The Natural (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Bernard Malamud
- First Published: 1952
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Fable
- Time of Work: A fifteen-year span in the mid-twentieth century
- Setting: Chicago, Illinois, and New York City
- Genres: Long fiction, Sports fiction
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Love or romance, New York City, 1940’s, 1930’s, Chicago, Folklore, Corruption, Baseball
- Locales: New York, NY, Chicago, IL
Characters Discussed
Roy Hobbs, a major league baseball player. Beginning as a white-faced, long-boned pitcher one year out of the Northwest High School League, he is a naïve rustic. Armed with Wonderboy (his bat carved from a lightning-blasted tree) and a fastball, he strikes out the American League batting champion. Proclaiming with hubris that he wants to be “the best there ever was in the game,” he is wounded by a gun- toting woman. Fifteen year later, now tall, husky, and dark- bearded, Hobbs is brought up from the semipros by the New York Knights. Literally knocking...
[The entire page is 703 words long]
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