The Silent Season of a Hero By Gay Talese

Questions on Rhetoric and Style

1. What is the effect of juxtaposing details of Joe DiMaggio’s legendary baseball prowess with details of his everyday life in San Francisco as a retired athlete?

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 Talese’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 Talese waits until the end of paragraph 2 to name him. What is the effect of delaying identification of the essay’s subject?

4. What is the overall tone of the essay? How does Talese achieve his tone? How does the tone add a layer of meaning?

5. Talese notes that sportswriters have called DiMaggio an “immortal” (para. 124). How does the essay both support and debunk that myth?

6. Explain the assumptions Talese makes about his audience based on his portrait of DiMaggio as an aging hero.