Antigone Vs. Billy Budd In Poetics, Aristotle explains tragedy as a kind of imitation of a certain magnitude, using direct action instead of narration to achieve its desired affect. It is of an extremely serious nature. Tragedy is also complete, with a structure that unifies all of its parts. It is meant to produce a catharsis of the audience, meant to produce the emotions of pity and fear and to purge them of these emotions …showed first 75 words of 4986 total…

…showed last 75 words of 4986 total…of the qualities that are included in Aristotle's definition of tragedy. The tragic hero: Billy lacks many of the qualities needed in a tragic hero. He does have the fatal flaw, but he lacks the magnitude and stature of a tragic hero. The other factors are in plot, theme, and character. All in all, while Billy Budd has many of the qualities that are in a Greek tragedy, it lacks many of them as well.