Ensor-Gibson 1 Weakness in the Bronx Since there is no such thing as a perfect human, we all have flaws. All characters in stories need to have some sort of weakness, and if that weakness is exposed, it will show another side of that character you haven't seen before, making them a more in-depth person that can fail. From that failure, they can either learn from it and move on or it will haunt them for the rest of their days. In Billy Bathgate, a story written by E.L. Doctorow, his characters have defining weaknesses, though some more obvious than others. To have a weakness shows that you are human, and that critical flaw will make for a more interesting story, so let's show off Dutch Schultz, Abbadabba Berman, and Billy Bathgate's weaknesses. …show more content…
Even though Dutch Schultz is a very powerful man with a lot of influence, he does have a weakness of his own.
Dutch allows his emotions to get priority in the decisions he makes, mostly referring to his anger. If something goes wrong or someone annoys Schultz too much, he will let his anger take over and seek revenge against that person. For example, Bo Weinberg was one of Schultz's best men in his gang, but when Bo interrupted a family dining time, Bo was taken out to a boat, had his feet dipped in cement, and thrown into the harbor to drown. When Dutch told Bo that, “Bo, you should understand I am past the madness part. I am past the anger. Don't waste your breath.” (14), it shows that once Dutch makes a decision, he won't back off from it. When Dutch sent out Billy to investigate Dewey because he was upset that Lucky may have betrayed him, that was the beginning of the end for …show more content…
Dutch. For Abbadabba Berman, his weakness lies in his need for Schultz and his dependency on numbers. Whenever there was a situation that arose that Schultz didn't ask for Berman's help or Berman couldn't help with, his uselessness really started to show, and Billy definitely saw this. Berman relies very heavily on numbers to get through a variety of situations in life, but even he knows that if something comes up that he can't figure out with his numbers, he deems it as an “X” or an unknown variable. Berman's doubt in himself really shows after Schultz decides to have Billy track Dewey, stating beforehand that, “My Abbadabba. I never knew the numbers were for dreaming”, basically stating that Schultz doesn't believe in Berman's numbers anymore. This leaves Berman as little more than a regular citizen who can't contribute to the gang, seeing as his numbers were what gave him power. Throughout the entire story, as we follow Billy around, we see his flaw as being unable to decide what he wants.
We know that Billy respects Dutch Schultz a lot and wants to become a part of his gang, but many times while he's in the gang, he begins to doubt the group and tells himself he should leave and go hide somewhere. One of these instances was when he was watching over Mrs. Preston, thinking to himself that, “I had the feeling that if we just stayed here we would be free, Mr. Schultz would never find us because he couldn't imagine such a place existed” (152). Because of Billy's nature to debate everything that's going on, he doesn't really do much in the story of his own accord, and the other members of the gang just use him as an errand boy for the most part. I say that Billy's inability is to decide on one thing is a weakness, but it didn't really prevent him from doing anything. His indecisive-ness may have gotten him pushed around by the other gang members, but at the end of the story, Billy was the only one left standing. He does get taken to see Lucky at one point, the man responsible for Mr. Schultz's death, but instead of trying to avenge Schultz, Billy decides to go live his life and get an education, all while under the watchful eyes of Lucky. Perhaps Billy's real issue is that he is too complacent with how things are, always going along with what people tell him and even though he thinks about going against orders, he never does. Billy wanted to
live a more dangerous life by joining up with Schultz's gang, but he never really did anything that dangerous. Even though everyone viewed the gangs of major cities as forces of power that would control your life, they were still human. With all humans comes a weakness, such as Schultz letting his emotions take control of him, Berman relying too heavily on Schultz and his numbers, and Billy being way too complacent. These flaws would end up with Schultz and Berman dead, and Billy spending the rest of his life under the watch of Dewey, always needing to keep an eye on his back. As I said in the beginning, when a weakness is exploited, it is up to the character to either move on from that and learn, or die without doing anything. Even though Berman and Schultz weren't given a chance to move on, Billy could have done it for them, but instead chose to go along with the flow like he usually did.
Bill Buford, New York Times writer, and avid home cook, unsuspectedly steps into the chaos of Babbo, an Italian restaurant owned by the boisterous, Mario Batali. His quiet and orderly life is shattered by the disorder and ruthlessness of a Michelin star kitchen. While Bill’s superego controls many aspects of his life, he is mostly driven by his id in the kitchen. When first beginning his tenure in the kitchen, Bill carried with him his superego drive, often incorporating his New York upper-middle class societal ideals into his manners and actions. These ideals which include politeness, orderliness, and a strive for perfection are often overshadowed and defeated by the chaotic environment of the kitchen and the self-centered nature of the
to it because his fate did not lead him there. Billy applied the fact that he had to accept
Billy has no control over his being in a time warp. In the midst of his life in New York he will suddenly find himself Tralfamadore; he has become "unstuck in time" ( 22). The Tralfamadorians eventually show Billy the important moments of his life, but they do not always show them in sequence. They do this so Billy can fully understand the true reasons for and the importance of the events.
...erson & by not doing everything that his parents said he was able to find out the truth which I think, in the end would have made his relationship with his parents much stronger. Billy was very restricted & confined by the expectations placed on him by his family & as well as society & because of this was not able to express himself or find his own personal happiness but through dance he was able to discover who he really is & what he loves & by pursuing it he became a much stronger person, it even enabled him to stand up to his father in showing him how much he loves dance & in doing so also stood up to society & gender stereotypes, this made Billy a much stronger person, throughout the movie it also shows how Billy is able to make a better personal relationship with his father & his brother Tony who he grows closer to as he becomes his own person through dance.
Throughout the book, the author creates numerous hardships that Billy has to live through. One of the hardships that he is given is that he is captured in German lines of the war that he was drafted into, and was shipped with other American prisoners of war to a camp that was filled with dying Russians. After that, they were moved to Dresden where no one would expect this city to be bombed, but sooner than imagined, nothing was left of the breathtakingly beautiful German city. Another hardship that Billy faced and contributed to his moral struggle and issues in the story is after he returns back home from Dresden´s crazy firestorm, he gets engaged with Valencia and soon following is a nervous breakdown and recovers of it amazingly to have two children become more in depth of optometry to make more money to support his new family. To continue his life while it is on a high, Billy and his wife travel by airplane to an optometry conference in Montreal, resulting in a skull fracture for Billy and Valencia passes due to carbon monoxide poisoning on her way to see her husband at the hospital. Billy struggled through tough times and situations but kept going, even after he went mentally insane, even with the moral struggles and issues that were thrown out at him throughout his life
First his father dies in a hunting accident, then he gets in a plane crash and everyone aboard dies but him, and while he is in the hospital recuperating, his wife dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. There is so much death surrounding his life, that it is no wonder Billy has not tried to kill himself yet. Billy proves throughout the book that he is not mentally stable, yet somehow, he is persuasive in his interpretation of the truth. It is a good example of how people are very gullible creatures, and even in Billy’s constant state of delirium, it is hard to disavow what Billy seems to believe is the truth. He proves his instability frequently:
The main event that leads Billy to all his confusion is the time he spent in Dresden and witnessed the fire-bombings that constantly pop in his head along with pictures of all the innocent people Billy saw that fled to Dresden the "safe spot" from the war before the bombing. When Billy sees the faces of the innocent children it represents his fear of the situation. Billy can't acknowledge the fact that they were innocent and they were killed by Americans, Americans soldiers just like himself. The biggest issue Billy cannot come to grasp with is why the bombings took place. That question has no answer; it's just something that happened that Billy couldn't get over. During all Billy's travels back to Dresden he couldn't change what had really happened there although that was the closure he was looking for. Dresden purely represents Bill's past and fears of the truth about what happened.
This indicates that the war will always have a negative impact on Billy and all the other soldiers. He lived in fear all the time and never felt safe around anyone or anything. The constant worry about being drafted to another war remains with him all the time. Also, Billy always felt Billy is so pessimistic about life that after each character's death Billy says, “so it goes” (20).
“The third bullet was for the filthy flamingo, who stopped dead center in the road when the lethal bee buzzed past his ear. Billy stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance.” This clearly illustrated the child-like person Billy is. Instead of duck and cover, Billy stands there as if he were playing a board game he didn’t want to play and in protest did not move his player. He doesn’t truly grasp the distraught situation he is in and he most certainly doesn’t comprehend it. By not looking out for his own interest he becomes an infantile creature depending on the civil duties of others.
Something similar about the Germans and the Tralfamadorian Aliens is they both made Billy strip when he arrived, the Germans refuse to answer why they beat one prisoner and not another, Tralfamadorian aliens refuse to answer why they took Billy, the Germans confine Billy to a slaughterhouse, the Tralfamadorians confine him to a zoo. So obviously there are parallels between his past and fantasy life. But in his fantasy land, Billy can change these painful events, right?
Denial is also crucial to Billy Pilgrim's character. The Dresden bombing intensifies the damage to his personality. He can survive only by denying his experiences at Dresden and he divides himself into two halves: a social half that says, "Yes," and a private half that says, "No." His conflicts force his "surrender to the world," first with a mental breakdown, then with an escape into fantasy. Publicly, he agrees with the Marine major who wants more bombing, more Green Berets, while internally, he sees a war-film backwards, in which he wishes to undo the ravaging effects of war. Looking for an outlet, Billy discovers science fiction, which gives him perspective and consolation. This perspective forces him to teach others, to improve not people's physical sight but their spiritual vision, which eventually leads to his commitment.
In the beginning, Claggart acted friendly towards Billy, causing him not to suspect anything. Consequently, this put Billy in a state danger, because he lived in a delusion, unaware of the malice put towards him by this hateful man. As a cause of his hatred, Claggart caused other men on the ship to begin suspecting Billy for things Billy would never dream of doing. These few men became suspicious of Billy and as a result, also began detesting him. Lovable Billy never recalled anyone despising or suspecting him for anything in his life.
Billy thinks he can change society by forcing people to see his side. Because Billy is a nothing head and a rebel he converts people to join his gang; he runs from the police doesn't take his pills and forcefully deflowers hostesses; he's smart and cunning and a trickster but most importantly has feelings, not just physical feelings from not taking ethical birth control but mental feelings, he regrets when he does “he was terribly depressed and he said to Nancy ‘believe me if there’d been any other way’”(47) but at the same time knows he has to do it He's conflicted with this moral dilemma of letting them stay in their society, where they can't feel, or forcing them to see what it is like on the other side, where they can feel. Billy desperately wants society to change from dealing with overpopulation in an ethical way that doesn't work, to dealing with overpopulation in a way that is not ethical but works. The short story The Monkey House deals with a very real ethical dilemma of birth control and abortion and the ethical side of a woman's choice for her
He is portrayed to be a "sweet, pleasant fellow" (295). Captain Vere preferred Billy more than the others, "… they all cherished him!" (296) As a result of this, he pondered what the best decision was: spare Billy, or hang him? The choice to hang Billy was, by and large, the right one. In the event that Captain Vere chose not to hang Billy, nobody would have gained from his missteps, including Billy himself. The absence of discipline can prompt serious issues; Billy was so loved by everybody, Captain Vere was in an extremely troublesome circumstance. It was extremely unlike Billy to ever accomplish something so ill-advised; he drew out the best in everybody. Captain Vere felt in his heart that Billy's activities were a misstep, yet he couldn't make certain. The allegation Claggart made was a rebellion, an uprising was a genuine wrongdoing. Vere had no verification that Billy was not liable, so for the security of himself and his team, he relinquished Billy's
Billy’s family is broken. Jud, mum and Billy constantly bicker and bully each other. Billy realises that most of his problems come from home and the fact that no one supports him, everything started to go wrong for Billy when his dad left and all we hear about him is that “ He ere a wrong en ”.