Hit The Ball By John Updike Analysis

They say hitting a baseball is one of the hardest and most calculated things to do in any sport, yet pros can get into a rhythm and hit the ball most of the time. According to the author John Updike reminisces about a time when he was in an audited slump. In addition, a slump in baseball conveys a drought, almost as if you are unable to hit the ball. Subsequently, the author proclaims that the coaches had blamed it on his reluctant reflexes, or that the papers say he isn't hungry anymore. But he knows this isn't the case, as he has proved these two possibilities wrong. This drought causes him to become disappointed and sad with himself. Finally, throughout the story, John Updike creates the literary techniques of mood, imagery, and metaphor

Almost as if he has lost the spark, the mood of the text is disappointing, he speaks of how he is to be traded because he cannot hit, and how coaches believe he lost his reflexes, and the paper believes he lost his hunger. Even reminiscing, "The flutters don't come when they used to." The author thinks back to when he was an outstanding hitter; he would be terrified before games with this high expectation set and would hit pre-game, but now not so much. He no longer gets nervous, and the cycle gets broken, yet now he cannot hit. Implementing a mood to demonstrate his sorrow as he has lost his spark. No longer being able to hit means he is no longer a valuable asset to the team and he knows it. This slump creates his mood to be quite a dark evening refusing to be intimate with his wife because he is too disappointed in himself. "Now she slides by with a hurt expression and a flicker of grey above her temple, I go out and ride the power mower and I've already done it so often the lawn is brown." The mood the author created was one of depression; the man is depressed; he can no longer hit, and it affects every aspect of his life, turning it into a sad, disappointing,

Updike utilizes many forms of imagery to demonstrate his contrasting moods. The one of remembrance and how good it felt to be a hitter and now one of sadness and how he is in a slump. The author reminisces, "It used to come floating up with all seven continents showing, and the pitcher's thumbprint and a grass smooch or two, and the Spalding guarantee in ten-point San-Serif, and whop!" He recalls the days when he was so focused, all he saw was the ball and it would float in and he would be able to smack it with the logo on the bat. His use of imagery describes how much he romanticizes the past and how he wishes he could go back to being the big hitter and focus on. He contrasts his old memories with his new reality, which is far worse in comparison. "Now, I don't know, there's like a cloud around it, a sort of spiral vagueness." Updike utilizes the imagery of the cloud surrounding the ball to the last example of the great detail he could see to further demonstrate the lack of concentration that he is now able to produce. Updike makes use of the imagery to further his separation between his past self and himself now in his