Melvilles Characters/comparison Of Captain Ahab And Billy Budd :: essays research papers

Melvilles CharactersMelvilles characters are distinct individuals that have some similarities and differences. There are three traits that tie Captain Ahab and billy goat Budd together even though they are on different sides in the fight between Good and Evil. They each have communication problems that play a part in their deaths. Neither of them can see an issue from another point of view, nor can they be influenced by others, although for entirely different reasons. Ahab and billy goat carry on a few traits even though they are generally opposite characters. Communication problems are one of the factors that lead to Ahabs and Billys deaths. Ahab neer tells the entire truth to his men. He only tells them the parts that he thinks will motivate them to help him catch the whale. If the entire crew had been told before they signed on to help that they would be hunting the most dangerous whale in the sea none of them would have gone on the voyage and died. Also, Ahab is so fixed th at no matter how heated the conversation gets, he wont change his opinion. Starbuck cant talk any common sense into Ahab, hes just too stubborn. If Ahab had listened to Starbuck, he might have died an old man instead of the way he did. Billys communication with others helps and hurts him. When Billy talks to people they almost always come away from the conversation with good feelings about Billy. He makes a lot of friends that way. However, Billy has troubles communicating too. He cannot sense if the person he is talking to is truthful or not. He talks to whine several times but never even guesses that Squeak is talking to him for mischievous purposes. Billy also stutters when hes overcome, when he cant find words to describe the emotions he is experiencing. He ends up dying because of this character flaw.Neither Ahab or Billy can see more than one side of an issue. Throughout the entire trip, Ahab never thinks of chasing the whale as something dangerous, something that shouldnt be done. Nearly everyone else on the ship, excluding Fedallah, thinks that chasing after one whale, the most dangerous whale in the entire ocean, is crazy and that its an unnecessary chance of the crews lives. But Ahab, because of his inability to consider his crews views about the hunt and because he can only think of the whale as pure evil, condemns them all to death.