Title: Ex-Basketball Player
Theme
Past “glory”
Flick, the basketball star during his high school years (who probably set his career
path in basketball) is now spending his life, working at a gas station because he’s
never learned a trade.
Reminisce & sympathy
The speaker remembers how Flick was a good basketball player in high school, and
feels sympathetic toward him because now Flick is doing trivial tasks such as
checking oil, changing, flats, selling gas.
Paraphrase
Stanza 1
Berth’s Garage is on the corner of Colonel McComsky Plaza, and often finds Flick
Webb helping Berth out.
Stanza 2
Flick stands around the gas pumps. His nostrils are shaped like two S’s, his eyes like
E and O, and his body is more suited for football.
Stanza 3
Flick was in the high-school basketball team, the Wizards. He was the best among
them with the country record of 390 points, and racking up 38 – 40 in a home game.
Stanza 4
He never learned another trade, so he works at a gas station, checking oil, changing
flats, etc. Sometimes, he dribbles an inner tube, and even if he doesn’t do it most of
the people still remember who he is – a basketball star.
Stanza 5
When Flick doesn’t do work he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette, playing pinball,
smoking. He rarely talks to Mae, sees beyond her face for Necco Wafer, Nibs, and
Juju Bead (all types of candies)
Connotation
The casual language of the poem makes the speaker seem to know Flick at a closer
proximity (like the speaker sees Flick often when he goes to the gas station to buy
gas).
Attitude
The speaker feels quite sympathetic of Flick’s current state: he used to be this great
basketball player with his future set, but now he’s selling gas, hanging around at a
small restaurant.
“He was good: in fact, the best. In ‘46
He bucketed three hundred ninety points,
A country record still. The all loved Flick.”
The speaker seems fascinated about Flick’s “legend” as a basketball player.
“He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats.”
The speaker seems to sympathize him; this is shown from the way he listlessly lists
the things Flick does now at the gas station (not all those fancy, exciting talks about
being a basketball prodigy).
Shift
“He was good: in fact, the best…
He never learned a trade, he just sells, gas”
In the initial part of the poem, the speaker talks about how Flick was the best
basketball player in high school; he made a country record – three hundred ninety
points. But in the latter part of the poem, the speakers comes back to the present, and
talks of Flick working in a gas station, and hanging around in Mae’s Luncheonette (a
small restaurant serving lunches)
Title: Ex-Basketball Player
Freudianism
Freudianism can be seen in the speaker and Flick. Both the speaker and Flick are
characters of ego – their language and content show that they are casual characters
working at a gas station or describing one of their high school basketball players.
Although they are in their ego for the most part, hints of their ID are show from the
subtext and content. For instance, sometimes Flick dribbles an inner tube, and this
shows his ID because he reveals his hidden desire to be that basketball star again.