Shoeless Joe (as well as the award-winning film adapted from the novel, Field of Dreams) is a prized piece of Americana, though it was written by Canadian writer W.P. Kinsella. Ray Kinsella is the protagonist. He is a middle-aged man with a wife and daughter who struggles to eke out a living as a farmer. Upon hearing a disembodied radio voice (which causes his brother-in-law, among others, to think he is mentally ill), he is compelled to sacrifice his crops (and the financial gain on which his family depends) to turn his land into a baseball field. This has special resonance as (in an exemplary demonstration of foreshadowing) the novel's opening chapters reveal that his estranged and late father had a special love of baseball.
After a series of events in which Kinsella enlists the help of writer (and fellow baseball fan) J.D. Salinger and meets the ghost of the title character, "Shoeless Joe" (a baseball player ousted from the major leagues after a bribery scandal in the 1919 World Series), Kinsella builds his field. The field is consecrated, as it were, by a number of phantom players, and among them is, to Ray's surprise, his father.
The final pages feature a dialogue with Kinsella, his father, and brother. One thing that can be concluded regarding Ray's meeting with his father is that his relationship with his brother will also be repaired. The audience also learns that the "he" featured in the baseball announcer's voice's message ("ease his pain") featured earlier in the novel refers not to J.D. Salinger, but to the protagonist's own father's pain concerning his strained relationship with his son. Finally, we learn that Ray is absolved from being marked insane by family and friends, as his brother, too, finally sees the ghost of their father.
Friday, August 14, 2015
What are 3 things that can be taken away from Ray meeting his dad and repairing their relationship?
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