The Silent Season of a Hero Assignment_ENGLISH AP English literature and writing comprehension

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The Silent Season of a Hero Assignment 1. What was the effect of juxtaposing details of Joe DiMaggio’s legendary baseball prowess with details of his everyday life in San Francisco as a retired at... hlete? 2. Why does “The Silent Season of a Hero” open with a quotation from Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea? Cite specific passages from Tales’s essay to support your answer. 3. The “tall gray-haired man in a dark suit” in the first paragraph is obviously Joe DiMaggio, but Talse waits until the end of paragraph 2 to name him. What is the effect of delaying identification of the essay subject? 4. Characterise the narrator. Does he step forward at any time? Who is the “man from New York” (para. 12)? Who is asked by the narrator to comment on DiMaggio? 5. Although DiMaggio was a baseball player, the essay sometimes sounds as if it’s about a fisherman. Trace both the language of baseball and the language of fishing. Which is prominent? 6. Talese suggests -- but does not come out and say -- that Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were competitive about their celebrity. How does Talese use Monroe’s mythical status to develop his portrait of DiMaggio? Is he sympathetic to her? Does his profile of DiMaggio deepen our understanding of Monroe, or does she remain as tantalizingly out of reach as she seems to have been to DiMaggio? 7. Several parts of the essay -- especially paragraph 3 and 41 --- evoke Hemingway. How do the images and language of those allusions create another level of meaning? How do they add to the portrait of DiMaggio? 8. What is the overall tone of the essay? How does Talse achieve this tone? How does the tone add a layer of meaning? 9. Talese notes that sportswriters have called DiMaggio an “immortal” (para. 124). How does the essay both support and debunk that myth? 10. Explain the assumptions Talese makes about his audience based on his portrait of DiMaggio as an aging hero. [Show More]

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