Baseball in Ironweed Essay

One of the major elements in Ironweed is Baseball. These elements can come from different images, metaphors, Francis personal history, reminiscences about past players, games, and ball fields. Bradd Shore, a professor of symbolic and psychological anthropology, wrote an essay in Figures of thought about the major themes and metaphors of baseball in America. These metaphors can be linked to Ironweed as a part of Francis life and the overall issues and themes of the novel.

Many Americans will remember the night of October 25, 1986 for one certain event for the rest of their lives. There was two outs in the bottom of the tenth inning and the Boston Red Sox had a 5-3 lead in the 1986 World Series. They were one out away from being world champions and then it happened. The first baseman for the Sox, Bill Buckner, committed an error and the opposing team had won the game. This one play would haunt Bill for the rest of his life and he would be remembered for ruining the World Series for the Red Sox. Everyone forgotten what an amazing player he was and this title would hover over his head for the rest of his life. (Shore 2)

There are four different types of levels of play in baseball whether they consist of the two opposing teams, the crowd and the teams, the pitcher and the batter, or the season and the decade. At the fourth level, the contest between the season and the decade, each player enters the beginning of their life of stats. This is all they are in baseball; a number. For the rest of their lives, the number of stats they contribute will shape their future in how they will be remembered. A host of statistics swarm and hover above the head of every pitcher, every fielder, every batter, every team, recording every play with an accompanying silent shift of digits (Shore 4).This lure of stats has been the biggest aspect of baseball. These stats will stay with a persons name just like tragic memories will always be remembered by people who commit them. In different scenes of the novel, like hovering stats, three ghosts of people come back to remembrance by Francis that he has killed in his lifetime which caused Francis downfall in life. They cant ever be forgotten just like an error in baseball.

Baseball is an American past time that will shape the lives of great baseball players in a positive or negative way. Baseball symbolizes, for many Americans, our passions, lives, and social relationships towards others. This can also be related to the life of Francis Phelan, an ex-baseball player who not only shaped his life through baseball, but also with events that occurred after his playing career.

In the novel Ironweed, the main character Francis Phelan was an ex-baseball player. Therefore, he is aware that a person will be remembered for specific events in their lives, whether they are positive or negative. Some great baseball players are remembered for their stats or game winning hits. Francis would be remembered off the field as an ex baseball player and an alcoholic. Earlier in Francis life, he had committed a series of accidents that would also remain with him for the rest of his life like Bill Buckner. These events would degrade Francis as a person and ruin the rest of his life. Francis accidentally dropped his infant son and killed him as a result of him being drunk. This forced him to leave his home, as well as his family behind only to make his way around the bases and return home after a matter of time just like the game of baseball. The action of baseball, then, can be conceived of a series of travels by individuals who attempt to leave home and make a circuit through a social field ever, but returning safely to home (Shore 4).

Even though Francis is an ex- baseball player, he still manages to fit his life into a baseball game in which he is still running around the bases. The main goal of baseball is for the player to leave home and fly around the bases, sort of like going out into the real world, then coming back home to return safely. The player cant just run straight back to home; he needs to be guided by a series of hits from teammates to help guide him to home plate. This is exactly like the life of Francis in which he leaves his home, as well as his family for years, and then realizes it is time to return home. Along the way he is helped by the men that he has killed in the past. They relate to him as his conscience that he has repressed for many years. This takes place over a series of three days and he is guided by three ghosts. In the end, Francis returns safely to home with his family. So as in a baseball game, the runner must past 3 bases in order to return safely to home just like Francis life.

Ironweed is a very remarkable story of the life of an ex-baseball player whose life depicts the main themes of a great American tradition. There have been many attempts to define the relationship between baseball and the American character. It has been linked closely with the view of an American life and the way it has shaped the lives of many past players in its time. This is one of the main reasons to why baseball is linked to the major elements of Ironweed.