oncierge level of the hotel, he orders many hamburgers on buns. As they are served to him, they are described as looking like dead birds on bread. Although Roy sees the meat that way, his hunger overrides his conscience and he thinks nothing of the possibility of food poisoning. Roy winds up in the hospital that night with severe food poisoning and this begins his rapid decline from the high ranks of baseball. The death of a bird in Greek and Roman mythology meant something terrible would happen. In the novel, the meat that looks like dead birds spell the end of Roy Hobbs as an athlete. Perhaps the least recognized symbol in The Natural is Roy’s bat. The bat represents his manhood and displays his present feelings (27). During Roy’s fantastic season after being in submission for fifteen years, he uses the name “Wonderboy” to describe his bat. The name, in a way, is also symbolic of Roy’s talents. During Roy’s incredible streak of offensive ability, “Wonderboy” seemed alive and living in his hands. However, during Roy’s two-week slump in that same season, the bat tended to droop and drag across the dugout floor, not showing any signs of lifting its spirits or Roy out of his slump. This description of the bat is symbolic of Roy’s attitude during different parts of his season, acting high and mighty during success and looking dreary and glum during his failures.In conclusion, symbolism plays an extremely important role in Bernard Malamud’s The Natural. In creating this masterpiece, Malamud relates his own life to that of Roy Hobbs, in part because they both got late starts in their respective careers (Solotaroff 6). On the surface, Roy, a baseball player, and Malamud, a writer, do not seem to have much in common. However, due to that commonality between the author and his character, much of the symbolism in The Natural is deep-seeded and is found by the reader ...
