Humanities Homework Help

The Importance of Symbolism in The Natural

As we have seen and discussed, Bernard Malamud uses a great deal of symbolism in The Natural. The trains, the references to mythology and the significance of the names all contribute to our understanding of the text. As Diane Henningfield says, The Natural is “only apparently about baseball.”

Please write a critical essay that addresses the question of what the book is really about and explores the way that the symbols used by Malamud help us to understand the underlying themes of the work.

The references to real events and people, such as Babe Ruth and the White Sox scandal, also add to the depth of the text. You may want to address these issues, and you may also choose to discuss the ways in which the book is relevant to current society.

Please use Diane Henningfield’s essay as source material, along with your notes from our class discussions. You may also use other sources that you find through the GCC Library, but please only use sources that are appropriate for an academic essay. Sources such as Shmoop and SparkNotes are not sophisticated enough for this assignment, and they are also inappropriate sources in general because they often contain inaccurate and incomplete information. Please provide a Works Cited page that lists all the outside sources you use in your essay.

Format: MLA

Word Count: 1800 words minimum