Turning bad into good

Bump was the New York Knights star outfielder, who not only was best on the team, but also the league. When Roy is sent up to the majors to play with the Knights, his position was left field, the same as Bump's. Because of this, Roy was not able to play unless something happened to Bump. Fortunately, for Roy, something did.

"Thinking this way he ran harder, though Zipp's geese honked madly at his back, and with a magnificent twisting jump, he trapped the ball in his iron fingers. Yet the wall continued to advance, and though the redheaded lady of his choice was on her feet shrieking, Bump bumped it with a skull-breaking bang, and the wall embraced his broken body"(76).

As we can tell from the passage above Bump "broke" his body, eventually dying. Although we see this as a tragic incident, it is one that turns out very good for Roy, and the plot of the story could not have continued to move if Bump hadn't died. For if he was not injured, Bump would have remained on the field for the rest of the year, leaving Roy on the bench, never to play. Fortunately, this did happen, and Roy got to start for the Knights, showing them his tremendous skill and competitivenes. Also, because Roy got so famous, he found his long-lost love, as well as his son.

Unfortunately there was a death in the novel, but for the reader, and Roy, the death was something that needed to happen for the plot to keep going and for Roy to become the man and baseball player he wanted to be.

Image Study (Required)

"Wonderboy flashed in the sun. It caught the sphere where it was biggets. A noise like a twenty-one gun salute cracked the sky. There was a straining, ripping sound and a few days of rain splattered on the ground. The ball screamed toward the pitcher and seemed suddenly to dive down at his feet. He grabbed it to throw to first and realized to his horror that he held only the cover. The rest of it, unraveling cotton thread as it rode, was headed into the outfield"(74).

This image shows significance because not only does it show us the mystical power of wonderboy, but it gives us an idea of the strength, and skill Roy Hobbs has to hit the ball out of the cover. This passage is not only easy to understand because of the simile and imagery, but it gives the reader suspense as well, because it says that he cracked the ball into the sky, but then the pitcher picks up something. It made me want to read further to find out what happened to the ball and where he actually hit it.

"The Judge, a massive rumpled figure in a large chair before an empty mahogany desk, was wearing a black fedora witha round pot crown and smoking, under grizzled eyebrows, a fat. black King Oscar I"(89).

We are introduced to the judge, part owner of the team. The image above, although not saying much about the judge, can be very revealing. We see the big judge sitting behind a desk and smoking a cigar. When I read this the first thing I compared this image to was like a boss from the mob. This was very interesting to me because it was the first time the reader learns about the judge, and it gives a negative connotation to him. This passage is very significant because it characterizes a person who will later be key in the novel.

"At the clubhouse the next morning the unshaven Knights were glum and redeyed. They moved around listlessly and cursed each step. Angry fist fights broke out among them. They were sore at themselves and the world, yet when Roy came in and headed for his locker they looked up and watched with interest"(60).

Roy Hobbs is portrayed as someone who is obviously going to change the team around. In this passage, he lights up the room and stopped people fighting just by walking in it. To me, this passage signifies the foreshadowing that Roy Hobbs is going to change the team dramatically by improving it in some sort of way. This picture depicts what I think the players looked like in the dugout without Roy Hobbs.

"When it was night he dragged the two halves of the bat into the left field, and with his jackknife cut a long rectangular slash into the turf and dug out the earth. With his hands he deepened the grave in the dry earth and packed the sides tight. Then he placed the broken bat in it"(228).

This passage is talking about wonderboy. The scene is almost in a sense like a grave burial for a person. I think that this passage is very significant because it gives the reader an idea of how much Roy relies on that bat and how he sees it as almost a person. I also think it is important that he puts that bat into the ground of the baseball field, because that is where it should be buried: its home.

Themes From American Literature (Required)

One theme from American Literature is the American Dream. The American Dream is a theme created in America, which basically says that all Americans have the equal amount of opportunity to pursue whatever their dreams are, and that anyone in America can achieve their goal.

In words of James Truslow Adams,
"The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

We see the American Dream in Roy Hobbs throughout the entire novel. A poor, country boy who lives on a farm was how Roy Hobbs started off. His love for baseball carried him from a farm-boy to a rich, and famous baseball player. If this transition is anything, it is the American Dream. Boys don't start out in the middle of nowhere raising cattle and end up in the Major Leagues rich and famous. The American Dream is one for everyone of all ages, boy or girl, big or small, etc. Hobbs transition is easily an example of the American Dream because he starts out poor and a nobody and ends up the exact opposite, and what he's always dreamt of being.

The American Dream, a dream in which all people who come to America think, "I am going to do whatever I want, and I am going to be extremely successful in doing it," is the exact theme Roy Hobbs portrays in The Natural by following his dreams of becoming a baseball player.

Initial Thoughts

Reading the first few chapters, I quickly learned that this novel was not only about the game of baseball. The first chapter had absolutely nothing to do with baseball. "After a troublesome shave in which he twice drew blood he used one thin towel to dry his hands, face, and neck, clean his razor and wipe up the wet of his toothbrush so as not to have to ask for another and this way to keep the bill down"(6). This passage, along with many others in the first chapter depict the authors diction, imagery, and syntax. This chapter gave the novel a very slow start and almost made it seem like it wasn't about baseball at all. The long, slow sentences that gave me information about every little action Roy Hobbs did really changed my mind about the book, because I was expecting a fast moving action novel about baseball.

I did not like how the author started the book out either. "Roy Hobbs pawed at the glass before thinking to prick a match with his thumbnail and hold the spurting flame in his cupped palm close to the lower berth window, but by then he had figured it was a tunnel they were passing through and was no longer surprised at the bright sight of himself holding a yellow light over his head, peering back in"(1). The first sentence plops you in the middle of the story but doesn't reveal anything to you except a man named Roy Hobbs is on a train. Luckily for me, the story started to pick up after the first chapter with a little bit of action.

Symbol of Wonderboy

From the very beginning of the novel we see the special bat Roy Hobbs uses in all of his games. "I made it myself, from a tree near homeI made it a long time ago when I was a kid. I wanted it to be a very special bat"(52).

This tree was struck by lightning, and had a glow to it, which shows the reader the tree was almost mystical in a sense. The bat is something Roy is dependent on, as he never uses any other bat. Because of this, the bat almost symbolizes part of Roy. What part of Roy might he symbolize? Wonderboy symbolizes the part of Roy that is unexplainable, and does the impossible not only for himself, but for his teammates as well, hence the name "wonderboy."

At the end of the novel, however, wonderboy is broken, and Roy is forced to use another bat that he is unaccustomed to.
"With his hands he deepened the grave in the dry earth and packed the sides tight. He couldn't stand seeing it in two pieces so he removed them and tried squeezing them together in the hope they would stick but the split was smooth, as if the bat had willed its own brokenness, and the two parts would not stay together"(228). An obvious emotional separation. We can see Roy depicts the bat as almost a person when he buries him in the dirt.

Wonderboy is specially made with love, care, and devotion; all characteristics that make a baseball player better than the rest. Wonderboy is such a powerful image that it is even more than just an inanimate object. The "power" Wonderboy gives to Roy almost makes it seem like Wonderboy is just as much of a hero as Roy is. This bat comes alive throughout the book, giving Roy the extra boost of power he needs to keep his team alive and winning.