Question

Compare Ernest Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat” to a typical prose story. What differences and similarities do you notice in the development of the plot? How does the pacing of the story in the poem change before and while Casey is at the plate?

Answer 1

"Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung 1h 1888", is a poem written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. The story is the end of an inning in a baseball match.

The poem has similarities to a prose story for its clarity and the element of drama. Tne poem conveys the expectation, emotion, and drama of pro sports, and the reaction of the fans that for a moment in that stadium, put their lives on the seats, forgetting all the day to day chores and jobs, and they expect their hero make their dreams come true.

Baseball is a game that really identifies America and its people, and it is shown in the poem, that is written in a very simple way where the verses have four lines and the rhythmical make it sound like some kind of a ballad.

Answer 2

Both the poem “Casey at the Bat” and a typical prose story develop a plot by using setting, characters, and dialogue. The setting for this poem is a baseball game. There are also a number of characters in the poem, including the fans, Flynn, Casey, and Jimmy Blake. These characters advance the action of the poem by playing their parts in the baseball game. The poem also includes dialogue such as “That ain’t my style” and “Kill him! Kill the umpire!”—another characteristic it shares with a prose story.

A major difference between this poem and a typical prose story is that the manner in which the speaker tells the story. The narrative is quite brief and condensed compared to a prose story. Plus, the poem seems to follow a regular and recurrent rhyme scheme. The first two lines and last two lines of each stanza end in rhyming words, creating an aabb ccdd rhyming pattern. Prose stories don’t have a rhyme scheme.

Before Casey is at bat, the poem progresses at a relatively fast pace. It moves through entire at-bats and plays in single lines. This pacing can be seen in the poem’s fourth stanza:

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,

And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;

And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,

There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

The poet likely keeps this pace to build tension in the poem. Once it’s Casey’s turn to bat, the tension of the poem is at its highest point. To draw out this tension, the poem begins to move at a slower pace. The speaker describes each pitch thrown to Casey, including the chanting of the fans. When Casey is batting, entire stanzas are devoted to a single pitch:

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,

And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.

Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-

"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

Like the author of narrative prose, the poet uses narrative pacing to build and release tension in the poem.