Bernard Malamud The Natural Symbolism

Symbolism in the Natural

The novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud is an excellent peace of sports literature. It follows the story of Roy Hobbs as he is reaching old age in the game of baseball. The plot follows his initial talent in a scene set years before the main plot. Sixteen years afterwards the man is playing for a losing team but can still wow the audience with his raw talents. As the story progresses Roy is characterized through his actions and through the way the supporting characters view him. One symbol that made this work more resounding is the cracking of Roy’s back in the climatic game. This event has a lot of hidden meaning, and helps convey Malamud’s theme to the audience. The first scene in the story is where Malamud expresses the level of talent “wonderboy”, as he is affectionately called, possesses. He is squaring off against a big league allstar known as the Whammer; “At thirty-three the Whammer still enjoyed exceptional eyesight. He saw the ball spin off Roy's fingertips and it reminded him of a white pigeon he had kept as a boy, that he would send into flight by flipping it into the air. The ball flew at him and he was conscious of its bird-form and white flapping wings he heard a noise like the bang of a firecracker at his feet and
During this at bat, Roy also splits his bat, named wonder boy, into two pieces. This is a multilayered piece of symbolism which helps express the author’s true intentions upon writing this novel. The fact that he injures Iris expresses how he is hurting the one’s he loves through his sports persona. He must rectify the relationship between his athletic personality and his human one. It is also significant how it happened on a “foul” ball, which suggests a seedy side to the tone of this event. Finally, the fact that his bat is split into two pieces shows that he is finally ready to move on from the game he spent his life