"The Soup Incident"

In the story, “Billy Bud, Sailor” by Herman Melville, the main character, Billy Budd is a well respected and handsome sailor is now on the British H.M.S Bellipotent ship. He is a positive and youthful character who is well liked by many expect for John Claggart. There is no specific reason why he doesn’t like Billy Budd. The reader could get an idea that Claggart doesn’t like Billy because of his looks or popularity since those traits are mentioned often.

In the text, it describes the first encounter that Billy has with Claggart. Billy happens to spill the soup by accident when Claggart happens to walk by and steps over the soup. He first doesn’t realize who spilled it until he took another look and saw it was Billy Budd. At that moment, he makes a humorous remark saying “Handsomely done, my lad! And handsome is as handsome did it, too!” (Melville, Herman, 2487). Along this remark, he makes an “involuntary smile or rather grimace” (Melville, Herman, 2487). Claggart’s words are making fun of Billy. He’s basically saying even though Billy is handsome, he’s not all that perfect like everyone is making him seem. The crew members start to laugh at Billy. He thinks it’s funny and starts to laugh also. My English professor pointed out that Billy doesn’t realize he is being laughed at. This shows that he might be a clueless guy.

This incident is significant to the text because it shows that even though Billy Budd is portrayed as perfect, he still has at least one person John Claggart that doesn’t like him. Billy is warned that Claggart doesn’t like him but doesn’t take it serious. Billy doesn’t see the negatively in people and has a positive view on everything. That is important because it gives us an idea of what the reader can expect later in the story. It shows us that Billy Budd is a friendly and positive person but later in the story that all changes when other incidents occur. This is an effective method that the author chose to do by foreshadowing. So overall, it’s important to the overall text because it helps the reader understand events that might happen and why they happened.


Work Cited
Melville, Herman. "Billy Budd, Sailor." The Norton Anthology American Literature. 7th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. 2468-523. Print.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving is a story told to many in the town of Sleepy Hollow. It was about a headless horseman who terrorizes a town looking for a new head. He can't rest in peace until he finds a new one. Many believe the legend is true but others don't.

Ichabod Crane is a educated man who arrives to Sleepy Hollow and is a schoolmaster for children. He is new in town and doesn't yet know about the story of the Headless Horseman. Ichabod may be a educated man but he represents weakness. He is a weak person because he is easily scared and also gullible. He also is physically weak by being tall, very skinny and lanky structure. As soon as he hears the story, he becomes very scared of the legend.

Brom Bones was a another character who was well respected and well liked in the town of Sleepy Hollow. He represents strength not only physically but intellectually. He is smart enough to get rid of Ichabod Crane because they are both after the same woman named Katrina. They are in the race to ask for her hand in marriage.

Brom doesn't like the competition and thought of ways to get rid of Crane. So Brom gave up with a good idea which made poor Ichabod disappeared or was killed from the town of Sleepy Hollow forever. In the text, he dressed as the headless horseman and chases him, when they are close enough to each other, Brom throws a pumpkin and the story ends there. In the text, they said the townspeople knew nothing of what happened. All they found was a smashed pumpkin and a horse's saddle the next morning. Bones was the only one that knew what really happened to Crane.
The allegory I came up with is weakness and strengths of America. The reason i said America is because the story took place in some U.S state. The advantage of Brom Bones having strength was that he won the fight by getting rid of Crane and marrying Katrina. The disadvantage of him having strength was that he did a bad thing to Crane but the townspeople don't really know. If they did find out, they probably would lose the respect for him and also become scared of him. The disadvantage of Ichabod being weak was that he was fooled and got him either killed or disappeared. I couldn't come up with a advantage of being weak because there really isn't a advantage of being weak.

In conclusion, the allegory was the strengths and weakness of America. The story was overall very interesting and entertaining. I really enjoyed reading it. It's now of my favorite stories.


Works Cited
Irving, Washington. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Norton Anthology American Literature. 7th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. 965-85. Print.