Essay Questions

The story is told from the first-person perspective, but the narrator uses the pronoun “we” almost ten times more often than “I.” Why might the author have made this choice?

Considering that story opens with the narrator complaining about how moving to middle school from elementary school has resulted in a lack of individualism, this choice is certainly somewhat ironic. A large aspect of the story is about how every child’s desire to grow up ultimately comes with the unforeseen cost of loss. The young boys are growing into teenagers and the maturation process will result in the firmer establishment of an identity and the loosening of the bond of identity through association with others. The first person narrative represents the completion of that process as the story is being told by an adult looking back upon his childhood. The lack of any real distinctive differences between he and Sergio as he tells the story in a way that makes them more like a single entity (“we”) than two individuals (“I”) is representative of those things which must remain forever lost in childhood like the ball.

Why is the golf course such a perfect symbol for heaven?

For several reasons that are mentioned, a golf course is a perfect metaphor for the idea of heaven from a child’s perspective: its vivid greenery that can exist like an oasis surrounding by everything from an actual desert to a concrete jungle. The long stretches of that greenery adorned by trees, lakes, sand and when no one is playing, pure natural emptiness stretching as far as the eye can see. But the golf course also conveys other elements that connect with the idea of heaven. For one thing, it is not available to everyone: only certain members of society are allowed in. Most golf courses are also notoriously homogenous places where nearly everybody pretty much resembles everybody else without any particularly striking differences and for many, heaven is place reserved for those who are like us. Heaven is also situated in the minds of most believers as a place that is part of our world, but not really in our world and that description sums up the view of a lot of golf courses when seen from the outside. Very often they are constructed in places where they just don’t seem to belong, but clearly do exist.

How does the narrator’s use of words that run together change in tone in a way that reflects the story’s overall theme of growing up at the cost of losing things to youth?

When the device is initially introduced it is related to the excitement of finding the grinding ball. In the emotional intensity of this exhilaration at finding some strange and impossible, the kids ability to communicate coherent thoughts and feelings break down and pure emotion overcomes rational critical thought to produce gibberish: ““GuyGod this is perfect, thisisthis is perfect.” The next occurrence of this technique occurs as the boys are still wrapped up in their enthusiasm for finding something so wonderful and it is their mother who engages it: “Getridofit.” Her usage, however, is not the communications breakdown of emotion overcoming rationality; indeed, her strict, no-nonsense reaction is almost completely devoid of emotion as she is logically considering the negative implications of possession. What had been a positive for the boys becomes a negative in the mouth of their mother. So, it is interesting that the next time the narrator engages it for himself, its placement suggests that the manner of speaking has already begin the process of transformation from childish zeal at what is wanted to the mundane maturity reality is what is merely necessary:

“So we got out our little kid knapsacks that my mother had sewn for us, and into them we put the jar of mustard. A loaf of bread. Kniveforksplates, bottles of Coke, a can opener.”