Malamud gives the Judge defining characteristics that are deeper than his simple physical characteristics.Malamud shows us the Judge watches the games from his tower. This tower is above the stadium and is crooked due to how the stadium settled. The crookedness of his tower is a blatant representation of the Judge being crooked himself. In addition the tower being above the stadium shows that the judge is not on the same level as the fans and …show more content…
The Judge strikes striking similarities with the devil through his characteristics and actions. The most interesting aspect of the Judge, however, is how little he is in the novel, that is being present in each part of the text. The Judge is not mentioned for most of the story, yet if he were removed the story would fall apart. This critical role of the Judge in “The Natural” is similar to the role of the Devil in the bible. The Devil is not mentioned in the bible very often, there are some passages but not particularly many. This is a startling similarity that is hard to decipher if Bernard Malamud meant to include. Malamud includes ample information hinting at the hidden meaning of a character who is rarely in the actual text. One can only imagine what could be learned from researching the rest the characters in Malamud’s “The