Billy Budd by Herman Melville

Billy Budd by Herman Melville

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 need to be in the world, but not of the world.

To illustrate his theme, Melville uses a few characters who are all very

different, the most important of which is Billy Budd. Billy is the focal point

of the book and the single person whom we are meant to learn the most from. On

the ship, the Rights-of-Man, Billy is a cynosure among his shipmates; a leader,

not by authority, but by example. All the members of the crew look up to him

and love him. He is "strength and beauty. Tales of his prowess [are] 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 Claggart

whip another crew-member for neglecting his responsibilities, Billy "resolved

that never through remissness would he make himself liable to such a visitation

or do or omit aught that might merit even verbal reproof"(31).