A Slump

Written by: John Upkide

Question #1

• To what would you attribute the narrator’s slump? Do you think that he really does not care enough? Explain.

Answer #1

• It’s not that he doesn’t care anymore, it’s more that he lost his drive, evrything that he used to care about and get nervous about is all old to him. Every time that he would go to the stadium and get nervouse is all old to him, he has already done all that and he has seen it all.

Question #2

• In what situation have you felt the hunger that the narrator describes?

Answer #2

You feel the hunger in the last section of the story. When He describes what is going on the game. “I’ve stopped ducking, but the trouble is, if you’re not hitting…,”(pg.856)

Question #3

• A) How do the coaches and newspaper’s explain the narrator’s slump?

B) How does the narrator himself explain it?

Answer #3

• A) They blame his problem on his reflexes. A nicer way of saying that he is getting older and his eyesight is getting worse. “They say reflexes, the coach says reflexes, even the papers now are saying reflexes…”(pg.854)

• B) He says that he wasn’t able to see the baseball because it used to come at him slow and he was able to see the details of the baseball, and “Now, I don’t know, there’s like a cloud around, a sort of spiral vagueness, maybe the Van Allen belt….”(pg 854)

Question #4

• A) How did the narrator once feel when he saw “the kids” waiting outside the stadium?

B) How does he now react when he sees them?

Answer #4

• A) He got nervous when he saw the kids, “…The kids waiting to get a look and that would start the big butterflies…,”(pg.854)

• B) He doesn’t seem to care anymore, it’s not that big of a deal to him.

Question #5

• What now happens when the narrator takes “those two steps up from the dugout” and kneels “in the circle”?

Answer #5

• All the confidence that he had have now gone away. The confidence that he had in the batting cage is gone, “Where once the flutters would ease off, now they dig down and begin.”(pg.855)

Question #6

• What solution does the narrator come up with in the final paragraph?

Answer #6

• “I think maybe if I got beaned.”(pg.856) he thinks that he doesn’t care as much as he used to,

Question #7

• Explain the significance of Kierkegaard’s statement, “You can’t see a blind spot.”

Answer #7

Question #8

• A) How has the narrator’ attitude toward baseball changed during the coarse of his career?

B) How is this change in attitude conveyed?

Answer #8

• A) It changed because he was playing to be the best so newspapers and coaches would talk good about him.

• B) It’s different now because he’s not playing to play but he is playing for others, “It’s knowing that none of it-the stadium, the averages-is really there, just you are there, and it’s not enough.”(pg.856)

Question #9

• Explain the meaning of the conclusion the narrator reaches in the final sentence.

Answer #9

• Although he has made it so far and he is finally a pro-baseball player it’s not what he expected. He isn’t playing for the game anymore. He is playing for the averages.

Question #10

• A) What does the story suggest about fame?

B) What does it suggest about aging?

C) What does it suggest about life in general?

Answer #10

• A) Fame gets to your head and once you least expect it it escapes from you. Once you think that your at the top driving “the convertible out of the garage and watch the electric eye put the door down…” (pg.854) you might forget the reason that you are playing for.

• B) That the older you get that you loose your touch like you “They say reflexes…”(pg.854)

• C) That when you think you have it good, it might slip out of your hands in a couple of seconds.

Question #11

• The narrator complains “They say I’m not hungry, only now it’s a kind of panic hunger, and that’s not the right kind.”

a) What does he mean by the word hungry?

b) What is the right kind of hunger?

c) Do you think it’s necessary to be hungry to succeed? Explain.

Answer #11

• A) Hungry is the desire to play better then how you played before.

• B) The kind where you could be nervouse at first but once you get out on the field you realize that you should just forget about it and play because you made it this far.

• C) Of course it’s necessary you need to love that game to play it. There is so many people that they love to play it and that is there life.

Question #12

• What other types of situations might produce concerns and feelings similar to the ones experienced by the narrator?

Answer #12

• These concerns could happen anywhere, even in a corparete office when someone younger comes along and tries to tale you job.