Why Did Harriet Bird Shoot Roy Hobbs?

In the novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud, Roy Hobbs is a talented young baseball player whose promising career is cut short when he is shot by a woman named Harriet Bird. There are many possible reasons why Harriet may have shot Roy, but the most likely reason is that she was jealous of his talent and success.

Harriet was a successful woman in her own right, but she was always overshadowed by her husband, who was a successful baseball player. She may have been jealous of Roy's talent and the attention he received from fans and the media. She may have also been angry that her husband's career was cut short by injury, while Roy's seemed to be flourishing.

It is also possible that Harriet was mentally unstable and that the shooting was a spontaneous act. She may have been under a lot of stress from her personal life and snapped when she saw Roy's success.

Whatever the reason, Harriet's shooting of Roy Hobbs ended his baseball career and changed his life forever. It is a tragic event that highlights the dark side of human nature.

Harriet Bird was a mystery woman who was always seen with a black umbrella. She first appears in the novel when Roy Hobbs is a young ballplayer on his way to Chicago to try out for the Cubs. She sits next to him on the train and offers him a piece of gum. They chat for a bit, and she asks him if he's going to be a great ballplayer. He says he is, and she tells him that she believes he will be.

When they get to Chicago, she disappears and he never sees her again until he's an adult and a famous ballplayer with the New York Knights. She shows up out of nowhere at his hotel room and asks him to come with her for a walk. He does, and she takes him to a secluded spot and shoots him.

The novel never definitively answers why she did it, but there are a few theories. One is that she was jealous of his success and wanted to take him down a peg. Another is that she was hired by the owner of the Knights to kill him because he was becoming too good and the owner was worried he would start demanding more money.

Whatever her motive was, it's clear that she was deeply troubled. And her actions had a profound effect on Roy, both physically and emotionally. The shooting left him with a permanent limp and also caused him to lose his confidence and love for the game of baseball.

There is no clear answer to this question. Harriet Bird seems to have known something about Roy Hobbs' abilities as a baseball player, but it is not clear whether or not she knows that he is the "Natural." It is possible that she was simply trying to get Roy to live up to his potential as a player, and saw him as a special case because of his unique talents.

Harriet Bird knew where to find Roy Hobbs for two reasons. First, she was able to track his whereabouts using the postcards he sent her. By cross-referencing the postmarks on the cards with city directories, she was able to put together a rough idea of his travel schedule. Additionally, she used her feminine intuition to sense that he would eventually end up in Chicago, the city of his birth. Second, Harriet had a connection to Roy's past that she was not fully aware of. She had inherited her grandfather's ability to see into the future, and she used this gift to find the man she was destined to love. Although she could not see his face, she knew that he was coming for her and that she would be able to find him if she looked hard enough. Thanks to her skills of deduction and her psychic ability, Harriet was able to find the man she was meant to be with.

"It's not personal, son."

That's what Harriet Bird said to Roy Hobbs before she shot him. It wasn't personal for her. It was just business. She was a professional assassin and he was her latest target. She had been hired to kill him and that's what she was going to do.

She had followed him for weeks, learning his routine, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. And finally, the opportunity had presented itself. He was alone, in a quiet place, with no one around to hear the shot.

She approached him from behind, gun drawn. He didn't even know she was there until she spoke.

"It's not personal, son."

Then she pulled the trigger. The bullet entered his back and exited through his chest. He fell to the ground, dead before he even hit the ground.

Harriet Bird turned and walked away. Her job was done.

Roy Hobbs reacted with shock and confusion when Harriet Bird shot him. He was clearly not expecting her to shoot him and was trying to figure out why she would do such a thing. He was in pain, but was able to talk to her and ask her why she did it. Harriet explained that she was in love with him and couldn't stand to see him with another woman. She also said that she knew he was going to leave her and she couldn't bear the thought of him being with someone else. In the end, Roy forgave Harriet and said that he loved her.

The other people in the bar thought that Harriet Bird shot Roy Hobbs because she was jealous of his success.

In the scene where Harriet Bird shot Roy Hobbs, the author wanted to say that violence is never the answer. Hobbs was a great baseball player who had his whole life ahead of him, but Bird was so consumed with jealousy and rage that she took it all away from him in a moment of senseless violence. This scene shows that no matter how strong or talented someone may be, they are still vulnerable to the destructive force of violence.