Cause and Effect
Or, put another way: the choices that one makes in life has consequences. Roy Hobbes discovers an inescapable truth that serves as a thematic background to everybody’s life and that is that every choice one makes is endowed with the potential to create consequences not only unforeseen, but that can become the engine driving one’s entire trek through existence. The foundation of this thematic thrust to the novel is that every choice at some level is a moral choice.
Second Chances
The Natural is really a short story and a novella in one sublime package. The short story is the section about the young Roy Hobbes who is a hotshot pitching prospect prepared to take on the most legendary slugger of all time. Then that pesky element of choices, consequences and morality change everything for the next fifteen years. The novella section is about an older (but wiser?) Roy Hobbes who has lost his stuff as a pitcher, but has become a fearsome slugger in his own right thanks to seemingly magical bat nicknamed Wonderboy. The entire narrative turns on the fact that America—thanks to the absence of aristocracy, titles, and rigidly enforced social classes—allows everyone to get a second chance if things don’t quite turn out the first time around. Will Roy take advantage of this opportunity with the ironically named New York Knights or has his moral compass been so skewed by the wilderness of the last fifteen years that he is doomed to eternal recurrence?
Competition v. Cooperation
The tragic implication of Roy Hobbes is inextricably tied to the concept of that competition is necessary for success in a capitalistic society like America. The weird thing about baseball is that it is simultaneously a team sport and an individual sport. This is especially true of pitchers. The drive to compete for the win can often cause players to overlook the absolutely necessity to cooperate with the others players on the field. Roy explicitly states his goal is to become the greatest player that ever lived and within that is a monomaniacal devotion to the self that inevitably comes into conflict with doing what is best for the team.
Wonderboy: The Bat of Fate
Roy’s seemingly enchanted baseball bat he names Wonderboy comes into being by the most random of act of fate deemed possible by modern man: had a bolt of lightning struck just a millimeter one way or the other, the tree from which he fashions the bat might possibly not have yielded the wood needed. The seemingly magical ability to hit the ball that arrives with Wonderboy cannot be lost on Roy; he would have be incredibly blind to be oblivious to the fact that his bat is some sort of guiding hand of destiny. All he has to do is follow the only path that a baseball bat can possibly lay out for someone and everything he dreams will become reality. Poor Roy just can’t seem to stop himself from trying to control fate and change the narrative of his destiny, however. Wonderboy and Roy both pay a terrible price for this tragic flaw.
