A Comparison of Mrs Casper, Mr Sugden and Mr Farthing's Treatment of Billy in Barry Hines' Billy's Last Stand
In this essay I will attempt to compare the ways in which the three
main characters in this story treat Billy, Mrs Casper, Mr Sugden and
Mr Farthing. The book is set in the sixties in a mining village in
Yorkshire. First of all I will discuss Billy, he is a young and naive
boy, he is about to leave school which is a place he hates. He doesn't
get on with most of the teachers and rebels against their rules. He
hates and is hated, his family and friends are harsh to him, and
already think he is going to end a failure, and in trouble. He doesn't
want to work down the mines and wants to work with animals which he
knows about. His only companion is his kestrel hawk which he raised
from the nest and trained well. There are many similarities between
himself and the hawk. For example it is a bird of prey, it doesn't get
any pleasure in killing, but it has to kill to live, Billy doesn't get
any pleasure in stealing but has to steal otherwise he would not be
fed. Also there are a lot of similarities between the author of the
book, Barry Hines, and Billy himself. Barry Hines was born in the
mining village of south Hoyland common, near Barnsley, south
Yorkshire. There is a similarity there as Billy was born in a mining
village at the same period of time from a poor working family
background. Therefore it could be the author has an influence over the
character of Billy.
The way in which Mrs Casper treats Billy is harsh. She lacks materna...
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...'Sting'
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This shows he cares about Billy and is understanding.
I conclude by saying that there are not many links in the way the
characters treat Billy, although Mrs Casper and Mr Sugden treat Billy
with some similarity. For example both are harsh and evil in their use
of language and actions. However, in Mr Farthing, Billy sees a
friendship and trust. This makes a strong contrast with the other two
characters and their relationship with Billy.
Barry Hines creates many different characters in his novel and each
character has a very different perception of Billy, the ways in which
Mr Farthing, Mr Sugden and Mrs Casper treat Billy is just an example.
'A Kestrel for a Knave' is a novel that explores relationships in
great detail, focusing especially on Billy as the central figure
within the story.
grades plummet. He forms the idea that, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my
He later allows the reader to visualise his town through a description of his street. "Each deadbeat no-hoper shithole lonely downtrodden house in Longlands Road, Nowheresville." This repetition of colloquial negative adjectives expresses Billy's depressing feelings about his home. Billy's undesirable view of his town along with other factors such as being abused by his father aid his decision to leave and discover what else life has to offer. Because of his adverse position Billy decides to leave his town to seek a better life. To do this he becomes a homeless runaway which is his first transition in the
“The scalding water of the delousing station brings on a flashback of Billy being bathed by his mother, but his gurgling and cooing is then interrupted by a flash-forward of Billy playing golf and Billy being told that he is ‘trapped in another blob of amber’ and has no free will. In both incidents, Billy accepts the lure of infancy but is propelled back into adult hood” (Page
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
Billy is also traumatized by the extreme loss in his life. Everywhere he looks, he experiences great loss. 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.
In this story Billy is faced with a wide range of undeserved punishments, but shows good through all of them with his strong will and determination. He accepts the things that happen to him in a levelheaded manner, which works to keep the story from becoming a tragedy. The first instance of undeserved punishment is the death of Billy’s family. Not only was he unable to help them in any way, there was no good reason for it to happen. While Billy could lose all hope, become depressed, and angry at the world or at God for this injustice, he instead sets out to right the wrong.
Everyone on the ship enjoyed Billy’s presence, except Claggart. He was described to be a “sweet, pleasant fellow” (pg. 5). Captain Vere liked Billy as much or more than the others, “…they all loved him!” (pg. 6) Because of this, he wondered what the best choice was: save Billy, or hang him? The decision to hang Billy was, in retrospect, the right one. If Captain Vere chose not to hang Billy, no one wo...
still the same today and so, the play is still enjoyable now as it is
One of the ways Billy shows his ineffective ways of dealing with death is by using Risa Walker as sexual escape from his daily life. For example he shows himself using Risa Walker for pleasure when he admits, “So, instead, we said, “I love you,”, and let it go at that” (Banks 40). Spending time with Risa is daily escape for Billy. It is the one time of the day where he completely forgets about the bad things that have happened in his life and focusses on Risa. Billy does not really like her but is using her for his sexual pleasure after his wife is dead. It is not like they love each other it is more like they need each other because they are both burdened with stron...
parents get notice that he has gotten kicked out of his school. He doesent want to go
Billy insists that he inherited his wild streak from his father & grandfather before him. Wherever it emerged from, I think there can be no denying that it exists ! He claims also that he has frequently been misunderstood throughout his career & I believe that this was the case even during his school days. It was suggested on Billy’s report card that he was ‘idle’. What the teachers failed to recognise is that Billy was just ‘bored’.
He marries the daughter of the owner of the school and immediately becomes overwhelmingly wealthy. Being handed so much money Billy was finally able to control his own fate. Yet still feeling powerless in his own life after the war, Billy has a mental break and admits himself into a psychiatric ward where he voluntarily goes through electric shock therapy. Billy still being very naïve after the war took the end of his childhood is unaware of why he still feels so powerless with his fate even though he has the money and power to do what he pleases. Billy’s mind tries correcting itself and causes Billy to have flashbacks, or as he refers to them as time traveling, and
Amy states, “I’ll do any or everything to get a baby” (77). Her eagerness leads her to seek solace in another man, Holland Winchester. This adulterous affair results in an ill-conceived child. Billy is not a trouble-making man until trouble finds him shortly after he discovers the affair between his wife and Holland. Billy asks Amy angrily, “Whose child is it?” (116) and he eagerly waits for Amy’s reply. Amy replies Billy, “It’s my child, Billy. But it can be ours if you want” (118). After hearing this, Billy truly doesn’t know what to do and he takes a promise from Amy that she will never be with Holland again. Thus, though Billy is angry at his wife at one moment, he doesn’t want to loose her wife, so he compromises the situation. Moreover, Billy also tries to understand Amy’s situation and remembers how Amy chose him to be her husband regardless of his abnormal leg. Figuring out all situation, Billy forgive his wife and accept her child as his own. Thus, Billy is a good man who understands and loves his wife and becomes a hero for his
I did not really make a persona connection with this story. I have had friends and family who have died, yes…But the religious focus of this book sort of took away from it in my opinion. I am not religious and do not really understand the fascination with the idea of some sort of divine being having control over the lives of humans.
to quit school without a high school diploma. He has such little time left in high school and there are so