Casey+at+the+Bat

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day: The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play, And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast; They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that-- We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake, And the former was a lulu, while the latter was a cake; So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all, And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball; And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred, There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lust yell; It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat, For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place; There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face. And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat, No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt; Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt; Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip, Defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

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.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore; "Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand; And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone; He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on; He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew; But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!"

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered Fraud!" But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed. They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain, And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate, He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate; And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

=Setting and Narrator= The poem is a dramatic re-telling of a final at-bat in a baseball game. Many people can relate to the exciting drama of sports.The setting is a ballpark The name of the town, "Mudville," also affects how we view the poem's setting. It sounds small-town-ish. We are more likely to picture this ballpark in a rural setting than an urban one. We might imagine that Mudville's hometown ballpark might even be a little run down.

Importantly, this small-town, baseball setting also reinforces the poem's bigger setting: America. When you hear that something is American as baseball and apple pie, that's no accident. This poem goes a long way toward painting the sport as the country's perfect pasttime, setting it right smack dab in the middle of the American heartland.

In ballads, the speaker often takes on the storyteller role, and that's the case with "Casey at the Bat." The speaker is telling Casey's story. His job is simply to relate the events of the narrative.

Knowing that "Casey…" was written for, and first appeared in, a daily newspaper, we do get kind of a reporter-ly feel from this speaker. (We like to think of him as an old-time sports writer working for the //Mudville Gazette//. And like any good reporter, we don't hear much about the speaker's thoughts or feelings regarding the events. So, the speaker isn't a //part// of this story, he just tells it.

So, what makes "Casey…" a ballad? Glad you asked. Some basic ballad requirements that "Casey at the Bat" definitely meets:


 * Dramatic Narrative: Ballads usually tell a story, focusing on one dramatic event, and the story is usually told in plain, everyday language. Casey definitely has these requirements covered. The poem has a cast of characters and a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. And "Casey…" doesn't send you running for the dictionary every other line.


 * Song: Ballads were traditionally stories meant to be sung. The poem's epigraph, "//Sung// in the Year 1888," along with the poem's strong meter and rhyme, indicate a song-i-ness that fulfills this requirement quite nicely.

> > //The// **out**//look// **was**//n't// **brill**//iant// **for** //the// **Mud**//ville// **nine** //that// **day**//.//
 * Meter-Line-Stanza: Ballads are traditionally in iambic lines. Iambs are those little, two-syllable units that follow an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern. They make that daDUM sound that seems to pop up so often in poetry. You can really hear those iambs right from the poem's very first line:

Can you hear it? Read it aloud. Did you hear that daDUM daDUM daDUM pattern? That, friends, is the rhythm of the iambs—seven in all in this line.

In addition to those iambs, ballad lines follow a strict rhyme scheme and are grouped into four-line stanzas called quatrains. In "Casey at the Bat," the quatrains follow an AABB rhyme scheme, where each letter represents that line's end rhyme. Take a look at the end words from stanza one to see it in action:

day A play A same B game B

=Figurative Language =

In addition to all those strong rhymes and regular meter that make this poem a ballad, Thayer also makes good use of alliteration in some key lines. Take a look at line 18:

<span style="background-color: #faf8f5; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">//It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;//

<span style="background-color: #faf8f5; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Hear those repeated consonant sounds, those R's and D's? That's a kind of alliteration called consonance. In this context, the repeated sounds mirror the rumbling and rattling that the line is describing. It doesn't hurt that those words are also pretty onomatopoeic on their own.

<span style="background-color: #faf8f5; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Alliteration is also a good way to inject some extra musicality and rhythm into lines. That way those strong end rhymes don't get //all// the attention.

<span style="background-color: #faf8f5; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Another example can be found from line 34:

<span style="background-color: #faf8f5; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">//Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.//

<span style="background-color: #faf8f5; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In this example, we can //hear// how those repeated, hard T sounds echo the "beating" that the line describes, while the repeated S sounds hiss along in a snake-y, ominous way.

<span style="background-color: #faf8f5; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Thayer takes repetition a step further in the poem's last two stanzas. The phrase "and now" is repeated three times in stanza twelve's last two lines (that's called anaphora ), and the word "somewhere" is repeated five times in the poem's final stanza. This kind of repetition really helps to build suspense as the poem nears the end and we wonder whether Casey will win the game or not. It kind of sounds like the "and then," "and then," "and then" of an excited kid telling a story.

Hyperbole
Hyperbole is exaggeration. When Thayer writes, "Cooney died at first" or that Blake "tore the cover off the ball," he is exaggerating the reality. In the same way the umpire wasn't likely in danger from the person yelling, "Kill the umpire!" and the air was not really "shattered by the force of Casey's blow."

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">

Personification
In personification, the poet gives a human quality to a nonhuman object. For example, Thayer writes that "5,000 tongues applauded," meaning the fans cheered, and "upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat," showing the fans are sad. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #69624f; font-family: TrocchiRegular; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5;">**Simile** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;"> A simile draws an explicit comparison using words such as "like" or "as." One simile describes the crowd's displeasure with the umpire's strike call against Casey. Thayer writes that they give "a muffled roar, like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore." <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #69624f; font-family: TrocchiRegular; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5;">**Metaphor** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;"> With a metaphor, a comparison is also made but without the qualification of "like" or "as." Thayer writes that Flynn "was a lulu" and Blake "was a cake" to mean they were not good players. Later he writes, "hearts are light" to mean people are happy. =<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;"> Essay Prompts = <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;"> Go to learnzillion.com <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;"> enter codes in the search field  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;"> LZ4983  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;"> Lz4984

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