The Natural Literary Elements

Fiction

The action takes place in America and it follows a promising baseball player, Roy Hobbs. While the year is not clearly mentioned, it is safe to assume that the action happens in the 1950’s. The action that is described in the prologue is set fifteen years before the action described in the first chapter and the events starting from the first chapter stretch to cover a time period of about a year.

The events are recalled from a third-person omniscient perspective.

Tragic, ironic, depressing

The protagonist is Roy, an aspiring baseball player and the antagonist is represented by Roy’s own desires that stop him from fulfilling his purpose and be a hero.

In The Natural , the major conflict is an internal one. Roy, the main character, is torn between the desire to be famous and have money and the desire to be true to himself and play baseball even if that would mean not gaining as much money as he would have if he were to compromise his integrity.

The story reaches its climax when Roy agrees to lose a game on purpose just to be paid by the Judge.

Roy’s future problems are foreshadowed from the first chapter when he decides to get involved with Harriet Bird. Harriet foreshadows the relationship Roy will have with Memo and how it will affect Roy.

In the fourth chapter, Roy claims that he wants to be the best in the game and many felt that Roy was challenging and unseen force to prove him that he is not the best in the game. Roy’s claim to be the best is an understatement as the reader is able to see in the later chapters that Roy is not as good as he thinks he is.

In the first chapter, Harriet asks Roy what he wants to gain from baseball and the answer Roy gave was not satisfactory for Harriet. It is hinted that if Roy would have answered differently, then maybe Harried would not have shot him. This is the first allusion made to the myth of the Fisher King though the situation is slightly reversed.

One if Roy’s most noticeable traits is his incapability to make a good decision when it comes to women. Roy chose Memo over Iris even though it is clear that Memo can never love him and offer him the quiet family life he wants. In one instance, Roy imagines Memo as being his wife and the mother to his child. This image that Roy has about Memo is important because it clashes with the way Memo is described by the author. While Roy sees Memo as a possible wife and mother, the narrator portrays her as a tragic character, unable to settle down and have children, a woman still grieving for her dead boyfriend.

After Roy is rejected by Memo, he begins to doubt his ability to play. He goes even as far as to imagine himself traveling back in time, to the day when he first set on his journey to become a baseball player, the day before he meet Harriet Bird. This is seen as a paradox, considering how sure Roy was that he wants to become the best baseball player that existed.

The writer included many real life events into his novel, creating thus a parallel between his fictional player and real life players. On such event is mentioned in the fifth chapter when Roy is asked by the parent of a sick kid if he could hit a home run to lift his son’s sprits. Roy assures him that he will try and he ends up hitting a home run and winning the game. The event is inspired from the real life and experience of a baseball player named Babe Ruth. Just like Roy, Babe Ruth was asked by the parent of a sick child if he could hit a home run for the boy and the baseball player managed to do just so.

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