Exploring the Text

  1. In addition to creating a portrait of Flick Webb, the former basketball star, John Updike also creates a setting. What details does he use to set the scene?

    Question

    WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=
    Chapter 9 - Ex-Basketball Player - Exploring the Text: In addition to creating a portrait of Flick Webb, the former basketball star, John Updike also creates a setting. What details does he use to set the scene?
  2. Updike uses figurative language sparingly. Consider the effects of personification and simile in this poem.

    Question

    WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=
    Chapter 9 - Ex-Basketball Player - Exploring the Text: Updike uses figurative language sparingly. Consider the effects of personification and simile in this poem.
  3. What statement does the poem make about high school sports?

    Question

    WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=
    Chapter 9 - Ex-Basketball Player - Exploring the Text: What statement does the poem make about high school sports?
  4. Compare the effect of the following excerpt about a pickup basketball game from Updike’s novel Rabbit, Run (1960) with the effect of “Ex-Basketball Player” (1957).

    Yet in his time Rabbit was famous through the county; in basketball in his junior year he set a B-league scoring record that in his senior year he broke with a record that was not broken until four years later, that is, four years ago.

    He sinks shots one-handed, two-handed, underhanded, flat-footed, and out of the pivot, jump, and set. Flat and soft the ball lifts. That his touch still lives in his hands elates him. He feels liberated from long gloom.

    Question

    WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=
    Chapter 9 - Ex-Basketball Player - Exploring the Text: Compare the effect of the following excerpt about a pickup basketball game from Updike’s novel Rabbit, Run (1960) with the effect of “Ex-Basketball Player” (1957). Yet in his time Rabbit was famous through the county; in basketball in his junior year he set a B-league scoring record that in his senior year he broke with a record that was not broken until four years later, that is, four years ago. He sinks shots one-handed, two-handed, underhanded, flat-footed, and out of the pivot, jump, and set. Flat and soft the ball lifts. That his touch still lives in his hands elates him. He feels liberated from long gloom.