Essay about The Natural - 1349 Words

Bernard Malamud was brought up in the mid 1900s, a time period when baseball played a huge role in the lives of many Americans. Americans loved baseball because it gave them a chance to stop working and simply relax while they cheered on their favorite team. It was a time when people played baseball solely for the love of the game and the thrill of hearing the fans cheer for them. Today, however, baseball is much more corrupt, and many athletes are only in it due to their own greed and selfishness. This strong desire for money stems from some important players in the past, such as Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, who were outstanding athletes and grew very overconfident in their abilities. They became so confident that they began to demand†¦show more content†¦Kevin Baker described him as â€Å"staggering in his self-absorption† (Baker, xii). This means that he is confident to the point that he believes he can do everything himself, and doesn’t care about the rest of his team. Roy is also a very greedy man, and his greed is accentuated by his baseball skills. For example, Roy’s contract entitled him to make three thousand dollars for the season. Within a few weeks, he decided that this was not enough, so he spoke with the team owner about a raise. In the novel, it says that: â€Å"He figured for himself a flat forty-five thousand dollars for the rest of the season† (Malamud, 89). Forty-five thousand dollars is more than most baseball players made in an entire season, and he was asking for this astronomical amount for only half of a season. Each of these traits can be considered one of Roy’s tragic flaws. His greed and his self-confidence both contribute to his downfall at the end of the novel, in which he is humiliated due to his acceptance of a bribe to throw an important game and lose the pennant. In the New York Times, an article written by Harry Sylvester stated: â€Å"Roy Hobbs almost achieved greatness , but was distracted or betrayed by people, objects, or events equated with elements in our environment† (Sylvester, www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/06/home/baseball-natural.html). Sylvester is saying that Hobbs has the potential to be aShow MoreRelatedThe Natural Resource Of Natural Resources1660 Words   |  7 Pages Background and Introduction Over the last decade, the term â€Å"natural resource curse† has gained importance among resource rich countries; it claims that natural resource wealth is linked to poor economic growth (Sachs Warner, 2001). In other words, countries with an abundance of natural resources are less developed and tend to grow slower than resource-poor countries (Sachs Warner, 2001). 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