The Natural 731now to get three good swings, to give his best. How-
ever, his best is not good enough and he goes down
on strikes to lose the game.
As he was leaving the ballpark, the first rumors
of his having been in on throwing the game (just like
the real Shoeless Joe Jackson of the Chicago White
Sox had done) were coming out. Even though he
had tried to win in the end, he could never overcome
the truth.
Ronald C. Thomas, Jr.
heroiSm in The Natural
If we think of heroes as those who sacrifice them-
selves for some greater good, Bernard Malamud’s
classic novel The Natural is not a very heroic tale.
Although there are heroic allusions and undertones,
it is the tale of a middle-aged baseball player try-
ing to recapture the lost glory of an interrupted
career. The protagonist of the piece, Roy Hobbs, is
no heroic righter-of-wrongs; he is a gifted athlete
who wants to make his mark as the greatest baseball
player of all time.
The term “sports hero” is really a non sequitur
and sports star or idol is a more appropriate usage.
Still, Hobbs’s story is set in the Golden Era of
American sports, the pre–World War II period
that produced iconic figures such as Jack Dempsey,
Red Grange, and Babe Ruth. The Babe even makes
a fictionalized cameo appearance in The Natural
under the nickname of the Whammer. As a young
man, Hobbs is on his way from Oregon to New York
for a big league baseball tryout and is riding on the
same train as the Whammer. At a train stop, there
is a spontaneous event where Hobbs pitches to the
Whammer before a crowd of onlookers in a field by
the train tracks. Just like Casey batting in the classic
poem, the Whammer strikes out.
Once back aboard the train, Hobbs is approached
by a beautiful woman, Harriet Bird, who observed
the impromptu confrontation. She speaks to him
of Homer’s epics and Lancelot, with an extra irony
being that Hobbs is headed for the fictional New
York “Knights” baseball club. This imagery will
return later in the novel.
Hobbs is unfamiliar with literature but he pro-
claims his intention to surpass the Whammer
and be known as the greatest ballplayer who ever
lived. This remark also connotes the real-life sports
legend, Hall of Famer Ted Williams, who wanted
people to say when he passed “there goes the great-
est hitter who ever lived.” Williams attained many
records in baseball and likely would have earned
more if he had not done tours of duty as a Marine
Corps fighter pilot in both World War II and Korea.
Williams’s biographers often stated that he was the
real-life version of movie hero John Wayne.
Halfway across the country, Hobbs’s train stops
in Chicago, and Bird invites him up to her hotel
room. Instead of the tryst he is expecting, Hobbs
is cut down by a silver bullet fired from Bird’s .22
pistol. The silver bullet has ties to heroic legend, as
well, through the Lone Ranger and its use against
werewolves. In Hobbs’s case, the stomach wound
ends his hopes of a baseball tryout. Elsewhere in the
novel, it is established that Bird has been gunning
down other great athletes, such as an Olympian and
an All-American football player. As an obsessive fan,
her psychosis leads her to attempt to “possess” these
great athletes for all time through her shootings.
An additional heroic theme employed in The
Natural is found in Roy Hobbs’s trombone case.
Inside this piece of luggage is “Wonderboy,” the
baseball bat he fashioned himself from a tree struck
by lightning. Just like King Arthur’s sword Excalibur
or Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, Wonderboy is an unde-
featable weapon in Hobbs’s hands. Mythic heroes
are often identified with their weapons, such as
David’s sling, Wyatt Earp’s Buntline special, or Luke
Skywalker’s lightsaber. For Roy Hobbs to have the
same iconic status, he must also have such a weapon,
and his bat fits the bill.
After years away from the game due to his inju-
ries, Hobbs finally arrives at the New York Knights
with bat in hand, as well as a contract. However,
his arrival is not like Aragorn’s return of the king
in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Hobbs is not here
to rescue the struggling team; in fact, he is there
because the team’s owner wants to sabotage the
club for financial reasons. Saddling the team with
an over-the-hill rookie is one of many underhanded
tactics employed. So, Hobbs is no savior and is not
readily accepted until he finally gets into the lineup
and shows what he can do. As he becomes a recog-
nized star, the team even adopts the lightning bolt