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When most people think of a hero, they often visualize a sports figure. While this fulfills the idea that a hero is a person who embodies the most important attributes of a culture, often people fail to take into account the price young athletes pay for this temporal fame. John Updike and A. E. Housman explore the ideas of fame, failure, and fate in their poetry; their two poems "Ex Basketball Player" and "To An Athlete Dying Young" share a common theme; however, they diverge when considering their tone.
The theme of both poems centers around the idea that athletic fame is important but fleeting and short-lived. In "Ex Basketball Player" the narrator says that Flick "bucketed three hundred ninety points/A county record still." These lines establish Flick as a local hero who has brought fame to his town. The unnamed athlete in "To An Athlete Dying Young" is said to have "won [his] town the race" and the townspeople "chaired [him] through the marketplace." Like Flick, he was a local hero who brought renown to his village. The moments of fame are intense for the heroes and make them immortal in the lore of their respective towns.
This fame, however, does not last as an athlete grows older or dies. In "Ex Basketball Player" Flick either never succeeds in a career in sports or never pursues it after high school; content instead to work at a gas station. "He never learned a trade, he just sells gas." Flick's life peaked in high school; he cannot aspire to anything greater. His fame has faded, and he is now reduced to being an athletic has-been. The athlete in Housman's poem does not live to realize his potential as a runnerdying before his name is forgotten, "eyes the shady night has shut/Cannot see the record cut." Both heroes fail to become the superstars their early careers promised.
Updike and Housman use different tones in expressing the feeling of the two poems. The speaker in Updike's poem is objective and detached as he describes Flick's fate. "Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods/Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers/Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads." No judgment is given about Flick's life. The speaker's description of Flick's diminished life lets the reader know that even though Flick is no longer a star; he is a survivor who has adjusted to his limited fame. On the other hand, Housman's tone in "To An Athlete Dying Young" is pessimistic and bitter about the unfairness of life. "Smart lad, to slip betimes away/From fields where glory does not stay." Here, the speaker infers that all athletic effort is in vain and that any record set by an athlete is destined to be surpassed sooner or later.
Both "Ex Basketball Player" and "To An Athlete Dying Young" contain the bittersweet theme that athletic honors fade. Yet the tone of each poem adjusts to the circumstances which caused the honors to fade lack of determination for Flick and death for the runner. Both poems celebrate and mourn the intervention of fate in the life of each of these unfortunate players.
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