Thus he becomes, much like the title sailor of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, a figure who is martyred as a result of intolerance. Budd draws the ire of the captain of his ship because he is attractive and charismatic in a way that defines conventional maritime rules and conventions. Budd is literally hung out to dry upon a mast, while Williams is only symbolically strung up -- but the kind of hatred of the new that both figures call upon is the same impulse depicted in both Romantic texts, of the film and the novella. "Oh captain, my captain," say the boys, overcoming the natural timidity all of them feel, as they jump up upon their desks in a show of support. By uniting in common bonds, forming a solidarity of purpose and ideological unity against tradition and by using Whitman's words to embody their lives, they demonstrate a true...
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