Shoeless Joe

“Some men see things as they are, and say why, I dream of things that never were and say why not” 

The epigraph of the novel is a quote by Robert Kennedy. The quote is relevant to the book because the basis of the narrative is that the protagonist sees things that others do not. When others do not see the baseball game being played on the field that he has built, Ray does. While others do not understand the mystical messages that he is receiving, Ray understands them. The quote captures the collision between the world’s inability to embrace dreams and Ray’s need to see reality, as it should be. The fundamental spirit of the quote captures the animating spirit of dreaming, which motivates Ray.

“If you build it, he will come.”

The most famous quote of the novel, this statement refers to the voice heard by Ray, a struggling Iowa farmer, who is instructed to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield. The ‘he’ referred to in the instruction is Shoeless Joe Jackson, the baseball star disgraced for allegedly throwing the 1919 World Series and the eponymous hero of the novel. The voice is telling Ray to build a baseball field in the midst of his corn crop in order to give his hero a chance at redemption.