Ex-basketball Player Analysis Essay Example

being the brightest individuals. This mockery of a basketball game goes further when Flick dribbles an inner tube as a joke later in the third stanza.

The third stanza describes Flick’s past, the prime of his years playing basketball in high school. “He was good: in fact, the best,” (14). He held a county record, which suggests that he was not the best ever, since it is a county record as compared to a state or higher record, but he definitely still had ample potential. “The ball loved Flick,” (16).

This is contrasted in the next stanza, where his hands and fine touch which were loved by the ball “make no difference to the lug wrench,” (24).Updike uses the most striking imagery at the end of the third stanza; “His hands were like wild birds,” (18). This can imply that his hands were nimble and extremely fast, but still maintained an air of the athletic gracefulness that birds have. In the fourth stanza, Flick is seen as only selling gas, performing maintenance on people’s cars, and jokingly dribbling inner tubes. This is what all his skill and potential has amounted to.

In the fifth and final stanza, even on his free time off work Flick wastes his life playing pinball, drinking soda, and smoking. He “just nods…toward bright applauding tiers of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads,” (28-30). Applauding tiers, not of admiring fans during a basketball game, but of candy. This is the final derisive reference to a basketball game. Updike’s theme in this poem is talent that is squandered.

He is warning the readers against cultivating a talent or skill in an area and not

following through with it.