Tragic Hero In Bernard Malamud's The Natural

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“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today”(Dale Carnegie). A tragic hero is a character in a story that has a flaw that leads them to great things but also causes them to do bad, and make bad decisions, but evokes pity from the audience due to former good he has done. In The Natural, by Bernard Malamud, Roy is a baseball player who wants to be the best in the world, and carries his team, the Knights, on his shoulders out of a losing streak, but makes a poor decision that leads him to his downfall. Even though Roy Hobbs demonstrates goodness, his…show more content…
This shows that Roy is willing to risk what he loves, and what he stands for in only batting with Wonderboy, in the chance he could save this kid, and the fact that makes this a even greater chance is that he has been in a slump for a long time, and he does not know if he will be able to hit a homer for Pete. In the end what really drives this point home is that he actually makes the hit, and gets the home run saving the kid. This leads the audience to see that Roy is really a good guy deep down, and it is sad to see him in his downfall because of this. Again his goodness is seen at the end of the book when he is told by Iris, “’I am pregnant.’ There were tears in her eyes. Her belly was slender… then the impact hit him…He kissed her hard belly, wild with love for her and the child” (219). This shows the goodness in Roy because he is accepting the responsibility to his actions, the impact that those actions hold, and his feelings toward Iris. Before this scene in the book he had been trying to push Iris, and the memory of her out of his head, because he couldn’t handle the fact that she was a grandmother, and had been pursuing Memo instead.

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