The Natural Essay
“Roy, will you be the best there ever was in the game?” “That’s right.” (p.33) In The Natural, by Bernard Malamud, Roy Hobbs intends to be the best baseball player there ever was, breaking all of the records and enjoying the fame that came with it. He started playing for the Knights under the management of Pop Fisher as a rookie at the age of 34. His career started slowly but eventually he became the most liked and most watched player in all of baseball leading his team from last place in the standings to the best team in baseball. In 1984, Mark Johnson took the book and produced it into a movie. While there were plenty of small differences, a few major changes were made. These changes ultimately led us from the book where we didn’t like him or want him to succeed to the movie where he was loved and people wanted him to succeed. Two differences in the movie from the book that gave a different mood and an extremely different outcome are Roy’s childhood in the movie and Roy’s relationship with Iris. At the beginning of The Natural movie, the additional portrayal of Roy’s childhood leads him to future success. In the book there was no portrayal of Roy’s childhood, and, therefore Roy did not achieve success to the same degree in the movie. The movie gave the viewer the impression that Roy had a family (including a father) and friends that were supportive and loving. We later find out that Roy’s friend in the beginning of the movie is Iris Lemon. Her role in the movie and the novel are different only because in the movie she had a relationship with Roy prior to him leaving for Chicago however, she plays an important character in both. The book begins with Roy, at age 19, on a train to Chicago to try out for the Chicago Cubs. In the book Iris is visually a complete opposite of Iris in the movie. Iris is described as plump although appealing, with a head full of red hair, yet in the movie she is a skinny, relatively attractive, and blond. Since Roy had a previous