First of all, David Greene was born and raised in the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, not as privileged as the students he meets at St. Matthews. At one point in the movie, Greenes love interest, Sally Wheeler, mentions something about owning a cabin in Maine, and Greene is completely shocked by this. He is not used to being surrounded by people with so much affluence. Greene also grew up as a Jew, and even when he is in Scranton, Pennsylvania, he encounters anti-Semitism. When he arrives at St. Matthews, he is told by his football coach to hide the fact that he is Jewish from the other students. When the antagonist of the film, Charles Dillon, finds out that Greene is Jewish, he spreads this information and Greene experiences even more hate and bullying than he does at home. A Nazi flag with the words Go home Jew is hung over Greenes bed, and his former friends start verbally tormenting him as well. At St. Matthew
s, Greene is faced with the task of standing up for his religion and overcoming this adversity. The ability to overcome challenges and adversity throughout ones life is a characteristic that all heroes must possess. Greene exemplifies this characteristic far better than Hobbs does.
Roy Hobbs has also faced adversity in his life, but he has not been able to recover from it as well as Davis Greene has. For example, when Hobbs is talking to Iris Lemon on their date, Hobbs says: I was just a kid and I got shot by this batty dame on the night before my tryout, and after that I just couldnt get started again (Malamud, p.42). Hobbs is referring to when he first tried to play professional baseball when he was 9 and made a poor decision which resulted in him getting shot, but it has taken him 6 years to return back to the big stage. This reflection on Hobbs past emphasizes his struggle to surmount the obstacles in his life.