37 pages • 1 hour read
W.P. KinsellaShoeless Joe
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Traditional Religion Vs. True Religion
Shoeless Joe has several references and allusions to traditional Christian religious beliefs and practices. The novelist presents the reader with a strong contrast between traditional Christianity and what he perceives to be true religion, as represented through the game of baseball. Kinsella’s portrayal of several characters in the novel present his negative view of traditional religion. Ray’s description of his wife’s family as fundamentalist Christians who hold on to their traditional beliefs with steadfast firmness present the author’s view of traditional religion as joyless and dogmatic.
Ray’s mother in law is aself-righteous, judgmental womanwho inserts her religious beliefs into any conversation. Mark, Ray's brother-in-law, who is trying to take over his farm, is also a fundamentalist Christian, who has an inherent dislike for atheists and Catholics. The names of Mark’s and his three brothers, Mathew, Luke and John, are the names of the four evangelists who wrote the four Christian gospels. Ray’s quarrel with his brother-in-laws underlines his quarrel with Christianity. Eddie Scisson’s three daughters, who are described as unimaginative and joyless, are examples of other characters in the novel who adhere to traditional Christianity.
In contrast, the novelist presents baseball as a kind of quasi-religion, a religion that provides people with joy, imagination and, most importantly, a feeling of faith: "We're not just ordinary people, we're a congregation" (63), says Ray of the baseball fans. He describes the ballpark at night as "more like a church than a church" (86). Ray says that the fans wait for the game to start, "in silence, in awe, in wonder, in anticipation, in joy" (54), comparing them to worshipers in a cathedral. Thus, baseball provides calmness and stability to people—the same traits people often seek out from religion. Also, baseball is soothing because "it is stable and permanent" (96).
Baseball also offers the possibility, like religion, of miraculous events that can transcend or reverse time and turn dreams into reality.Ray says that, in a baseball game, "Tides can reverse; oceans can open" (112).The magical events that take place in Ray’s magical baseball field prove that faith can make miracles happen and create magic in the ordinary lives of people who have faith in their dreams. Through Ray's love of baseball, the dead come back to life, a promise that traditional Christianity also makes.
The Interplay of Imagination, Dreams, and Reality
Shoeless Joe is written in the genre of Magic Realism and is a fantasy novel where dead people come back to life, old forgotten dreams come true, and old emotional wounds are healed. The novel asserts the primacy of fertile human imagination over the monotonous demands of everyday life. A mounting pile of debt that may result in his brother-in-law, Mark, annexing his farm, burdens Ray. However, Ray insists on following his dreams and the instructions he receives regarding how to turn his dreams into reality.
To follow his dreams, Ray does some crazy things, such as fake-kidnapping a reclusive writer and taking him to a baseball game. Not only does he perform the physical task of turning his cornfield into a baseball field to follow the instruction that he has received to build the farm, but also turns down the advice of well-meaning people by never losing sight of his goal. His physical work at the farm, which involves watering and raking the field, is a metaphor for watering his own imagination and digging deep into his own consciousness to unravel his hidden desires and dreams.
At the end of the novel, the novelist makes the reader realize there is no dichotomy between the life of imagination and the practical life that humans lead. By following his imagination and dreams, Ray not only fulfills his dreams and allows the dreams of several characters to be fulfilled, but also creates the financial means to pay off his debts, through the throng of tourists that come to visit the magical ballpark that he has created by following his visions.
The Father-Son Relationship
The strong bond between Ray and his father is apparent from the beginning of the novel. Ray's father not only passes on his love of baseball to his son, butalso his faith in his hero,Shoeless Joe, whom he believes to have been innocent of the charges that led to his lifetime ban from baseball. The fact that Shoeless Joe is the first player to appear on Ray's baseball field makes it possible for Ray to appease the spirit of his father, who has been dead for twenty years. When Ray first sees and talks to Shoeless Joe, he thinks of his father and wants his father to play catcher with the resurrected White Sox. When this dream comes true and he sees his father as a twenty-five-year-old man, he thinks of all the things he will want to talk about: "I'll guide the conversation … and we'll hardly realize that we're talking of love, and family, and life, and beauty, and friendship, and sharing" (172).
Kinsella seems to suggest that the people to whom we are closest to in our lives can remain so, even after death. The barriers between the living and the dead can be surmounted, if we keep our hearts and minds open. Through his vision, Ray also allows his twin brother, Richard, also to be a part of the restored wholeness of the family.Richard had not reconciled with his father by the time of his father's death. Ray shows the initially uncomprehending Richard to see his father on the ballpark.
The Legend of Shoeless Joe Jackson
A large part of the novel’s focus is on o baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was born in poverty in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1888. When he was only six, Jackson worked at the local cotton mill with his father. At the age of 15, he joined the mill's baseball team. Within five years, Jackson was playing for the local minor league team, where he earned his nickname “Shoeless Joe” by playing in stockinged feet.
In 1908, Jackson joined the major league Philadelphia Athletics. In 1910, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians and, five years later, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox.
Charles Comiskey owned the White Sox and refused even to pay for the team's laundry, which earned them the nickname, Black Sox. Comiskey also favored contracts that placed all power in the hands of the owner. In the novel, Ray refers to the Ten-Day Clause, "which voided contracts, could end any player's career without compensation, pension, or even a ticket home" (57).
The conspiracy that led to the ban of the White Sox players was initiated by first baseman Chick Gandil. Gamblers offered each of the eight players $20,000 to lose the 1919 World Series. Jackson received $5,000 but later tried to give it back. Jackson batted .375 to lead all players. He collected twelve hits and made no errors in the field. These statistics led many fans to argue, including Ray's father, in the novel, that he did not participate in the conspiracy.
A year later, after an investigation initiated by sportswriters, Jackson and two of the other players confessed to a grand jury. Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned all eight players from baseball for life. In 1921, a jury acquitted all eight players due to a lack of evidence.
