Ensor-Gibson 1 Weakness in the Bronx Since there is no such thing as a perfect human, we all have flaws. All characters in stories need to have some sort of weakness, and if that weakness is exposed, it will show another side of that character you haven't seen before, making them a more in-depth person that can fail. From that failure, they can either learn from it and move on or it will haunt them for the rest of their days. In Billy Bathgate, a story written by E.L. Doctorow, his characters have defining weaknesses, though some more obvious than others. To have a weakness shows that you are human, and that critical flaw will make for a more interesting story, so let's show off Dutch Schultz, Abbadabba Berman, and Billy Bathgate's weaknesses. …show more content…
Dutch allows his emotions to get priority in the decisions he makes, mostly referring to his anger. If something goes wrong or someone annoys Schultz too much, he will let his anger take over and seek revenge against that person. For example, Bo Weinberg was one of Schultz's best men in his gang, but when Bo interrupted a family dining time, Bo was taken out to a boat, had his feet dipped in cement, and thrown into the harbor to drown. When Dutch told Bo that, “Bo, you should understand I am past the madness part. I am past the anger. Don't waste your breath.” (14), it shows that once Dutch makes a decision, he won't back off from it. When Dutch sent out Billy to investigate Dewey because he was upset that Lucky may have betrayed him, that was the beginning of the end for …show more content…
We know that Billy respects Dutch Schultz a lot and wants to become a part of his gang, but many times while he's in the gang, he begins to doubt the group and tells himself he should leave and go hide somewhere. One of these instances was when he was watching over Mrs. Preston, thinking to himself that, “I had the feeling that if we just stayed here we would be free, Mr. Schultz would never find us because he couldn't imagine such a place existed” (152). Because of Billy's nature to debate everything that's going on, he doesn't really do much in the story of his own accord, and the other members of the gang just use him as an errand boy for the most part. I say that Billy's inability is to decide on one thing is a weakness, but it didn't really prevent him from doing anything. His indecisive-ness may have gotten him pushed around by the other gang members, but at the end of the story, Billy was the only one left standing. He does get taken to see Lucky at one point, the man responsible for Mr. Schultz's death, but instead of trying to avenge Schultz, Billy decides to go live his life and get an education, all while under the watchful eyes of Lucky. Perhaps Billy's real issue is that he is too complacent with how things are, always going along with what people tell him and even though he thinks about going against orders, he never does. Billy wanted to
Bill Buford, New York Times writer, and avid home cook, unsuspectedly steps into the chaos of Babbo, an Italian restaurant owned by the boisterous, Mario Batali. His quiet and orderly life is shattered by the disorder and ruthlessness of a Michelin star kitchen. While Bill’s superego controls many aspects of his life, he is mostly driven by his id in the kitchen. When first beginning his tenure in the kitchen, Bill carried with him his superego drive, often incorporating his New York upper-middle class societal ideals into his manners and actions. These ideals which include politeness, orderliness, and a strive for perfection are often overshadowed and defeated by the chaotic environment of the kitchen and the self-centered nature of the
In “Fighter,” Billy is insecure because of his failures in life. He believes that he is not able to accomplish anything because he is a failure. His insecurity holds him back,
to it because his fate did not lead him there. Billy applied the fact that he had to accept
...erson & by not doing everything that his parents said he was able to find out the truth which I think, in the end would have made his relationship with his parents much stronger. Billy was very restricted & confined by the expectations placed on him by his family & as well as society & because of this was not able to express himself or find his own personal happiness but through dance he was able to discover who he really is & what he loves & by pursuing it he became a much stronger person, it even enabled him to stand up to his father in showing him how much he loves dance & in doing so also stood up to society & gender stereotypes, this made Billy a much stronger person, throughout the movie it also shows how Billy is able to make a better personal relationship with his father & his brother Tony who he grows closer to as he becomes his own person through dance.
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
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. Billy proves throughout the book that he is not mentally stable, yet somehow, he is persuasive in his interpretation of the truth. It is a good example of how people are very gullible creatures, and even in Billy’s constant state of delirium, it is hard to disavow what Billy seems to believe is the truth. He proves his instability frequently:
Billy constantly feels bad about the choices he makes. While Billy is in the ward, he is surrounded by many strong women who are all in charge. The main nurse, Nurse Ratched, is constantly watching over him due to her relationship with his mother, who doesn’t want him to grow up. With these expectations from his mother and Nurse Ratched, Billy conforms into a thirty year old man who is afraid to think for himself. Billy is still a virgin when he enters the ward, due to his mother not letting him think for himself. This causes Billy to constantly feel guilty and unhappy when he makes choices for himself, because those around him made him believe that he does not deserve to make his own choices. When Billy finally did something for himself
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...
Billy is used to showing that everything happens because of fate. As a prisoner, Billy has no control over his day to day life. While Billy is in Dresden, the city is bombed, because of luck, only Billy and a few others survive the bombing in a slaughterhouse. The people of Tralfamadore tell Billy that humans do not understand time because everything they do is in singular progression.
“The third bullet was for the filthy flamingo, who stopped dead center in the road when the lethal bee buzzed past his ear. Billy stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance.” This clearly illustrated the child-like person Billy is. Instead of duck and cover, Billy stands there as if he were playing a board game he didn’t want to play and in protest did not move his player. He doesn’t truly grasp the distraught situation he is in and he most certainly doesn’t comprehend it. By not looking out for his own interest he becomes an infantile creature depending on the civil duties of others.
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
In many works of Literature, a character comes forth as a hero, only to die because of a character trait known as a tragic flaw; Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Okonkwo from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and Winston Smith from Orwell’s 1984 all exhibit that single trait, which leads, in one way or another, to their deaths. These three tragic heroes are both similar and different in many ways: the way they die, their tragic flaws, and what they learn. All three characters strongly exhibit the traits needed to be classified as a tragic hero.
He is portrayed to be a "sweet, pleasant fellow" (295). Captain Vere preferred Billy more than the others, "… they all cherished him!" (296) As a result of this, he pondered what the best decision was: spare Billy, or hang him? The choice to hang Billy was, by and large, the right one. In the event that Captain Vere chose not to hang Billy, nobody would have gained from his missteps, including Billy himself. The absence of discipline can prompt serious issues; Billy was so loved by everybody, Captain Vere was in an extremely troublesome circumstance. It was extremely unlike Billy to ever accomplish something so ill-advised; he drew out the best in everybody. Captain Vere felt in his heart that Billy's activities were a misstep, yet he couldn't make certain. The allegation Claggart made was a rebellion, an uprising was a genuine wrongdoing. Vere had no verification that Billy was not liable, so for the security of himself and his team, he relinquished Billy's
They are characters that the audience can empathize with because a single human is born with nothing but as they walk life they will be neither purely evil nor good but a mix of both. These characters are timeless for if you want to label them as purely evil or purely good it’s impossible because they aren’t. These characters touch upon issues that society are conflicted about and allow the audience to work out these issues for their self throughout the story or play letting us decided the truth within these stories. Like how Mary Shelley had force the reader to see within the heart of the creature and the society viewpoint for us to decide for their self who we thought were the real monsters within the story of Frankenstein. These characters are also seen as more realistic because even if they are the most pure characters the audience may had read about with the purest intentions they may still fallen to their darkness in the end showing that the world isn’t filled with demons or angels that like humans these characters can feel, they can wary and fall to their temptation, that they can still hope, get hurt, cry, feel guilt, depression, happiness, and paranoia. Because like in reality the audiences are living in a morally ambiguous world where most of the world 's solutions to their problem aren’t clear and may be difficulties in choosing what the right thing to do. This makes the story more engaging, realist, and makes it easier
Billy is not happy to stay behind and tells the elderly couple not to mess with him because he knows they don’t really want to keep him and he knows that he has just been dumped off. The couple