For the final paper I have chosen to read and discuss Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I am nearing the end of the novel and have so far enjoyed the book. Heller’s use of ironies, paradoxes, and just old-fashioned slapstick humor is very enjoyable. The generally humorous tone of the novel makes it a different kind of literary great and separates it from most other novels from the suggested reading list.
I plan to stick with the saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and analyze the novel in relation to Biblical meaning. The parallelisms between the story itself and various religious references are something that stick out in particular to myself while reading. Of course on the off chance I don’t find enough material to write about however, I may find myself writing on a very different topic.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The Death of an Athletic Salesman
Brett Favre, Michael Jordan, Christian Laettner, Ian Thorpe, and many other athletes have all experienced it; a fall from fame. Some are affected by injury and illness, others have their accomplishments eclipsed by younger, stronger athletes, and a number just play their respective sports for too long. Brett Favre should have retired long ago, and Michael Jordan should never have come back out of retirement. But the type of fall from greatness that is the central idea of “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Houseman is that of Ian Thorpe, who was merely eclipsed by the faster swimmer, Michael Phelps.
The athlete described in the poem avoids the cold and heartless fate that awaits anyone and everyone. There will always be another that is better in some way, the world will go on. A stark contrast to the early death of the runner is the outcome of another athlete’s life in “Ex-Basketball Player”, by John Updike. Flick, one of the greatest basketball players to pass through a certain high school ends up living a monotonous life of a mechanic. Another example of this would be James “Boobie” Miles, in “Friday Night Lights.” A division 1 prospect and one of the best to ever play football for the Permian Panthers, football is all Boobie knows in life. So when he tore his ACL, Boobie’s life as he knew it vanishes and is left with nothing, as he fearfully sees himself in the men who come by to pick up the garbage.
Within this message is the question, what is the perfect time to die? Dying too early might prevent someone from achieving all they potentially could, and we all know what happens when you stick around for too long. Housman insinuates that there is a certain truth to the phrase “past one’s prime” and that this time period occurs very early, although an age margin is not specified in the poem.
The only way to overcome this tragic fate is to die too early to witness it. Thus the speaker of the poem does not view the early death of this great and celebrated athlete as a tragedy but more as a blessing. This escape “from fields where glory does not stay” will allow the runner to live on in greatness within the memories of others. Similar to the northern Germanic tribes, who believed that the only way to escape death was through one’s legacy, the speaker seems to view this avoidance of the decline of fame as the ultimate goal. Wistful and melancholy tones mixed with a slightly detectable yearning lead the reader to believe that the speaker is himself an athlete who once was great but now is forgotten. Several lines also indicate that the speaker is also somehow related to the deceased, either a pallbearer or a friend, or both. The reader can hypothesize that the speaker used to be the town hero until the deceased broke his or her record. It is not hard to believe that the line “the time you won your town the race” holds a certain amount of bitterness to it as the fame transferred from the speaker to the new athlete.
Housman, like John Donne, seems initially to challenge death, or better yet, welcome it. The young athlete who died in this poem is seen as fortunate, one who got the best situation. Yet the underlying message is quite cynical, for the deceased merely escaped the tragic fates that befall everyone by his own lack of knowledge. Although his “eyes the shady night has shut cannot see the record cut”, this still indicates that the record will be broken by another, better athlete and the sport and on the whole, the world, will go on. So the best course of action to take to achieve greatness is to hide one’s head in the sand and enjoy oneself- “ignorance is bliss- otherwise, there is no escape. (655)
The athlete described in the poem avoids the cold and heartless fate that awaits anyone and everyone. There will always be another that is better in some way, the world will go on. A stark contrast to the early death of the runner is the outcome of another athlete’s life in “Ex-Basketball Player”, by John Updike. Flick, one of the greatest basketball players to pass through a certain high school ends up living a monotonous life of a mechanic. Another example of this would be James “Boobie” Miles, in “Friday Night Lights.” A division 1 prospect and one of the best to ever play football for the Permian Panthers, football is all Boobie knows in life. So when he tore his ACL, Boobie’s life as he knew it vanishes and is left with nothing, as he fearfully sees himself in the men who come by to pick up the garbage.
Within this message is the question, what is the perfect time to die? Dying too early might prevent someone from achieving all they potentially could, and we all know what happens when you stick around for too long. Housman insinuates that there is a certain truth to the phrase “past one’s prime” and that this time period occurs very early, although an age margin is not specified in the poem.
The only way to overcome this tragic fate is to die too early to witness it. Thus the speaker of the poem does not view the early death of this great and celebrated athlete as a tragedy but more as a blessing. This escape “from fields where glory does not stay” will allow the runner to live on in greatness within the memories of others. Similar to the northern Germanic tribes, who believed that the only way to escape death was through one’s legacy, the speaker seems to view this avoidance of the decline of fame as the ultimate goal. Wistful and melancholy tones mixed with a slightly detectable yearning lead the reader to believe that the speaker is himself an athlete who once was great but now is forgotten. Several lines also indicate that the speaker is also somehow related to the deceased, either a pallbearer or a friend, or both. The reader can hypothesize that the speaker used to be the town hero until the deceased broke his or her record. It is not hard to believe that the line “the time you won your town the race” holds a certain amount of bitterness to it as the fame transferred from the speaker to the new athlete.
Housman, like John Donne, seems initially to challenge death, or better yet, welcome it. The young athlete who died in this poem is seen as fortunate, one who got the best situation. Yet the underlying message is quite cynical, for the deceased merely escaped the tragic fates that befall everyone by his own lack of knowledge. Although his “eyes the shady night has shut cannot see the record cut”, this still indicates that the record will be broken by another, better athlete and the sport and on the whole, the world, will go on. So the best course of action to take to achieve greatness is to hide one’s head in the sand and enjoy oneself- “ignorance is bliss- otherwise, there is no escape. (655)
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