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Billy Bud


            
             "Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass- - Northrop Frye.
             One can compare Billy Budd to the tallest, biggest, and oldest tree in the forest. Even though Billy Budd isn't old, he certainly has as much sailing experience and expertise as some of the older sailors. He also has the position of foretopman which is the position at the highest point on the ship. In the quote above, Billy Budd represents the tree, and the other sailors represent the clump of grass. He is the most looked up to on the Indomitable and on the Rights-of-man. Billy Budd definitely is a very strong man and is held as the top sailor in everyone's mind. The other sailors and shipmen around him, all look up to him as if he has some sort of grand, heroic, and kind power about him. This divine power is released into the atmosphere around Billy Bud because he is the most respected. The qualities of being respected and being kind to other people are "the inevitable conductors of the power around them." .
             A person who is as great of a sailor as Billy Budd creates tension with others. The environment in which Billy Budd is enclosed on the Rights-of-man is a friendly one. On this merchant ship there is no one who is jealous of Billy Budd because he is the Aldebaran, one of the brightest stars in the sky. However, when Billy Budd is transferred to the royal ship of the king, the Indomitable, there is one man, Claggart, whom Billy Budd felt friction with right away. Claggart was the person highly looked upon on the Indomitable. When Billy Budd embarked onto the royal ship, Claggart's place was being taken as the perfect and respected sailor, the "highest point in the human landscape," by Billy Budd. All of the changes in Billy Budd's character, are not because Billy Budd himself changed, it is because his environment and the people around him have changed.


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