Billy Budd
Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were perfect. They were innocent and
ignorant, yet perfect, so they were allowed to abide in the presence of God.
Once they partook of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,
however, they immediately became unclean as well as mortal. In Billy Budd,
the author, Herman Melville, presents a question that stems directly from
this original sin of our first parents: Is it better to be innocent and
ignorant, but good and righteous, or is it better to be experienced and
knowledgeable? I believe that through this book, Melville is telling us
that we need to strike some kind of balance between these two ideas; we
need to have morality and virtue; we ...
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recited. Ashore he [is] the champion, afloat
the spokesman; on every suitable occasion always foremost"(9).
Despite his popularity among the crew and his hardworking attitude,
Billy is transferred to another British ship, the Indomitable. And while
he is accepted for his looks and happy personality, "…hardly here [is] he
that cynosure he had previously been among those minor ship's companies of
the merchant marine"(14). It is here, on the Indomitable that Billy says
good-bye to his rights. It is here, also, that Billy meets John Claggart,
the master-at-arms. A man "in whom was the mania of an evil nature, not
engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or licentious living but
born with him and innate, in short ‘a depravity according to nature'"(38).
Here then, is presented a man with a personality and character to
contrast and conflict with Billy's. Sweet, innocent Billy immediately
realizes that this man is someone he does not wish to cross and so after
seeing ...
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Through this situation Billy now finds himself in,
Melville has us ask ourselves a question: Would it be right for Billy to
heed the advice of experience and wisdom and tell the captain about
Claggart's conspiracy? Or should he instead keep his mouth shut and try to
work things out himself?
Being the good person that he is, Billy tries to forget about it
and hopes that it will pass, but it does not. And that is where the fourth
of these few characters comes in. Captain Vere, with his love for
knowledge and books, and "… his settled convictions [which stood] as a dike
against those invading waters of novel opinion, social, political, and
otherwise, which carried away as in a torrent ...
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Billy Budd. (2006, February 14). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Billy-Budd/41241
"Billy Budd." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 14 Feb. 2006. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Billy-Budd/41241>
"Billy Budd." Essayworld.com. February 14, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Billy-Budd/41241.
"Billy Budd." Essayworld.com. February 14, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Billy-Budd/41241.
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