In “The First Kiss”

In “The First Kiss”, by John Updike, the author uses many rhetorical strategies and literary devices like metaphors to convey the audience’s attitude to the beginning of the new season. The audience is evidently excited for the new season as they showed up to Opening Day even when the weather was “so dank”.
John Updike uses a considerate amount of metaphors throughout his text to make the audience’s feelings towards the new season more impactful and captivating. The introduction of the metaphor comparing the Red Socks fans to a “monster” with a “big heart” shows the audiences perpetual adoration for their team even though there team had lost last year. Updike goes on to say “You’ll never get us to care again, Red Socks,” for the audiences team has let them down and they don’t want to endure another heartbreak. “But monsters have short memories, elastic hearts, and very foolable faculties” metaphorically meaning the Fenway Faithful can quickly forget their losses, rebound from the heartbreak they felt last year, and with some time trick there minds back in favor of there team. Furthermore in the fifth paragraph it is said that, “Monsters love high notes and hoards of gold.” The term “monster” is once again used to show the passion the audience has for the sport and that the high note in “The Star-Spangled Banner” really puts the crowd’s emotions over the edge. He concludes this metaphor in the last paragraph when he stated, “A hard lesson for a hungry monster to master, but he has six months to work on it.” Updike is saying he believes the game should be more fun but the Fenway Faithful is having a difficult time being anything other than competitive.