Frankenstein -- Billy Budd BILLY BUDD & VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN:

TWO TRAGIC FIGURES

After a close reading of Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus, first published in 1818, and Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, published around 1855, it is quite clear that the main characters, being Victor Frankenstein and Billy Budd, share some common attributes. Both are young, adventurous and full of curiosity and are caught up in a world that through their eyes is indifferent and hostile. But most importantly, both of these characters are tragic figures, meaning that their lives end in nothing but death and disillusionment as a result of their own misfortune and emotional immaturity.

With Billy Budd, Melville created a very strange world similar to his earlier Moby Dick, but in Billy Budd, the main character experiences true tragedy based on the extremes found in human nature; Billy Budd is thus rather complex, being good and bad at the same time. As a young and handsome sailor, good-natured and loyal to his fellow crew members, Billy Budd is quickly accused by John Claggart, the Master-at-Arms, of mutiny. But Billy, being under great stress, suffers from a stutter which makes it nearly impossible for him to express his innocence. And as an inexperienced young man, Billy loses control and strikes out at Claggart, killing him instantly. With this, Billy must face the hangman and be consigned to the depths...

Here, the captain instructs Claggart to "tell this man (being Billy) to his face what you told of him to me," and Billy,
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dumbfounded, stands like someone "impaled and gagged" when all of a sudden the captain yells "Speak, man! Speak! Defend yourself!" But Billy's speech impediment overcomes him and for some strange reason, "the next instant, quick as the flame from a discharged cannon at night, (Billy's) right arm shot out and Claggart dropped to the deck," meaning that Billy has shot Claggart. Thus, Billy Budd's life ends tragically by being hung and then cast into the sea, a young man innocent of mutiny but guilty of murder, due to his inability to speak for himself and his lack of experience in dealing with his fellow human beings.

In Mary W. Shelley's Gothic masterpiece Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, also a young man like Billy Budd, is a student of the alchemical arts and sciences with the goal of creating life from the dead which, after much experimentation, produces a creature of hideous proportions and intellect bent on nothing but revenge. And like Billy Budd, the outcome of Victor's life is due to his own error and immaturity, for he ends up a victim of his innate desire to explore the unknown, much like…