Analysis of "ex-Basketball Player" by John Updike

Analysis of “Ex-Basketball Player” by John Updike

            Everyone’s life has its highest and lowest points. In the poem “Ex-Basketball Player” by John Updike, documents the daily life of high school basketball superstar Flick Webb. He was once the area’s best basketball player, but he soon lost his stardom and later acquires a job at Berth’s Garage selling gas and changing flats. Often he reminisces his glory days while on the job. Updike portrays this reminiscence in many creative ways in the form of literary devices, such as personification, alliteration, and similes. He also uses imagery to paint a vivid picture of the story. While he does not take a direct good or bad side, he uses these devices to contrast the dark and gloomy turmoil of his present life and his bright and ecstatic past.

Updike uses imagery to depict a dim, grimy world of the current situation he is in and compare it with the brilliant, shining magnificence of his past. Imagery is used right away, coming in the first two lines of the poem, where the street Flick lives on, Pearl Avenue, “bends with the trolley tracks and stops, cut off” (1). These 2 sentences show how Flick’s life was cut short, just like the road that leads to Berth’s Garage where he works. The train passes by the high school Flick went to, but just like him, it doesn’t go very far from there. The words “cut off” play a very big role in the poem. They show how his fame was ended abruptly and he realized that “He never learned a trade” (4). This can develop a depressing type of mood. There is also imagery shown in the second stance as well. Updike writes, “Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps, five on a side, the old bubble head style, their rubble elbows hanging loose and low” (2). This can suggest that these non-living objects are as close as Flick comes to any sort of real contact with others. The fact that he refers the gas pumps as “more of a football type” (2) can indicate that he still looks at things from a sports perspective. He also stands by 5 pumps, as there are 5 basketball players on the court at a time.

There are multiple examples of figurative language throughout the poem that affect the poem and help set the mood for various occasions. In the last stanza, Flick nods to "bright applauding tiers of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads” (5).  The only audience he has is not human, and the only thing behind Flick is just a counter of snacks. This is an example of personification. The counter of snacks might be a row of fans to Flick, and gives a strong indication that Flick’s mind is still immersed in the past. This line can promote that loneliness that Flick might possibly be experiencing. The basketball is personified in the third stanza,