The Natural By Bernard Malamud

In our book groups we discussed two essays “The Connection Between Strangers” by Miles Goodwin and the essay “The People Who Love You When No One Else Would” by Cecile Gilmer. In my group we said that “no matter how big or small your act of kindness is, it could change someones life” was demonstrated in both essays. In the first essay, “The Connection Between Strangers”, shows this because this little girl walked up to this solider and congratulated him. Little did she know, that the small action had changed the soldier’s life, as he said in the essay, “That girl undoubtedly has no memory of what happened years ago… It doesn't matter why she gave me the magazine. The important thing is she did” (Goodwin 83).

Journal One in The Alternative by Galen Leonhardy, tells the story of a teacher who helps open an alternative school in Kozol Creek, Idaho, and the struggles he faces in attempting to implement a collaborative education process. The author writes of teachers who let students run free through the halls or simply ignored kids because they did not know how to handle them. He also writes of teachers who strive for a more personalized education by learning who their students are and understanding the environment from which they come. I have also dealt with both kinds of teachers in my educational experience, as I was a student of an alternative school. Mr. Lamar, to me, represents what a teacher should be. His personal dedication to making a difference in students’ lives and his willingness to go the extra mile by empowering students to take responsibility for their education changed how I perceived my own education. Mrs. Patton, on the other hand, is a teacher I would much rather forget. Her militarized style of teaching made learning an afterthought to the daily complications we encountered in the classroom. Both Mr. Lamar and Mrs. Patton taught me the importance of being included in your own education.

Anthropology and genetics are two fields that, when put together, discover some amazing things. Most of these amazing things are written in the book The Journey of Man, by Spencer Wells. In it, he explains where humans originated from, and how we came to populate the entire globe. It is both humbling and riveting, and a great start to understanding how much work truly goes in to studying our past.

As life continuously throws obstacles and challenges in life, humans tend to get through it with family members. In fact, most human/ people rely on family members to help them get through obstacles. Sending love to a family member for a hard situation leads to less stress as studies show. Obstacles are a things that happen on a daily basis and love may be the only cure. “Elena” is portraying a huge obstacle taking place, but no help is seeked, Pat Mora knows that this a struggle for others that they face everyday. Challenges vary on size and can have a great or small impact on a person but at the end, the person can overcome the obstacle. In “Elena”, Mora demonstrates love will overcome every obstacle when family is present.

The novel, The Natural, is full of cycles and the main character, Roy Hobbs, keep on repeating his mistakes from the past, allowing the same thing to happen multiple times in his life. Although Roy is gifted and talented, he also has flaws that prevent him from succeeding. Malamud is trying to say that human doesn’t recognize their potential and how to take advantage of it until it’s too late and what prevents us from recognizing and reaching our full potential are corruption, human flaws and destiny. In this novel, Roy is unable to reach his full potential because of Harriet, Memo, and his foolish chose of Memo over Iris.

The universe doesn’t owe you, me, or anyone a thing, except for death. Though as kids most of us were led to believe that with enough effort and hard work were going to become whatever we wanted to be, we were going to have whatever our little hearts desired, and we were going to do whatever we wanted to do. However, as we grew up we realized that this is not the case. There are millions of people who did not become professional athletes, models, or billionaires, people who never got to have the mansions, cars, and fame that they always longed for, people who never got to travel the world, cure cancer, or fly into space. These are all mostly childlike dreams, which were probably imposed unto us by either our parents or society. There’s nothing wrong with children having these sort of improbable dreams, however, there comes a time where we can no longer be children. In the story Tandolfo the Great, written by Richard Bausch, we are introduced to Rodney Wilbury aka Tandolfo the Great, who is a suitable example to demonstrate what life can be like for those who are unable to grow out of their childlike mind sets. In this analysis I will be inspecting how Tandolfo the Great’s childish mind set, from his strong sense of entitlement to his inability to let go of the past events, has almost destroyed his life and how it can destroy anyone else’s.

In the book, The Natural (1952) by Bernard Malamud, Roy Hobbs is a character very much parallel to the legend of Percival. Roy, who has to overcome many obstacles throughout his troubled life, has the goal of becoming the greatest to ever do it. Malamud makes many allusions to this Arthurian legend making makes it his own by adding the twist to Roy’s destiny. Bernard Malamud uses the allusions to the Arthurian legend, while foreshadowing many twists of fate making it hard for Roy to follow his values, to build the story of, The Natural.

The novel The Natural written by Bernard Malamud, is an incredible story of a baseball player named Roy Hobbs who, against all odds, makes it to the big leagues at the age of 31 and in the end because of his tragic character flaws, loses all he has in a single game. Throughout the story, Roy encounters many trials and tribulations that make him grow as a character and help move him the various stages of a hero’s journey. Roy Hobbs encounters the fifth step in the departure stage of a hero’s journey, “the belly of the whale,” when Roy goes up to bat and knocks the shell off the baseball in his first game, giving him lots of publicity and the crowd wanting to see if he could achieve the same results again.

Many people strive in life for the things that are not meant to be, but very few actually live life and follow the path that was set for them. Some fall into the path of greed, others into the path of lust, but the majority fall into the path of envy. This is the worse one to fall into out of all of them, when you start envying the goods of others it leads you to the other two paths: greed and lust. If you envy their wife you start lusting and if you envy their money to start to have greed and want it all. This particular situation happens with Roy in the novel "The Natural" by Bernard Malamud. Roy had many opportunities oportunities to be an exemplinary role model but instead he fell into these temptations of life: greed, lust, and envy.

Joy Morounfolu Weiss Honors English 10 – Period 1 29 April 2015 The Inspiration Life of Bernard Malamud In Bernard Malamud’s novel, The Natural, it is said that, “We have two lives…the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness” (Malamud 152).

Today children and even adults depend on technology to make use of time. Even kids are so engaged to all these technology such as smartphones and tablets, they don’t know what they are missing in the real world. Technology today has its many pros and cons, but the overuse in technology among humans is what troubles us. In the essay “Last Child of the woods” By Richard Louv he writes an argument between man vs nature to defend his position that technology is interfering with nature. He uses a wide variety of Rhetorical devices to organize his essay such as hyperboles, anecdotes, metaphors, diction and even a little sarcasm to prove his arguments.

A mythical forest creature. Human by day, monster by night. Often, we glorify werewolves. A group of screaming teenage girls rooting for “Team Jacob”. But what happens when you live with the equivalent? In My Father, The Werewolf, author John Brownlee gives us a glimpse in.

Ethical naturalism is a realist, cognitivist position which posits that moral facts correspond to some sort of natural facts, which may or may not be capable of definition. Peter Railton in “Moral Realism” posits that such a definition is possible, offering an extensive account of non-moral good.

The short story called “Lusus Naturae” or better known in its translated title as is known as Freak of Nature is a work of fiction with the main character is commonly referred to or treated like a monster. The main character that Margaret Atwood creates tries to be an obedient and virtuous daughter even though she has become deformed and sick with hallucinations. The monster tries to do everything she can do to help her family even faking her own death to benefit her sister. The protagonist shows us how women were treated if you were not normal or if you had a disease but I feel like this story relates to how society treats women who are what to be independent.

Does conforming to society’s standards help or hurt us in the long run? “The Stranger”, by Albert Camus, explores the evolution of Meursault, the nonconforming protagonist. Meursault continuously repeats, “It doesn’t mean anything” to his friends and acquaintances to illustrate how indifferent he is about the world. Meursault’s behavior affects people’s judgment of him, and he is later punished for believing in his own values. For most of his life, Meursault abstains from following society 's norms, but by the end of the novel he evolves into someone who cares about what others think of him. Meursault, who used to follow only his own principles, realizes that the only way to live and feel alive is to be recognized.