Symbolism in “The Natural”

The novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud is an excellent peace of sports literature. It follows the story of Roy Hobbs as he is reaching old age in the game of baseball. The plot follows his initial talent in a scene set years before the main plot. Sixteen years afterwards the man is playing for a losing team but can still wow the audience with his raw talents. As the story progresses Roy is characterized through his actions and through the way the supporting characters view him. One symbol that made this work more resounding is the cracking of Roy’s back in the climatic game.This event has a lot of hidden meaning, and helps convey Malamud’s theme to the audience. The first scene in the story is where Malamud expresses the level of talent â€Å"wonderboy†, as he is affectionately called, possesses. He is squaring off against a big league allstar known as the Whammer; â€Å"At thirty-three the Whammer still enjoyed exceptional eyesight. He saw the ball spin off R oy's fingertips and it reminded him of a white pigeon he had kept as a boy, that he would send into flight by flipping it into the air.The ball flew at him and he was conscious of its bird-form and white flapping wings he heard a noise like the bang of a firecracker at his feet and Sam had the ball in his mitt. Unable to believe his ears he heard Mercy intone a reluctant strike. † (Malamud). This quote is significant because it expresses the potential of the protagonist. It is through these great feats of athletic prowess that we the reader gets to respect him. It makes the plot more important to the reader, as well. This all leads up to the finale with Hobb’s putting it all on the line.The aspect of love is a component to this novel. While Roy is everything to be admired in the athletic sphere, he shows a deeply human aspect to his personality in his dealings with his love interest; â€Å"Noticing Toomey watching her, Roy stole a quick look. He caught the red dress an d a white rose [he was] drawn by the feeling that her smile was for him she seemed to be wanting to say something, and then it flashed on him the reason she was standing was to show her confidence in him he became aware that the night had spread out in all directions and was filled with an unbelievable fragrance. (Malamud) Malamud gives his character a truly human characteristic which makes him all the more enduring. As the novel’s rising action takes place, the â€Å"natural’s† intentions are called into question. During the climatic scene, Roy fouls a ball into the stands that injures Iris. During this at bat, Roy also splits his bat, named wonder boy, into two pieces. This is a multilayered piece of symbolism which helps express the author’s true intentions upon writing this novel. The fact that he injures Iris expresses how he is hurting the one’s he loves through his sports persona.He must rectify the relationship between his athletic personal ity and his human one. It is also significant how it happened on a â€Å"foul† ball, which suggests a seedy side to the tone of this event. Finally, the fact that his bat is split into two pieces shows that he is finally ready to move on from the game he spent his life pursuing. In a conversation late in the novel Roy says this brilliant quote; â€Å"Experience makes good people better. † She was staring at the lake. â€Å"How does it do that? † â€Å"Through their suffering. † â€Å"I had enough of that,† he said in disgust. We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness All it taught me was to stay aware from it. I am sick of all I have suffered. † She shrank away a little. † (Malamud) This is a fitting way to leave the reader of the noel, and let them know what Malamud was getting at. The characterization and symbolism of this book really make it a sig nificant contribution to sports literature. He is a larger than life figure with wholly human emotions. He is an epic hero for a contemporary period, and Malamud communicates this beautifully.

Summer Reading Assignment: About a Boy

Mr. Wilson English 11 5 September 2012 Summer Reading Assignment: About a Boy Insensible Will, who lives comfortably off of the money from a popular Christmas song his father wrote, comes up with the idea to join a Single Parents Alone Together, (SPAT), group in order to pick up single moms. What he chooses to overlook however, is the fact that he does not have any children. This sparks a chain of events beginning with him meeting Marcus, an awkward young teenage boy who is being raised by a depressed, single mother.Marcus is constantly tormented at school and feels as though he has no one to turn to. He becomes very fond of Will who is tolerant with him at first and begins to grow attached to his high strung personality. Marcus begins to gain confidence, learn how to deal with his mother, and win the affection of an older punk rocker girl named Ellie at his school. However spending time with Marcus begins to show Will just how empty his life really is. Marcus and Will cross paths at a SPAT get together when Marcus’s mom asks her friend Susie to bring him.That day is the when both Marcus and Wills’ life change forever. When arriving home from the SPAT party Susie, Marcus, and Will walk into Marcus’s mom Fiona passed out in her own vomit. In the mix of it all Marcus doesn’t even see that his mom had tried to overdose on pills. From that day forward Marcus constantly worried about his mother’s depression instead of worrying about himself, and how he gets picked on everyday at his school. It wasn’t until he met Will that Marcus realized why he was getting picked on.Fiona, Marcus’s mom, was in denial and believed that Marcus was just fine wearing ugly shoes, and listening to Mozart. Will helps him to find himself, and to shed his nerdy and dorky skin. As the months passed Marcus began to change and he started hanging out with this punk rocker girl Ellie. At first Marcus believed that he was in love with Ellie and tha t he could spend the rest of his life with her but after taking her to go see his father Marcus realizes she is just too different and crazy. At the end of the novel Will knows for sure that Marcus will be ok when he complains about Will askingFiona to take out sheet music of Marcus’s old favorite nerdy singer. He knows the days of Marcus letting kids bully him, steal his shoes, and mock him for his old haircut are gone. Will did not only help Marcus, but Marcus helped him. Before he was ever involved with Marcus, Will was a pot smoking, lazy, self centered person. However after everything he went through with Marcus, Will changed, and for the better. At the end of the novel Will had found love with this beautiful single mother, Rachel. Even Will realized that himself.He had lost his shell and his cool and his distance, and he felt scared and vulnerable, but he got to be with Rachel, and that’s all that mattered. Fiona at the beginning of the novel was a suicidal, depr essed, and horrible mother. Even after trying to kill herself she was still horrible. She didn’t even notice how hard of a time Marcus was having at school and she wanted to take away Will from Marcus when he was the only thing making her son happy. But as Marcus changed so did Fiona. She was longer so depressed and no longer hated Marcus as her son.Even though she has lost a big part of Marcus, she got to stay away from the hospital because she was no longer depressed. Change makes you flexible, and helps go with the flow. Change makes you smarter. If things never changed, you’d never learn anything new. And every time you learn something new its makes you smarter than you were yesterday. Change reminds us that anything is possible. It’s easy to think that anything that’s stuck will always be that way. Marcus, Fiona and Will all learned how to improve their lives and it was all because of each other.

Greek Heroes Comparison with Modern Movies Essay

Greek mythology talks about different stories of heroes and villains in ancient times. I believe most of the stories are about war and tragedy. To name some are Ajax and the Trojan war. However, learning these different stories is very fascinating and intriguing. Each of the characters had his own goal to achieve whether or not with the help of someone (i. e. god or goddess). Below are five Greek heroes in ancient literature that showed their own ideals, talents and personality in the works of Homer, Hesiod and Sophocles. Homer’s â€Å"Iliad†: 1. Achilles. The greatest Greek warrior of the Trojan War. He was in love with Briseis whom Agamemnon commanded him to replace the enslaved Chryseis (Wikipedia, 2009). 2. Hector. He was a Trojan prince and a spearman whom Achilles has killed to avenge his friend Patroclus’s death. He was the greatest fighter of Troy (Wikipedia, 2009). Hesiod’s â€Å"Theogony†: 3. Prometheus. He was a Titan god [of fire] and his name literally means â€Å"forethought†. It is said that he was ambivalent and a lowly challenger of Zeus. (Answers, 2009). 4. Eros. He was the Greek god of love, lust, beauty and intercourse, and son of Aphrodite. He is represented by a naked child carrying bow and arrow. He sprang from the primordial Chaos together with Gaea (the Earth), and Tartarus (the underworld). He fell in love with Psyche and lived with her in his home but later on, their brittle peace was ruined by her jealous sisters. (Answers, 2009). Sophocles’s â€Å"Ajax†: 5. Odysseus. He was a great warrior, a rival of Ajax who was favored by the goddess Athena. He took pity on the delusional Ajax. He was the one who convinced the king to have Ajax buried despite of their past conflicts (Nathanbauman, 2009). Developing a character in a modern movie The five aforementioned Greek heroes built a composite picture of ancient heroic model in the modern movie character like Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity [and its sequels The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum] by Robert Ludlum, which is based on his novel of the same title. The movie portrays a spy who lost his memory and who is in constant run (Liman, 2002). The Jason Bourne character is strong, loving, life-preserving, a fighter and a challenger. He is being chased by the members of his previous team to eliminate him. This is to preserve the secret that the team has done in the past – the assassination attempt on the dictator Nyakwana Wombosi. Other spies and hitmen were also sent to go after him but they were all eliminated instead by him (Liman, 2002). Strong and fighter. Like Achilles, Hector and Odysseus, Jason Bourne is strong and a very good fighter. He has the instinct of self-preservation even though he lost his memory. He used advanced hand-to-hand combat (see Figure 1) and sometimes with the use of weapons, whichever is close at hand and available . It can be seen in the movie that he knocked the two police officers unconscious, who attempted to arrest him in the park for sleeping and without ID. Other scenes were when he Your Surname Here and page number was in the bank and the U. S. Consolate. He was then chased by the police and authorities, respectively. At the time that he was on the run, that was when he met Marie. He offered her money to drive for him and away from his pursuers (Liman, 2002). Loving. Like Eros and Psyche, they fell in love with each other (see Figure 1). And yet, to be able to protect Marie from all the danger he is facing, he separated himself from her; he sent her away even though they were already attached to each other. She originally did not want to leave him but he insisted (Liman, 2002). Challenger. Just like Prometheus, Jason Bourne is considered a lowly challenger to the CIA. He is alone but he accepted the challenge of risking his life just to find out his true identity and his past. Even though he did not know what the real deal was, he did not let himself lose to those men who wanted him dead. Figure 1. The Bourne Identity. A photo of Jason Bourne running, fighting with a hitman and kissing Marie (Liman, 2002). Works Cited Answers. com. Eros. July 2009. Answers. com. Prometheus. July 2009. Liman, Doug. The Bourne Identity. Perf. Matt Damon. Universal Studios, 2002. Nathanbauman. com. Odysseus. January 2009. Wikipedia. com. Achilles. July 2009.

DEAF REFLECTION #2 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

DEAF REFLECTION #2 - Coursework Example The writer tries to envision if the whole world was a bilingual community where everybody was taught sign language in the same manner they were taught how to speak using their tongues This is an important notion as people were be able to communicate easily with their and extended family of the Vineyard society. This means that there was no language barrier, and by proxy, no social barrier in this society. The writer acknowledges that there were no difficulties that the deaf children suffered on the Vineyard as the society acted as an extended family for them. From childhood, one could obtain families where one or two children in the family were deaf so this would not be a major concern in another child was born deaf. The deaf children stood a better of continuing with their education than students who could be able to hear. This is evident when the writer claims that â€Å"the recommended period of instruction in Hartford was five years but education for the deaf was available up to ten years†. On social aspects, the deaf on Martha’s Vineyard married freely. Though the number of children that were born deaf was quite high and in an alarming rate. The deaf were also able to be independent as they were able to make a living of the talents and skills they had for example a carpenter. With respect to families, the fertility was higher and there was much comparison between the children who are born when hearing and those who were deaf. The Vineyard was a safe heaven for the deaf. However s time went by things started to change, to them deafness was treated like a stigma ans something to be ashamed of. In schools, other student made fun of the deaf students as the student who could hear made fun of them and nobody wanted to learn sign language anymore. This forced the society to open schools for the deaf and lead to a total split-up of those who could hear and the deaf in the society. A perception that the society tends to uphold up to

Bullying in Early Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Bullying in Early Education - Essay Example ave equal strength or power to the bully† (Berthold & Hoover, 2000; Olweus, 1996; Solberg, Olweus & Enderson, 2007; Sourander, Holstela, Helenius & Piha, 2000). Aggression was clearly defined in Lee’s research on the relationship of aggression and bullying to social preference as a â€Å"behavior that is intended to harm someone either physically or psychologically (Berkowitz, 1993), manifests itself in a wide variety of acts† (Lee, 2009, 323). Despite differences in definitions, bullying still manifests an aggressively vicious behavior expressed either indirectly or directly by a repeated tormenting towards a victim with obviously less strength and power to defend oneself from his aggressor aimed to harm him or her physically or psychologically. III. The role of gender in bullying Diverse research literatures examined the role of gender in increased susceptibility in bullying. There are actually two sides to be examined: (1) does gender play a significant part in assuming the role of the aggressor? In this issue, one would like to assess and evaluate if indeed boys are the instigator of bullying. If so, what forms of bullying do they usually perform? On the other hand, does it necessarily follow that girls are always the victims of bullying? What other perspectives in bullying give credence to gender differences as relevant correlates of bullying? The study conducted by Carbone-Lopez, et.al. (2010) reveal that gender differences have significant impact on bullying and victimization. However, it was necessary to qualify the direct form of bullying versus the indirect form. The direct form involves behavior that aims to physically harm the victim through any of the following means: hitting, kicking, pushing (Carbone-Lopez, et.al, 2010, 333) and fighting, flicking,... Bullying in Early Education Parents of bullies were observed to resort to unjustifiable physical punishment instigated by mood swings and flares. Due to the fact that bullies have never learned the value of sharing or cooperation, getting along with others is not an ultimate priority. In this regard, the objective of the research is to determine if gender affects the way children respond to bullying in terms of the response or action taken against bullying and how young children, in general, deal with it. II. Differences in Definition of Bullying Bullying has been described by Marees & Petermann (2010) as â€Å"a specific for or aggressive behavior, namely the systematic humiliation, harassment and/or torment of certain children by their peers: (178). Taylor (2003), on the other hand, who studied primary school bullying and the issue of gender differences, defined bullying as â€Å"a subcategory of aggressive behavior; but a particularly vicious kind of aggressive behavior since it is directed, often repeated ly, towards a particular victim who is unable to defend himself or herself effectively†. The impact of gender on the response of children to bullying can still be further investigated to ensure that possible findings would shed light on the diversity of gender and the way they perceive bullying as either a threat to be directly addressed or ignored. There could be other reactions or responses that were not evidently investigated, or reported especially for the age group targeted for the project.

Environmental Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 6

Environmental - Essay Example trillion, Germany $3.383 trillion, Japan $5.88 trillion and United States $16.02 trillion are higher than that of the Arab World 2641.6819, constituting of twenty-two states (The World Factbook n.p). This is a clear indication that Arab world benefits less from the Middle East Oil. Additionally, comparison between the Palestine GDP (6.641) to Israel (254) shows that Israeli is on the lead. A countries GDP (official exchange rate) is determined by dividing the home-currency-denominated yearly GDP amount with the mutual standard of US $ exchange rate (The World Factbook n.p). This helps in determining the accurate value of output of a particular country. The Arab World’s GDP measure clearly shows that it enjoys less economic power from the Middle East Oil compared to other countries. The information obtained from the CIA World Factbook is credible in challenging stereotypes that many individuals and countries hold about the 22 Arab League members. The information clearly shows that the Arab World enjoys very little from the Middle East Oil while countries like United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States reaping more from the marketplace (The World Factbook n.p). This is because the Arab World enjoys less purchasing power at international marketplace and thus has little economic

Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Psychology - Essay Example Similarly, significantly more women than men meet the diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders (56% vs 35%). On the other hand, men (20%) are twice more prone to substance abuse disorders (eg. alcohol dependence) than women (8%) (WHO, 2007). Also, the incidence of antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy) is three times more in men than women. In cases of severe disorders as schizophrenia, it is obsevered that men have early onset of symptoms but women experience higher frequency of hallucinations or psychotic symptoms. The key reasons behind greater prevalance of such disorders in women are because of greater exposure to poverty, discrimination and socioeconomic disadvantage such as child/sex abuse, traditional gender based violence and overwork. Reasons why more men have antisocial personality disorders as women tend to be more empathic than men. Works Cited WHO. (2007). Gender Disparities in Mental Health. World Health Organization, Department of Mental Health and Substance D ependence. Geneva: WHO.