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.