Billy Budd Frankenstein Quotes And Analysis

To be on the receiving end of a message that seems to never arrive can be bothersome and provoke dismay. To have a message that you cannot get across can be even worse. To hide something, not truly understand it, or be unable to vocalize a message can be distressful in an entirely different way than waiting for a message. In Franz Kafka’s “A Message from the Emperor’, a messenger tries endless to get a message across to an anonymous person, but is never successful. The messenger is the only one whom the Emperor told his message, and now that the Emperor is dead, no one may ever know what the message truly was. Similar anticipation can be seen in a few of the works studied this term, including Billy Budd, Frankenstein, and Bartleby. Each of …show more content…
Billy is also close friends with his ship’s Captain, Vere. The only problem that surrounds Billy is one of the ship’s man-at-arms, Claggart, who holds a grudge on Billy and makes false accusations to jeopardize his character. When an accusation by Claggart is take too far, Billy loses his temper and accidentally kills Claggart with a punch to the head. This act puts Billy in hot water and Captain Vere in a compromising situation. When Billy is put on trial for Claggart’s murder, Vere is put in a position where he must assert his authority and testify against Billy. In this story, Captain Vere is the messenger, but is unable to get his message across due to his position of authority on the ship. Vere knows the true Billy Budd, as the two have many things in common and connect on an intellectual level, and because of this Vere does not want to condemn his friend to death. Like the messenger in Kafka’s story, Vere is faced with many obstacles in his journey to get his message of justice heard. Vere is the sole witness at Billy’s trial, and must do his duty and tell the truth about Billy’s killing Claggart, burt keep quiet about his true thoughts on Billy. During the trial, Billy tells the makeshift jury that Captain Vere tells a true story, but Claggart was untrue in his statements about Billy and that he would never go against the captain. To this, Captain …show more content…
In this novel, Victor Frankenstein uses his scientific knowledge ad curiosity to bring life to a creature, but shortly abandons him. This abandonment turned the creature into a monster who is isolated and shunned from society, hated and feared by humans, and angry at his creator. The messenger in this story is not Victor, but the monster he created. The monster tries desperately to get the message of justice across to Victor, but Victor is too blinded by fear and selfishness to see what is truly happening. Victor never took responsibility for the life he brought into the world, thus leaving the monster alone and angry. The anger that the monster has, along with the things he has learned from observing mankind lead him to a path of destruction fuelled by vengeance. The monster causes the death of two of Victor’s family members, yet Victor still refuses to acknowledge his wrongdoing. The monster says to Victor, “do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you” (Shelley, 2012, p. 113). Here the monster is urging Victor to take responsibility, he is trying to convey the message that Victor had done wrong. The monster also tries to reason with Victor by asking him for favours to make up for his wrongful abandonment. The monster asks Victor to create a female companion so that he is not so lonely, saying “this you alone can do; and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede”