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We have been created with a need for heroes. We yearn for them because we
are born with the want and desire to believe in someone, to have faith in someone,
to trust in someone, and to look up and strive to be like someone. This
“someone” is how Roy Hobbs is portrayed in the movie version of The Natural.
Roy in the movie version is utterly heroic. He struggles, after an almost fatal
injury in his youth, to try to become the best that the game of baseball has
ever seen. He is quietly confident, without an arrogance to him. Iris is his
former teenage-love who reappears after Roy makes it into the majors and stands
up and inspires him when he is in a slump. Their relationship in the movie
appears pure and innocent. Iris reminds Roy of “home” and all that is good and
true in his life. Roy also has a relationship with Memo, who is his manager
Pop’s niece. She is a shady character who basically throws herself at Roy after
he notices her beauty and wants to get to know her. Their relationship is dark
and more sexual than Roy and Iris’ on-screen romance. Roy is respectful to his
fans and in return they stand by him faithfully, in good-times and bad. He even
goes as far to helping the batboy make a bat resembling Roy’s own bat,
Wonderboy. Roy views Pop as a father figure. Even after he is poisoned by Memo
and blackmailed by Gus and the Judge, Roy decides to play in his last game to
win Pop the pennant he had always wanted. By doing this he risks his life
because of his stomach illness, he could die at any active moment. When the
time comes for his last-at-bat and with the game on the line, Roy crushes the
ball over the fence for the win. The movie ends with the hero playing catch
with his son, from Iris, in golden cornfields.
The Roy Hobbs from the book is a much darker and complex character. Everything
Roy does is just to please himself. He is constantly wanting more and more. He
wants to be the best ever to play the game, he wants to break every record in
baseball, he wants Memo, and he wants more money to play the game he supposedly
“loves”. He treats the Iris in the book, who is a middle-aged woman who he
sleeps with on their first date, more as an object than a person. He wants and
obsesses for Memo because of her beauty and just the adventure of getting and
conquering her. He takes the money to throw his final game. But when it comes
down to it, he decides he really does want to win but fails and strikes out. And
to top it all off, he is exposed to the world as being a sell-out.
The Natural the book is a melancholy, emotionally realistic story of a man who
lost his youth who wonders what could have been if his life had taken a
different path or direction. The Natural the movie is a sentimental, uplifting,
fantasy story. It is a battle of good and evil. It is the hero defeating the
villain. These two stories are almost completely opposite except with the same
characters and baseball are involved. It makes a reader/viewer wonder why the
movie even has the same name as the book because its lead character has such a
different value system. I believe the filmmaker recognized the American
people’s need for heroes. We do not like seeing people with great talent fail and
not fulfill their dreams, which are also our dreams. We do not like seeing evil
defeat good. We want to ultimately to succeed and win in the end and we do when
our heroes do. Sports are a way for all of us to vicariously accomplish all
that we ever have dreamed of doing.