and the infinite strategies the coach would draw up in order to reach his goal. The speaker concludes with their team’s loss against “the downstate team” and how they were ironically defeated by “perfect execution.” A superficial reader might assume that the poem was about the disappointing results that came from his team working hard to reach a goal, but the author’s use of impersonal tone and irony in the fact that their team’s loss is caused by “perfect execution” shows how a strong force can be conquered even when putting your best foot forward when accepting a challenge. Have you ever been a part of a team that seemed invincible and you lost?
For different people, comparable situations do not always reproduce the same end results or leave the same impressions. Rather, the resulting conclusion is often highly variable. As is the case of two labors featured in the poems, My Father’s Lunch” and “The life of a Digger”. While Erica Funkhouser’s speaker, Henry, experiences injustice and lack of reward for his hard labor in “The Life of a Digger,” Margarita Engle’s speaker experiences prosperity and remuneration for their father’s hard work in “My Father’s Lunch.” Each author uses the setting of a laboring man’s lunch break to demonstrate the ramifications of a hard day’s work and the rewards or lack thereof for their efforts.
‘For What It’s Worth’ by Buffalo Springfield has a logical message because it is referring to the Sunset Strip Riots that took place in Hollywood during the 1960’s. People protested when they lost their civil rights due to a curfew law that was put into place. The song says, “Stop, children, what’s that sound. Everybody look- what’s going down?”
In John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player” the poet uses literary devices to depict the existing way of life of a once-famous sportsperson. Flick Webb was in before times a gifted athlete on his high school basketball team, and he was commendable of much awe. However, Flick never acquired any other skills to prepare him for a future. Accordingly, he now is locked into an unskilled job and his former glories have pale to all but Flick himself. Updike has created a character that is at this point in time going nowhere and spends most of his time thinking about his former days of glory.
Throughout “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sundays”, the author’s reflect on how their fathers were hard workers, although each memory is emotionally different. In “My Papa’s Waltz”, Roethke remembers his father coming home from work and his hands “Was battered on one knuckle” (Line 10). Even though the father had a long day at work, the boy recounts him coming home and dancing with him. Whereas “Those Winter Sundays”, Hayden recalls his fathers hard work by describing his “Cracked hands that ached/
By Chaim Potok doing this, he is showing how mysterious this character and this novel is. Anonymous narrator talks about his love for baseball several times throughout this novel. He’s a 15 year-old Jewish boy who is very kind-hearted. While sharing his love for baseball, this boy joins a baseball team with several other boys already on it just after World War II. These boys grow close and end up being really close friends.
Soon his team runs onto the field and begins to play. As a reader I felt that the imagery enhanced my experience, describing why the protagonist does these tasks. If the author had not used imagery like the baseball announcer approaching the protagonist or the description of the old fashioned uniform what Shoeless Joe was wearing, it would have been difficult to imagine the scenes. Since these scenes are the beginning of the story and are very important to the novel, the author used good words to make it visually
Comparing and contrasting Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”, one finds the two poems are similar with their themes of abuse, yet contrasting with how the themes are portrayed. Furthermore, the speaker 's feelings toward their fathers’ in each poem contrast. One speaker was hurt by the father and the other speaker was indifferent about how he was treated by his father. The fathers’ feelings toward the children are also different despite how each treated the child. Both poems accurately portray the parent-child relationships within an abusive home, even if they have different
Rina Morooka Mr Valera Language Arts Compare and Contrast essay on “The poet’s obligation”, “When I have fears that I may cease to be”, and “In my craft of sullen art” The three poems, “The poet’s obligation” by Neruda, “when I have fears that I may cease to be” by Keats, and “In my craft of sullen art” by Thomas, all share the similarity that they describe poets’ relationships with their poems. However, the three speakers in the three poems shared different views on their poetry; the speaker in Neruda’s poem believes that his poems which were born out of him stored creativity to people who lead busy and tiring life, and are in need of creativity, while the speaker in Keats’ poem believes that his poems are like tools to write down what