<p> The Silent Season of a Hero By Gay Talese</p><p>Questions on Rhetoric and Style</p><p>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?</p><p>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.</p><p>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?</p><p>4. What is the overall tone of the essay? How does Talese achieve his tone? How does the tone add a layer of meaning?</p><p>5. Talese notes that sportswriters have called DiMaggio an “immortal” (para. 124). How does the essay both support and debunk that myth?</p><p>6. Explain the assumptions Talese makes about his audience based on his portrait of DiMaggio as an aging hero.</p>