What does Talese tell us about the position of sports in American popular culture?

How does Gay Talese create a picture of Joe DiMaggio at loose ends that nevertheless suggests his heroism?

What does Talese tell us about the position of sports in American popular culture?

Talese describes DiMaggio as a “kind of male Garbo,” referring to the legendary, reclusive film star Greta Garbo (para. 85). The comparison suggests that DiMaggio’s detachment was a masculine ideal. Does this ideal still resonate? How does it square with the image of today's superstar athletes? Does our media- crazy era demand more engagement from our heroes? Are we still capable of being moved by the mystique (para. 85)?

Talese has said that his work is a highly personal response to the world as an Italian American outsider. What evidence do you find that it is an outsiders voice? How does the authorial voice of an outsider add nuance to the profile of Joe DiMaggio?

Why is spring the silent season? Consider the title from the perspective of fishing and baseball.

Talese suggests but doesnt come out and say that Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were competitive about their celebrity. How does Talese use Monroes mythical status to develop his portrait of DiMaggio? Is he sympathetic to her? Does his profile of DiMaggio deepen our understanding of Monroe, or does she remain as tantalizingly out of reach as she seems to have been to DiMaggio? Explain your responses.

Several parts of the essay espe cially paragraphs 3 and 41 evoke Hemingway. How do the images and language of those allusions create another level of meaning? How do they add to the portrait of DiMaggio?

What is the overall tone of the essay? How does Talese achieve his tone? How does the tone add a layer of meaning?

Talese notes that sportswriters have called DiMaggio an immortal (para. 124). How does the essay both support and debunk that myth?

Explain the assumptions Talese makes about his audience based on his portrait of DiMaggio as an aging hero.

Do your children have fears about going away to camp?

Antigone was very protective of Oedipus in Oedipus at Colonus.

Identify the verbs and verbals in the following passages. Discuss how these verbs affect the tone of the passages. His vets warned us all along that the odds were against him, but we didnt really believe them. They had hope, too. How could a horse who appeared so full of life break his leg and be so suddenly close to death? His head was fine. His back was fine. His lungs and heart and chest were fine. In fact, after a while, his broken leg was fairly fine. It was another leg that was so worrisome, since the weight of his body constantly bearing down on the delicate structures inside his foot eventually damaged and destroyed them. Jane Smiley, Barbaro, The Heart in the Winners Circle She maintains her composure until we get in the car, then crumples in humiliation. Once were on the highway, forty miles to home, freezing rain coats our windows, but I cant see well enough to find a safe place to pull off. I drive with trepidation over the slippery road, through the foggy darkness, while Emily cries so hard it sounds as though she will break apart. Mommy, Im such a failure! she weeps. At first my attempts to comfort her only increase her misery, so I shut up. Im left to listen and worry about the road and think my resentful thoughts. I remember all the years in elementary school when she was benched in the classroom left to do bulletin boards for the teacher because shed already mastered what was being taught. I think about the studies that suggest that girls who compete in athletics are far less likely to drink or take drugs or become pregnant. Kris Vervaecke, A Spectators Notebook

Analyze the verbs in the opening paragraph of The Cruelest Sport (p. 622). How would you describe the verbs Joyce Carol Oates uses? How do they mirror the subject she is writing about? Do the verbs she uses tip you off that this is a piece that is more complex and aca demic than usual for sportswriting? Cite specific examples to support your view. Professional boxing is the only major American sport whose primary, and often murderous, energies are not coyly deflected by such artifacts as balls and pucks. Though highly ritualized, and as rigidly bound by rules, traditions, and taboos as any religious ceremony, it survives as the most primitive and terrifying of contests: two men, near- naked, fight each other in a brightly lit, elevated space roped in like an animal pen (though the ropes were originally to keep rowdy spectators out); two men climb into the ring from which only one, symbolically, will climb out. (Draws do occur in boxing, but are rare, and unpopular.)

Count the verbs in one of the passages in Exercise 2. Then categorize them into linking verbs and more vivid action verbs, and calculate the ratio. Do the same for several paragraphs of your own writing. Are you relying more on linking verbs, or are most of your verbs direct and precise action verbs?