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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 …

…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.