Table of Contents
What is the storyline for the natural?
On the way to a tryout with the Chicago Cubs, young baseball phenom Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) is shot by the unstable Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey). After 16 years, Hobbs returns to pro baseball as a rookie for the last-place New York Knights. Despite early arguments with his manager, Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley), Hobbs becomes one of the best players in the league, and the Knights start winning. But this upsets the Judge (Robert Prosky), their owner, who wants Hobbs to lose games, not win.
What is the message of the natural?
The novel ends with Roy crying bitter tears after a paperboy inquires, Say it ain’t true, Roy. Many critics of Levinson’s film, which was adapted for the screen by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry, cite the storybook ending as an abomination a watering down or flat-out massacre of Malamud’s intention
What happened at the end of the natural book?
He came back from the war unharmed. Hobbs was shot by a mysterious woman dressed in black he met on the train to Chicago. In the movie, Harriet Bird had evidently been stalking and shooting athletic heroes and she was on the train to shoot The Whammer, a baseball legend.
Why did the girl shoot Roy Hobbs in The Natural?
Why does Harriet shoot Roy and try to kill him? She is a serial killer targeting the greatest in each sport. On the train to Chicago, Max mentions news stories about great athletes in other sports being murdered. These are her doing.
Is there any truth to the movie The Natural?
Yesthere truly was a Major League player referred to as The Natural who was shot by a strange woman in a Chicago hotel roomand almost died. The movie isn’t really the life story of that player’s life. The movie was an adaptation of that novel (another fact few people know about).
What happened at the end of The Natural book?
The novel ends with Roy crying bitter tears after a paperboy inquires, Say it ain’t true, Roy. Many critics of Levinson’s film, which was adapted for the screen by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry, cite the storybook ending as an abomination a watering down or flat-out massacre of Malamud’s intention
Is Iris son Roy Hobbs son?
Hobbs strikes out in his second at-bat. Iris persuades a stadium usher to deliver a note to Hobbs in the dugout. Upon reading the note, Hobbs is visibly moved by what Iris has told him Hobbs is the father of Iris son!
What is the story behind the movie The Natural?
The story follows Roy Hobbs, a baseball prodigy whose career is sidetracked after being shot by a woman whose motivation remains mysterious. The story mostly concerns his attempts to return to baseball later in life, when he plays for the fictional New York Knights with his self-made bat Wonderboy.
What kind of story is The Natural?
The Natural uses psychological romance to examine this theme. It tells the story of Roy Hobbs, a teenage natural at baseball as he moves from the back-pasture hometown game to a tryout for the major leagues and ultimately to a playoff game for the National League pennant.
Why was Roy Hobbs bleeding at the end of The Natural?
During his only season with the Knights, Hobbs is the hottest player in baseball but he got involved with a woman (with links to gamblers) who poisoned him. Hobbs wound in the hospital, where doctors extracted the silver bullet that had been lodged in him all these years.
How does the movie The Natural differ from the book?
The movie The Natural is significantly different from the novel The Natural. The book is darkerthe story is tragic not heroic. The Roy Hobbs appears to reader as a person hampered with unattractive flaws. Young Roy Hobbs’romance before he goes to Chicago to try out for the Cubs is not in the book.
Who does Roy strike out in the natural?
Why does Harriet shoot Roy and try to kill him? She is a serial killer targeting the greatest in each sport. On the train to Chicago, Max mentions news stories about great athletes in other sports being murdered. These are her doing.
Why did the woman shot Roy Hobbs?
The shooting is a scandalous story they were hoping to use to blackmail Roy into throwing a playoff game for the pennant. Ruth Steinhagen shot Waitkus and was sent to a state psychiatric hospital. According to interviews, articles, Ruth had actually intended to kill Waitkus by stabbing him with a knife
Who was the woman that shot Roy Hobbs?
While still a teenager on his way to the major leagues, Roy is shot by Harriet Bird and nearly killed. More than ten years later, at the age of thirty-five, Hobbs returns to the game; his body has aged, but his mind and heart are the same.
Is Roy Hobbs based on a real person?
According to Wikipedia, Author Malamud, supposedly not a baseball fan himself, created the Natural story and his Roy Hobbs character from the real life of Eddie Waitkus, a major leaguer in 1941 and 1946-55.
Is Roy Hobbs dead in the natural?
In the movie, the femme fatale was played by actress Barbara Hershey and her character commits suicide after shooting Redford’s character, Roy Hobbs. The year isn’t 1949 in the reel version of the story it’s the 1930s. And Hobbs isn’t an established major leaguer like Waitkus when he’s shot.
Is The Natural based on true story?
Eddie Waitkus is the baseball player who inspired the novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud, which was made into the movie The Natural (1984), starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs. Waitkus was a top defensive first baseman and left-handed line-drive hitter. He was one of the toughest men in the league to strike-out.
Was Bump Bailey a real person?
Rodney Duncan McCray (born September 13, 1963) is an American former professional baseball player who is best known for crashing through an outfield fence attempting to make a catch. He played mostly in the minors, but also made it to the majors with the Chicago White Sox and New York Mets from 1990 to 1992.
Why did the woman shoot Roy Hobbs in the movie The Natural?
Why does Harriet shoot Roy and try to kill him? She is a serial killer targeting the greatest in each sport. On the train to Chicago, Max mentions news stories about great athletes in other sports being murdered. These are her doing.
Why was Roy Hobbs bleeding at the end of the natural?
During his only season with the Knights, Hobbs is the hottest player in baseball but he got involved with a woman (with links to gamblers) who poisoned him. Hobbs wound in the hospital, where doctors extracted the silver bullet that had been lodged in him all these years.
Is Roy Hobbs the father of Iris son?
Finally, Hobbs has just found out from his old hometown girlfriend Iris (Glenn Close) that Hobbs is the father of her son Ted.
Is Roy Hobbs a true story?
According to Wikipedia, Author Malamud, supposedly not a baseball fan himself, created the Natural story and his Roy Hobbs character from the real life of Eddie Waitkus, a major leaguer in 1941 and 1946-55.
Is the whammer supposed to be Babe Ruth?
Most readers have understood The Whammer to be based on the great slugger Babe Ruth. The Whammer’s one of our first examples of pride going before a fall. When Roy strikes him out, he’s basically out of the novel.
What happens to Roy Hobbs father in The Natural?
Plot. In 1910s Nebraska, young Roy Hobbs learns to play baseball from his father. After Hobbs Sr. suffers an early fatal heart attack, lightning strikes the oak tree he died next to.
Whats the story behind The Natural?
Eddie Waitkus is the baseball player who inspired the novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud, which was made into the movie The Natural (1984), starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs. Waitkus was a top defensive first baseman and left-handed line-drive hitter. He was one of the toughest men in the league to strike-out.
