More Progress, but still no actual
Theoretical Approaches Used So Far in Writing Sample:
Feminist
Psychoanalytic
Structuralist
Post-Structuralist/Deconstructionist
Semiotic
Cultural Studies (History, Sociology, Religious Studies)
Basic Argument:
Contrary to psychoanalytic critic's claim that Billy Budd self-castrates himself to repress his hostility and avoid inevitable conflict with Vere, the father, Billy is feminine by nature. He is particularly parallel to the ideals of the Cult of Domesticity and the plot line agrees with such a reading. This seems to indicate that although Melville didn't set out to make Billy feminine his idea of purity and virtue was that of the idealized women of the former ideology. The reactions that the other characters have to this ideal woman reflect the distrust and fear that male Christian dogma continues to promote about women, despite the change of rhetoric that went along with the reformation. Ultimately the characters, and actual people, cannot deal with what their ideology canno explain and Billy as a woman serves as the feared "Other". He becomes the misunderstood woman hung for witchcraft. Given Melville's discouraged state of mind after the rejection of his experimental structure by readers, one can easily see him as the rejected other. And given the passivity and hopelessness of overcoming this difference in his text, if anyone is self castrating it is Melville himself.
Feminist
Psychoanalytic
Structuralist
Post-Structuralist/Deconstructionist
Semiotic
Cultural Studies (History, Sociology, Religious Studies)
Basic Argument:
Contrary to psychoanalytic critic's claim that Billy Budd self-castrates himself to repress his hostility and avoid inevitable conflict with Vere, the father, Billy is feminine by nature. He is particularly parallel to the ideals of the Cult of Domesticity and the plot line agrees with such a reading. This seems to indicate that although Melville didn't set out to make Billy feminine his idea of purity and virtue was that of the idealized women of the former ideology. The reactions that the other characters have to this ideal woman reflect the distrust and fear that male Christian dogma continues to promote about women, despite the change of rhetoric that went along with the reformation. Ultimately the characters, and actual people, cannot deal with what their ideology canno explain and Billy as a woman serves as the feared "Other". He becomes the misunderstood woman hung for witchcraft. Given Melville's discouraged state of mind after the rejection of his experimental structure by readers, one can easily see him as the rejected other. And given the passivity and hopelessness of overcoming this difference in his text, if anyone is self castrating it is Melville himself.