Roy Hobbs: The Tragic Hero in “The Natural” by Bernard Malamud

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Discuss the figure of Roy Hobbs as a tragic hero. To what extent do his own flaws lead him to his fate? Does he display a kind of hubris like the characters in a Greek tragedy? Does he learn from his mistakes? The book “The Natural” talks mostly about the heroic acts of Roy Hobbs, his strength of not giving up his wish. The book is basically about the characters flaws that lead him to his fate. Hobbs wish was to become one of the most popular baseball players ever existed in history. He wanted to break any record that was ever existed in any record books, he wanted to be remembered in history forever. Hobbs meets Harriet Bird in the train who did not like his notion of becoming popular and shoots him in his upper body with a gun. One of Hobbs biggest flaws was falling in love with Harriet. But his flaws lead him toward his fate in the sense that he did not quit what he had planned for his life to become one of the best baseball players. At the age of 34, he came back in to the baseball game and tries to make things right for himself. Hobbs character in the book gives a similar role as it was given by the Greek tragedy characters; hubris like characters. Hobbs character was brought to suffer extreme sorrow like the Greek tragedy characters. Hobbs did not seems to learn from his mistakes, one of the biggest mistakes was falling in love with Harriet and in the second time he was fell in love with Pop's niece Memo which is a clear example that shows he does not learn from his mistakes. Roy Hobbs character in “The Natural” by Bernard Malamud is shown a guy of his dream. Roy Hobbs dream was to become a popular baseball player that one day he will break all the records and be "the greatest in the game." Hobbs biggest influence w... ... middle of paper ... ... we do mistakes again and again without realizing that we already have encountered them before. We confess not to commit same mistakes again but we chose to commit them again. The moral of this great story is that we humans can lead a moral life or be corrupt. The life type is uttered by the choices we make. Hobbs chose a life of a star or an actor. He is in the position to be a hero, but instead he chooses to be a self-centered, Hubris filled kind of character. Hobbs is filled with a strong sense of hubris like characters same as we sees in Greek tragedy. Unprovoked habit of constantly making mistakes and not learning from it makes him careless. His flaws lead him to his fate, even though he makes mistakes but his main theme was to be the best there was or to break as many records as possible in the baseball history and he really turn his dream come true.

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