This study will contrast the main characters (Donatello vs. Billy) and themes (long-term spiritual growth vs. sudden forgiveness) from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun and Herman Melville's Billy Budd. Both books deal with acts of violence---sudden murders by Billy and Donatello---and both books deal with the changes that those murders bring to the main character. This study will focus on the differences in the ways the two authors explore spiritual change and growth.
The first major difference between Donatello and Billy Budd is that Billy is described as being an angel-like or even Christ-like figure, while Donatello is described as half-man and half-faun. This difference is important because it affects the way the two characters develop.
Hawthorne compares Donatello with the statue of the Faun, a creature who is human but who is more of nature than of civilization. There seems to be no real threat of violence in Donatello, but rather the playful side of the animal world. Here he is described by Hawthorne: "It was difficult to make out the character of this young man. So full of animal life as he was, so joyous in his deportment, so handsome, so physically well-developed" (Hawthorne 14). At the same time, however, his friends "habitually . . . allowed for him, as for a child or some other lawless thing, exacting no strict obedience to conventional rules" (Hawthorne 14). Donatello is innocent in the sense that he does not know the difference between good and evil. Donatello might be seen as a very friendly dog who has the capacity for violence although he has not yet shown it. He has not yet had the need to act violently.
Billy Budd is also innocent, but in a very different way. He is thoroughly good, not because he does not know there is evil in the world, but because he has not experienced it directly in a way that it would do him great harm personally. The ship captain who first describes Billy pictures him as a k...