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The “Wonderboy” Bat
At one point in the novel, Hobbs witnesses what he takes to be an “illusion” in the road: “a boy coming out of the woods, followed by his dog,” an image that comes to symbolize Hobbs’s longing for his childhood and his feelings of uncertainty surrounding adulthood. Disoriented, Hobbs loses control of the car, and he believes that he may have hit the boy, but when he goes back to check, he finds no body. This image continues to recur in Hobbs’ imagination—he sees a similar image, that of a young boy throwing a ball, on the train to Chicago at the beginning of the novel—and he eventually remembers that as a child, he once wandered into the woods to find his lost dog, getting a “scared and lonely feeling that he was impossibly lost.” Hobbs’ hallucination thus represents his own feeling of “being lost” as an adult: his own inability to figure out what he wants from life, and to grapple with the moral difficulties of being a part of a highly corrupt sport.
The hallucination of the boy and his dog also demonstrates Hobbs’s yearning for the simplicity of childhood: Hobbs remembers that once he found his dog, it led him out of the woods, and that this “was good out of good.” At times, Hobbs wishes “he had no ambitions—often wondered where they had come from in his life, because he remembered how satisfied he had been as a youngster, and that with the little he had […] he wished he could have lived longer in his boyhood.” Even though his childhood was fraught with challenges, Hobbs remembers that he was once satisfied with few material possessions—he was content to live a simple life with just a loyal dog by his side, surrounded by nature—and he begins to feel disillusioned with his own pursuit of wealth and power as a baseball star. By “running over” the boy and his dog, Hobbs unconsciously defies his own yearning for the simplicity of the past, yet this desire returns to him nonetheless—just as the image of the boy and the dog does. Thus, these imagined figures symbolize Hobbs’ uncertainty about his own path in life, serving as a palpable reminder of the purposelessness he begins to experience as he becomes a famous player.
The Boy and His Dog Quotes in The Natural
The The Natural quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Boy and His Dog. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Pre-Game Quotes
As [Roy Hobbs] was looking, there flowed along this bone-white farmhouse with sagging skeletal porch, alone in untold miles of moonlight, and before it this white-faced, long-boned boy whipped with train-whistle yowl a glowing ball to someone hidden under a dark oak, who shot it back without thought, and the kid once more wound and returned. Roy shut his eyes to the sight because if it wasn’t real it was a way he sometimes had of observing himself.
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This early quotation gives a sense of Malamud’s rich, rhythmic prose (note the many hyphenated adjectives that he uses in one long sentence alone) and introduces different themes that will characterize baseball in the novel. On one hand, the boy—representing Hobbs as a young boy, playing baseball with his father, who first taught him to throw—is “whipping” “a glowing ball,” imbuing baseball with elements of fantasy. On the other, however, the boy is “white-faced” and surrounded by a “bone-white farmhouse” with a “sagging skeletal porch.” These images paint baseball as degraded and grotesque, and the novel will continue to flesh Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusan
As the train skirted close in, the trees leveled out and he could see within the woodland the only place he had been truly intimate with in his wanderings, a green world shot through with weird light and strange bird cries, muffled in silence that made the privacy so complete his inmost self had no shame of anything he thought there, and it eased the body-shaking beat of his ambitions.
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This passage sets up one of the most prominent symbols in the text: the image of Roy Hobbs as a young boy, growing up in the rural backlands of the American Midwest. Hobbs will become obsessed with this image of himself in youth, surrounded by nature and at peace with himself, viewing it as a symbol of the simpler, more humble lifestyle he often believes would be preferable to his hard-won career in baseball—and the debauched lifestyle that comes with it. Like Pop Fisher and Herman Youngberry, both of whom express desires to return to rural farm life, Hobbs idealizes Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim
Batter Up! Part 1 Quotes
Roy found himself looking around every so often to make sure he was here. He was, all right, yet in all his imagining of how it would be when he finally hit the majors, he had not expected to feel so down in the dumps. It was different than he had thought it would be. So different he almost felt like walking out, jumping back on a train, and going wherever people went when they were running out on something. Maybe for a long rest in one of those towns he had lived in as a kid. Like the place where he had that shaggy mutt that used to scamper through the woods.
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As Hobbs enters the Knights’ locker room for the first time, he feels somewhat disillusioned: though he has wanted to play in the majors for many years, he realizes that he expected a warmer welcome (whereas Pop Fisher, his new coach, has acted dismissively toward him). Once again, Hobbs thinks about returning to a simpler, bucolic lifestyle, imagining an escape to the “woods” where he once lived with a “shaggy mutt.” This image (of a younger Hobbs accompanied by his dog) will recur throughout the novel, serving as a reminder of the alternative, more wholesome life Hobbs could choose to Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur molli
Batter Up! Part 4 Quotes
He felt contentment in moving. It rested him by cutting down the inside motion—that which got him nowhere, which was where he was and [Memo] was not, or where his ambitions were and he was chasing after. Sometimes he wished he had no ambitions—often wondered where they had come from in his life, because he remembered how satisfied he had been as a youngster, and that with the little he had—a dog, a stick, an aloneness he loved.
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Again, Hobbs’s identity and ambition are tied to movement and motion: just as Hobbs is introduced as a thirty-five-year old in the Knights dugout as “traveling (on the train that never stopped),” here he is also described in terms that evoke “inside motion,” and again, he is uncertain where exactly his ambitions are leading. Hobbs has begun to feel disillusioned with his own pursuits—of fame, of Memo, of fans’ attention—and returns to the image that comforts him most: a tranquil moment from his childhood, when he could be alone with his dog in nature. Despite its many extravagant perks, baseball Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperia
He felt he had been running for ages, then this blurred black forest slid past him, and as he slowed down, each black tree followed a white, and then all the trees were lit in somber light till the moon burst forth through the leaves and the woods glowed. Out of it appeared this boy and his dog, and Roy in his heart whispered him a confidential message: watch out when you cross the road, kid.
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As Hobbs tries to evade Max Mercy, who is chasing him through the Midtown Hotel in order to question him about his past, Hobbs again imagines himself as a child with his dog, and he realizes that the image he saw in the road while driving with Memo—a ghostly apparition of a boy and a dog—came from his own memory. Hobbs’s past continues to intrude forcefully on the present (especially given Mercy’s non-stop questioning about his background), including both this idyllic image of his childhood and his memories of the traumatic encounter with Harriet Bird. Despite his “inside motion,” his Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia ap
Batter Up! Part 8 Quotes
[A]s the Judge had talked [Roy Hobbs] recalled an experience he had had when he was a kid. He and his dog were following an old skid road into the heart of a spooky forest when the hound suddenly let out a yelp, ran on ahead, and got lost. It was late in the afternoon and he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving the dog there alone all night, so he went into the wood after it. At first he could see daylight between the trees—to this minute he remembered how still the trunks were, as the tree tops circled around in the breeze […] but just at about the time the darkness got so thick he was conscious of having to shove against it as he hallooed for the dog, he got this scared and lonely feeling that he was impossibly lost.
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As Judge Banner attempts to convince Hobbs to take a bribe to purposefully lose the last game of the season—betraying Pop Fisher and sacrificing his career for a pay-out that will help him to win over Memo—Hobbs thinks back to the moment in his childhood that he has envisioned multiple times throughout the novel, remembering the time that he went to seek out his lost dog in the woods. Previously, the memory of being alone with his dog in the woods has always seemed like a happy one, but this instance reveals that even this peaceful scene has always concealed Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus c
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The Boy and His Dog Symbol Timeline in The Natural
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Boy and His Dog appears in The Natural. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Pre-Game
...his window. As the train speeds past a farmhouse, Roy catches a glimpse of a boy in the yard throwing a “glowing ball” to another person in a game of catch.
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Batter Up! Part 1
...to one of the towns he lived in as a child, where he had a dog and could wander through the woods in peace. Hobbs is caught in the reverie until...
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Batter Up! Part 4
...Memo, he desires her “more than ever.” Suddenly, he sees an apparition of a young boy followed by a dog in the road and Memo swerves, but the car hits something;...
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...loses track of them. He doesn’t see anything in the road where he spotted the boy and his dog before. Distracted, Hobbs runs his car into a tree, sustaining a black...
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...hotel, he imagines he is back in the “blurred black forest,” where he spots the boy and his dog, broken and bleeding in the middle of a road. He decides that...
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Batter Up! Part 8
...a moment from his childhood when he wandered into the woods to find his lost dog, remembering the loneliness he felt. Before leaving, the Judge offers to increase Hobbs’s salary for...
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