Billy Budd Essay

Herman Melville’s Billy Budd introduces us to Budd as a young sailor amongst others in the merchant ship, “The Rights Of Man.” Billy is a bright young man whom everyone likes, he represents good and innocence. Soon we see a British naval ship near the merchant ship called “Bellipotent” where Billy is soon to be recruited onto. Here Billy will come face to face with Claggart, the ship's master-at-arms. Claggart represents evil in the world. Herman Melville’s creation of Billy Budd in a world of evil and wickedness shows that innocence cannot exist untouched by evil. Therefore the claim of the whole transcendentalist movement is “wrong” and not possible. Though good, and of best interest, the transcendentalists do not acknowledge the true flaws and evil ways of certain individuals throughout the world/society.

     The protagonist, Billy Budd, is the major force of innocence in the book. Billy is a young man who seems to have everything going for him. He is big, strong, handsome, and he has a personality that draws

Billy Pilgrim is the person that the book is written around. We follow him, perhaps not in a straight order, from his youth joining the military to his abduction on the alien planet of Tralmalfadore, to his older age at his 1960s home in Illum. It is his experiences and journeys that we follow, and his actions we read about. However, Billy had a specific lack of character for a main one. He is not heroic, he has very little personality traits, let alone an immersive and complex character. Most of the story is written around his experiences that seem more like symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from his World War Two days, combined with hallucinations after a brain injury in a near-fatal plane

The author decided to write the book this way because he wanted to foreshadow you in ways. The way he did this was to make the chapters blend with each other or to mix and make good chapters and a good book. Also the reason why he makes it all blend is because when you write or make a story or book, it doesn't just jump to one event to the next. But the author does the exact opposite.

The ability for Melville to explain this says so much about his capabilities as a writer. In Chapter 19, right as Claggart is accusing Budd, the author carefully paints an intricate picture so the reader has a clear understanding of the scene:

Herrick shows that a relationship has ‘centred’ Billy. His life has direction, routine and meaning. Billy’s identity at first was seen as a loner, he was isolated and a rebel. His mother was absent and his relationship with his father was intimidating. The lack of connection to family extends to Old Bill, whose daughter and wife died, and to Freya and Danny, who do not have the guidance of responsible adults. Herrick symbolises his disconnection and loneliness in ‘I didn’t go inside for hours./I looked through the back window/watching him/reading the paper/in front of the television/as if nothing happened’. Billy’s sense of belonging allows him to reforms his identity. Herrick shows this by juxtaposing Billy eating like a hobo in the first person narration in ‘And wait for the family of five to leave. / I can see dessert/ waiting for me’ and later eating like a refined mature adult via the descriptive language in ‘with a white tablecloth/and napkins/ and proper cutlery and plates.’ Comparatively, Freya grows up after Danny helps her deal with her miscarriage. This highlights that a person’s identity is defined by their connection to others. Both composers show an understanding of each other, allow them to nourish one another.

In Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, readers are introduced to the conflict of good and evil between Billy Budd and Claggart. However, there is another conflict, which, in ways is more significant than the epic clash of good and evil. Vere’s struggle between duty and conscience is more significant because it occurs in the mind. Whereas Billy Budd was clearly the noble sacrificed hero and Claggart was the vindictive villain, duty is just as noble as conscience and conscience is just as noble as duty. Melville sets up this conflict by placing a man with the intuition and innocence of a child, in the hands of a captain amidst war. In a description of Captain Vere it can be anticipated that Vere, who values peace and common good, would be

Among the others, the most prominent example of change is with Lou Ann. In the beginning of the book, when surrounded with a controlling and

For many years there was a lot of separation between whites and blacks, that is also known as segregation.

Billy Budd is responsible for his own death. There are times when taking someone’s life is necessary such as a time of war, but not in a heating argument. Captain Vere, said it best that the crime is what they were worried about, not the case between right and wrong. The crime was murder. Billy was a hard worker who would do his best to help anyone out. However, Billy was not judged on the type of man he was he was judged by the action that had taken place.

While never a defeatist, Billy merely flows through his disjointed life without much heed to the event at hand. Billy realizes that he holds the power to create his own happiness and satisfaction out of life through appreciation of the present moment rather than contemplate the occurrence of past and future. Vonnegut develops Billy Pilgrim as a unique protagonist as a means of forcing the reader to question the application of free will upon society and gain a new perspective on the beauty of the present.

Is love and passion more powerful than honor and responsibility? When Billy Budd strikes Claggart it left Captain Vere with a tough decision. Billy is like a son to him, but he is the Captain of the ship and has many duties to attend to. The effect and significance of this decision on Captain Vere intertwines with the setting of sorrow and symbolism of Billy being equivalent or even greater than a Christ-like figure.

b."To deal in double meanings and insinuations of any sort was quite foreign to his nature"(Melville 22) Throughout the novella Melville describes Billy as aloof to many of the snide comments happening around him. Some critics argue that Billy just rejects anything other than innocence consciously but the quote says otherwise. I think Billy Budd was entirely unaware of insinuations of any sort but as the story continued got increasingly uncomfortable with these insinuations and double meanings that he lashed out and killed Captain Vere.

It is Changez’s shifting identity that creates the main interest and tension in the novel. Do you agree?

One of the most prevalent and accepted similarities is that of "Billy as Adam" (Berthoff, Certain 33) around the time of the Fall, "The ground common to most discussion of Billy Budd is the assumption that the story is allegorical ... a reenactment of the Fall" (Berthoff, Certain 32). The Fall refers to "the Christian myth, that is, of the fall from innocence and the promise of redemption" (Berthoff, Certain 33). "Billy is described as being similar to Adam before the Fall" (Reich173). Billy is connected to Adam