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Example research essay topic: Bernard Malamud Roy Hobbs - 1,078 words

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Once upon a time, a hero would be seen courageously riding on his magnificent steed into the cave of a fearsome dragon, clad with his shinning helmet, his enormous gauntlets, his breastplate displaying his coat of arms, and in his hands, a magnificent broad sword, prepared to strike at an instant. Today, that hero is seen confidently walking to home plate, his shinning helmet replaced by a dusty cap, his gauntlets replaced by batting gloves, his breastplate replaced by a simple jersey bearing the name and colors of his team, his broad sword replaced by a Louisville Slugger, primed to pummel any pitch with which the looming hurler might challenge him with. Bernard Malamud's novel The Natural is the tale of a young mans quest for love and greatness in early twentieth century baseball. Roy Hobbs is thirty-four years old when he joins the baseball team the New York Knights.

When he was nineteen years old and an unknown prospect, he vowed to a woman that he would be the best in the game, and she shot him with a silver bullet. Everyone who watches Roy play is amazed at his intrinsic ability to crush all pitches that are thrown to him. The lovely Memo Paris, niece of the teams manager Pop Fisher, soon catches Roy's eye, and he pursues her love vehemently. His desire for her eventually hospitalizes him when he eats until his stomach ruptures. Roy's downfall comes when the teams owner, The Judge, offers him a bribe which he accepts and forces him to attempt to lose the championship game. After the game, Roy lives the remainder of his life in utter shame.

The novel contains many events that actually happened, which enhances the mythic significance of the novel, as baseball is the foundation of contemporary American folklore (Wasserman 45 - 46). The characters are rich with mythological similarities, another element that enhances its mythical aspect. In addition, many elements of mythology enhance the story. It is the modern-day embodiment of the Arthurian myth (Hershinow 21). Baseball is the basis of contemporary mythology. The entire survival of baseball relies on its mythology, for without it, the game would crumble into a jumble of meaningless facts and statistics (Turner 118).

Stories of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra, and an endless number of baseball legends are continually passed down through the generations. Every year, the President of the United States sanctifies the baseball season by throwing the inaugural pitch (Wasserman 45). Bernard Malamud has even stated that the reason he chose to write about baseball because it is a meaningful part of the American scene (Malamud, Horse, 49). Many scenes in the novel have actually occurred. Roy's hitting a home run for a sick boy, his conversion from pitcher to outfielder, and his hospitalization from gargantuan stomach illness are all events that happened in the life of Babe Ruth.

The scene in which the insane Harriet Bird shoots Roy parallels the shooting of baseball player Eddie Waitkus by an insane woman (Wasserman 46). The sequence in which a dejected Roy is walking on the street and a paper boy says to him Say it aint true, Roy (Malamud, Natural, 219) after seeing the headlines of Roy's being shot is almost identical to the time when a boy implored Joe Jackson to Say it aint so after he took money to throw a game. Even some of the most far fetched events in the story stem from actuality: Pop Fishers attempt to catch a grapefruit that is dropped from an air plane, the player with the penchant for crawling on window ledges, and Pops fall between third base and home in the championship game, the Fisher Flop, that lost the game (Hershinow 17). Sam Simpson, the Cubs scout that acts as Roy's paternal figure, resembles the former baseball player Ed Delahanty.

Both were heavy drinkers, and were formerly baseball players. Sam has a dream of having a fight and then falling over a waterfall, while in actuality, this is exactly how Ed Delahanty eerily died (Keats 102 - 104). Since baseball is the foundation of modern mythology, and since the story includes parallels to actual events, the novel has a greater mythic significance. The characters parallel many characters from mythology.

Roy Hobbs, the main character, embodies a hero, in the sense that a hero does good deeds for children, for instance when he hits a home run for a dying boy (Helterman 29). Roy has the values of a hero, attributes that distinguish heroes from normal people in that their values are so different. A hero is someone who acts within and for a mythology (Turner 116). In Roy's case, the mythology is his baseball career and his superior abilities, for Roy believes that he has a mythic quest to become the best baseball player of all time. Although Roy is a hero of mythology, and performs the duty of one, he ultimately fails because he is unable to see reality beyond his myth (Turner 116 - 117). He cannot accept the harshness of real life because he is trapped inside the mythology.

When Roy decides to fix the pennant game, he acts outside the myth for the first time and when he tries to reattach himself to it, by deciding he wants to try his hardest to win the game, he cannot (Turner 116 - 117), for his bat, Wonderboy, breaks. Another is that he is too narcissistic and cannot see beyond himself or notice the concerns of others (Tanner 132). His narcissism causes him to treat Iris Lemon, the girl that helps him hit out of his slump, in the way that he does, by fornicating with her and then refusing to have a relationship, for he fears the fact that he would become a grandfather if he were to marry her, since she already has a granddaughter. Roy's inability to learn from the past also hinders him, and causes him to repeat his past suffering (Richman 30). Roy also holds many similarities to the knights Percival and Lancelot, both of whom are heroes of Arthurian mythology. Roy is similar to Lancelot in the way that they both are motivated by love and both are reproached by their lovers (Hays 90).

Roy parallels Percival in the sense that they both have an inborn talent at baseball and knight hood. Roy is also similar to Percival in that they both are heroes as wel...


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