Can a man kill another man; yet, be a passive hero? In Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Seaths short story, “Billy Budd, Sailor (An inside Narrative)”, Billy Budd is characterized as a passive hero. Unexpectedly, Billy Budd is singled out and forced into the King’s service. Even so, Billy Budd has a positive influence with nearly all of his ship mates and officers. However, Billy’s affect with the new master-at-arms proves Billy does not have a positive effect on everyone. Ultimately, Billy Budd’s lack of adult experience becomes his downfall; because Billy is unable to comprehend somebody would aim to impair his persona.
Billy Budd is characterized to be a static hero by his previous ship Captain Graveling, upon being transferred to a ship called Billipotent. Therefore, the Caption Graveling complains to Billy Budd’s new Lieutenant, Radcliffe, “But Billy came; and it was like a Catholic priest striking peace in an Irish shindy. Not that he preached to them or said or did anything in particular; but a virtue went out of him, sugaring the sour ones (Hayford and Sealts 933).” ...
A hero is a person that has acquired admiration from others for their dignified qualities. Heroes can be found everywhere, but there is one particular hero from the book Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease that looms in the crowd. The story is told from the perspective of a 14-year old boy from Cumberland named Peter Brownrigg. As Peter wanders through sixteenth century England, we quickly discover that he is a hero. His actions of bravery, determination, and intelligence throughout the novel clearly demonstrate this matter.
In this novel Roxanne is a famous soprano opera singer from Chicago. Bel Canto, one of the main characters that I chose to study was Roxane Coss. Roxanne is a famous soprano opera singer from Chicago.
Everyone has their own perception on what defines a hero; some may argue that they exhibit characteristics such as honesty or courage, while others may think that heroes have special power. Our society may have changed the values in which we associate heroes with, but one thing seems to have never changed: the main character of the book turns out as the hero. In my analyst, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, is put on trial as we see through our own eyes how Caulfield can not be considered a hero in modern society.
The Sky Fisherman by Craig Lesley is a story about a boy learning about life’s way of balancing out. Culver and his mother, Flora, moved to the small town of Gateway, for a fresh start from their troubling past. Culver will witness the effects of guilt and repayment of debt on his Uncle as he tries to balance out the community of Gateway. Guilt and debt encourage people to make unwise decisions in favor of those who they are repaying. Their goal is to make things even and fair. Life balances out.
In the text it states “To them a chip of it was as a piece of the Cross. Ignorant tho’ they were of the secret facts of the tragedy, and not thinking but that the penalty was somehow unavoidably inflicted from the naval point of view, for all that they instinctively felt that Billy was a sort of man as incapable of mutiny as of willful murder.” This quote from the book shows how the sailors felt about Billy Budd after his death; they thought he was wrongly punished for a crime he didn’t commit. They saw him as a christ-like sacrifice for the good of the rest of the crew. The narrator compares Billy’s gallows to the cross Jesus was crucified on to exaggerate how much the sailors valued Billy and his sacrifice for them. If Billy hadn’t sacrificed himself, I think some of the other crew members would have been hung as well for conspiring to mutiny. Even though Billy was in the end hung for murder, the slightly ignorant crew viewed the hanging as a false punishment for leading a
So what defines one as a hero? Well, a definition of what a hero is “A person noted for special achievement in a particular field” (hero, n.d). Our concept of a hero alters drastically from person to
Richard Rodriguez in his piece “Late Victorians” paints a picture as an outside observer of gay culture in San Francisco. He opens and closes with thoughts from St. Augustine and continues through the paper to write of his heavy Catholic influence in his thinking. As a gay male that migrated to San Francisco, Rodriguez speaks of the stereotypes within the gay community, always putting himself in a different if not elevated category.
The process of manufacturing a land sailor began with researching sailing, how a land sailor works and what allows for a land sailor to perform well. From the research it was found for a land sailor to maximize performance the land sailor has to be as lightweight as possible but not too light that when applied with wind the land sailor would topple over. In addition to the land sailor, the sail had to reach 45 degrees to the source of the wind where beyond that point the land sailor would not move. Also with the sail battens needed to be used to help keep the shape of the sail and to prevent the sail from flapping uncontrollably.
What is a hero? For the most part the answer to that question is entirely subjective, what someone must do in order to be labeled a hero or, for the matter, a villain is almost entirely up to each and every individual reader. In the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, the speaker introduces the protagonist of the play as a loyal and valiant warrior, typical traits of a hero, but it quickly becomes clear to any reader that Macbeth, the protagonist, is not in any sense of the word a hero. That insufficient heroism can be credited to a prophecy given by three witches that had a similar effect on both Macbeth and Banquo. The only clear hero of the play is Macduff, a man with a strong sense of loyalty to the country he swore to serve.
I have chosen a story called “Ship Fever” for my written essay. Ship fever was written by an American writer and author, Andrea Barrett. This book discusses an event known as the great famine which had taken place in the middle 1800's, in Ireland. The great famine affected potato harvests across all of Ireland and as a result, more than one and a half million Irish people suffered from hunger, starvation and subsequent loss of life. The potato was a major staple in the diet of many of the underprivileged population of Ireland. Many of the Irish people gathered up their belongings and their families and boarded ships to immigrate to North America and start a new life. So nearly 1,300,000 Irish people set sail for several north eastern US cities, such as New York City, Philadelphia and Boston. These Irish immigrants had left behind a famine never seen by their country before. They had left with hope of a bright future only to find themselves coming down with a parasitic disease known as Typhus. It
When Billy Bibbit was caught by Nurse Ratched with candy the prostitute he blamed McMurphy for forcing him to do that because he was scared the nurse would tell his mother." What worries me, Billy,” she said I could hear the change in her voice-”is how your mother is going to take this.” (Kesey pg.301) ”Duh-duh-don’t t-tell, M-M-M-Miss Ratched. Duh-duh-duh-----””Billy, I have to tell. I hate to believe you would behave like this, but, really, what else can I think? I find you alone, on a mattress, with this sort of woman.” ”No! I d-d-didn’t. I was--” (Kesey pg.301) “Billy this girl could not have pulled you in here forcibly.” She shook her head. “Understand, I would like to believe something else--for your poor mother’s sake.” (pg.302) “She d-did.” He looked around him. “And M-M-McMurphy! He did And Harding! And the-the-the rest! They t-t-teased me, called me things!”(Kesey pg. 302) “They m-m-made me! Please, M-Miss Ratched, they may-may-May---!”(Kesey pg.302)
Alistair MacLeod has a unique style of writing in the story, “The Boat”, which is composed of fairly simple words to present the reader with a smooth read. The context of the passage is witnessed in the eyes of the narrator, and it voices the dedication of his father; whom works diligently as a fisherman with his son following his footsteps. The excerpt from the story relates to the story as a whole since his father carried on the tradition of fishing at sea from previous generations - despite his appreciation for books, he gave up on his dreams for the sake of family heritage. MacLeod describes the father in the story with detail about what he was wearing “rubber-booted heel” (228), his age “sixty-five” (228), and also reveals facial features
The literary technique of characterization is often used to create and delineate a human character in a work of literature. When forming a character, writers can use many different methods of characterization. However, there is one method of characterization that speaks volumes about the character and requires no more than a single word - the character's personal name. In many cases, a personal name describes the character by associating him with a certain type of people or with a well known historical figure. Therefore, since the reader learns the character's name first, a personal name is a primary method of characterization; it creates an image in the reader's mind that corresponds with the name of the character. Once this image has been created, all subsequent actions and beliefs of the character are somehow in accordance with this image; otherwise, the character does not seem logical and the reader is not be able to relate to the work. In the novels The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, by Yukio Mishima, and Wonderful Fool, by Shusako Endo, each author gives one of his characters a personal name that guides the character's actions and beliefs.
This Passage is significant in many ways. O’Brien has a vague yet vivid memory of throwing a grenade and killing a young Vietnamese soldier in the midst of war and what really struck him was the corpse of the young man. He is dejected because of what he has done, and was even speaking in the third person and constructing fantasies as to what the man must have been like before he was killed. Weaving the story of the young man’s life into something similar as his own. The way O’Brien achieves this is through certain literary techniques. One is being Imagery. On the top of page 127 he says “The nose was undamaged. The skin on the right cheek was smooth and fine-grained and hairless. Frail-looking, delicately boned” (O’Brien 127). On the top of page 128 he also says “Along the trail there were small blue flowers shaped like bells. The young man 's head was wrenched sideways, not quite facing the flowers, and even in the shade a single blade of sunlight sparkled against the buckle of his ammunition belt. The left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips. The wounds at his neck had not yet clotted, which made him seem animate even in death, the blood still spreading out across his shirt.” (O’Brien 128). O’Brien uses words like
The book “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex” by Nathaniel Philbrick is tragic, eyes widening and heart wrenching where all the morals and ethics are gravely subjected to situation and questioned when it comes to survival. What they must do for survival? How man love their lives and no matter what strikes upon them, holler from behind, ambush their morale, yet they want to keep going just for the sake of living. The book is epitome of such a situation that encounters survival over morality. However, in the thrust of knowledge and oceans of secrets locked inside the chambers of this world, there is a heavy price men have to pay in the ordeal of yearning for knowledge.