ellauri106.html on line 504: What Roth finds most distasteful about McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee — not their dogmatic silencing of dissent, but their gross politicizing, sensationalizing, and degradation of public discourse.
ellauri107.html on line 246: Billy Budd provides an implicit indictment of the culture, whether military or civil, that encourages the kind of closet where a Claggart so readily succumbs to his “depravity according to nature.” Captain Vere likewise shows a closed, perhaps also “closeted” mind as ready prey for the phenomenon of evil. In Vere’s presence, as Billy is struck dumb by Claggart’s accusation, Claggart is struck dead by a single blow from Billy’s fist, the only response he can muster to defend himself. Although Vere cherishes Billy as “an angel of God” and knows him to be innocent of Claggart’s charges, he resists any bending of rules to protect him against the harshest of consequences for his act of insubordination. Ruthlessly silencing the dictates of his heart, “sometimes the feminine in man,” Vere effects what Claggart’s malice alone could not -- Billy’s total destruction.
ellauri171.html on line 406: It was a dangerous thing to do. He might have got away with it with Antipas, who was indolent and indecisive, but Herodias was another matter. She engineered a situation that led to John’s death, silencing him forever. Did Herodias do it alone? Probably not. It is more likely that all three (Antipas, Herodias and Salome) planned the charade beforehand, to provide an excuse for getting rid of John and silencing him. In any case John, already in prison, was quickly beheaded. Another political problem was solved. Were it not for the fact that the gospels recorded this deed, John’s name and the horror of his death would have been lost forever.
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