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Herman melville analysis
Analysis of Melville's work
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Herman Melville’s Billy Budd is a story about true goodness. It entails the conflict of good and evil, but more than that it portrays innocence in its’ most purest form.
Innocence is an exploitable commodity. While this is universally recognized, there are many different ways people confront it. Some people choose to embrace and protect it. While others choose to abuse it and corrupt it. Those who choose the latter are evilplain and simple. By making this choice they are reflecting not upon the innocent, but upon themselves. This reflection is humanity in its darkest configuration.
Billy Budd and John Claggart are opposing forces. Billy Budd who is described as “strength and beauty. Tales of his prowess recited. Ashore he the champion, afloat the spokesman; on every suitable occasion always foremost.'; John Claggart, 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.’'; These two people who are clearly on opposite sides of the spectrum contrast one another in a plethora of ways. Where Billy is sweet, John is bitter. Where Billy is naïve, John is knowledgeable. Where Billy is content, John is jealous. Lastly, where Billy is good, John is bad.
The ugliness that results in the death of both men portrays the triumph of sinister forces over the meek. John Claggart, who is a powerful and feared man aboard Bellipotent, lashes out at Billy who is for the most part defenseless. This is an injustice of biblical proportions.
What could have prevented this from happening? Perhaps, if Billy picked up on John’s malicious intent the entire tragedy could have been avoided. But, on the other hand Billy was good and sought goodness. That is why he failed to see the evilness in Claggart.
To discourage Billy’s goodness is to compromise the very thing that makes us human in the first placeHumans seek goodness instinctively. Thus, it is society’s innate responsibility to protect the good (naïve) from those who are in a position to hurt them (people with knowledge.)
The significance of Billy’s death is that of sacrifice and honor. Billy’s death was, in a wordmajestic. “At the same moment it chanced that the vapory fleece hanging low in the East was shot through with a soft glory as of the fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision, and simultaneously therewith, watched by the wedged mass
Analyzing innocence has always been a difficult task, not only due to it’s rapid reevaluation in the face of changing societal values, but also due to the highly private and personal nature of the concept. The differences between how people prioritize different types of innocence - childhood desires, intellectual naivety, sexual purity, criminal guilt, etc. - continually obscures the definition of innocence. This can make it difficult for people to sympathize with others’ loss of purity, simply because their definition of that loss will always be dissimilar to the originally expressed idea. Innocence can never truly be adequately described, simply because another will never be able to precisely decipher the other’s words. It is this challenge, the challenge of verbally depicting the isolationism of the corruption of innocence, that Tim O’Brien attempts to endeavour in his fictionalized memoir, The
his fate and destiny to the way he lived his life. For example, Billy went back to his
...erson & by not doing everything that his parents said he was able to find out the truth which I think, in the end would have made his relationship with his parents much stronger. Billy was very restricted & confined by the expectations placed on him by his family & as well as society & because of this was not able to express himself or find his own personal happiness but through dance he was able to discover who he really is & what he loves & by pursuing it he became a much stronger person, it even enabled him to stand up to his father in showing him how much he loves dance & in doing so also stood up to society & gender stereotypes, this made Billy a much stronger person, throughout the movie it also shows how Billy is able to make a better personal relationship with his father & his brother Tony who he grows closer to as he becomes his own person through dance.
Billy Budd, a novella written by Herman Melville, is the story of the happenings aboard the H.M.S. Bellipotent. Billy Budd was a sailor who was falsely accused of plans to a mutiny. He responded by unintentionally killing his accuser, John Claggart. Claggart's death left the captain and commander of the ship, Edward Vere, in a difficult situation (Calhoun 1). The conflict of this story and Captain Vere's decision have been studied, analyzed, and interpreted differently by many people over the last ninety years. Billy Budd was published in 1924, more than thirty years after the death of its author (Calhoun 1). In 1923, just one year before the publishing of the entire novella, Melville's manuscript was published (Shaw 592). To this day,
In this story Billy is faced with a wide range of undeserved punishments, but shows good through all of them with his strong will and determination. He accepts the things that happen to him in a levelheaded manner, which works to keep the story from becoming a tragedy. The first instance of undeserved punishment is the death of Billy’s family. Not only was he unable to help them in any way, there was no good reason for it to happen. While Billy could lose all hope, become depressed, and angry at the world or at God for this injustice, he instead sets out to right the wrong.
...d conscience. The manifestation of complete opposites in the characters of Billy Budd and Claggart give readers a very clear sense of the enemy, and which character to emulate. However, Billy Budd and Claggart are very exaggerated views of balancing opposite interests. Melville, more subtly, uses the murder of Claggart by Billy Budd, to show the readers the balance needing to be achieved within Captain Vere. His struggle between duty and conscience are representative of different interests. These different interests might not be clearly right and wrong. Duty is just as noble as emotion and vice versa. Despite what people think of themselves, it is very hard to strike that balance in which both interests can be achieved. Vere’s actions when wavering between emotion and duty reflect how actions counteract one another. One minute Vere was calm and the next he was passionately exclaiming. The human condition is always shifting, always looking for that balance of interests. People believe strongly in many things, but when the strong beliefs are pitted against one another balance must be found. As Vere learned, in the face of conflict between two rights, he finds his convictions shaken.
In his short story, Billy Budd, Melville uses this romantically based idea of characteristic opposites in two of his main characters, Billy Budd and Claggart. To give the comparison even more strength, Melville also puts these two characters in virtually opposing roles in the story. Billy represents the good that is present in humans and Claggart represents the bad. Similarly, Claggart takes on an intelligent persona while Billy appears to be a bit innocent and uneducated in the ways of the ship. These two men are essentially at odds and appear to represent the dueling facets of the human conscience, the sort of angel and devil on the shoulder. Claggart wishes to rid the ship of Billy and eventually, the captain of the ship is forced to hang Billy because of Claggart's malice.
"All things truly wicked start from an innocence,” states Ernest Hemingway on his view of innocence. Innocence, what every youth possesses, is more accurately described as a state of unknowing but not ignorance- which connotation suggests a blissfully positive view of the world. Most youth are protected from the harsh realities of the adult world. Therefore they are able to maintain their state of innocence. While innocence normally wanes over time, sometimes innocence can be abruptly taken away. Some of the characters in Truman Capotes In Cold Blood lost their innocence due to the traumatic events they experienced in childhood and adulthood while some had none to begin with.
... Budd, Claggart went to Captain Vere and accused Budd of being apart of a mutiny. Unable to respond due to his "vocal impediment," Budd hit Claggart in his head, and instantly killed him (Melville 61). Captain Vere gathered the drumhead court, and from the narrator's reflection of the viewpoint of the men, they believed Budd was "the last man they would have suspected" of mutiny or murder (Melville 67). Budd admitted he "did not mean to kill [Claggart]," and Captain Vere declared, ""I believe you, my man" (Melville 68). However, Captain Vere decided to follow the Mutiny Act and announce Budd's punishment of death by hanging. Illustrating the events throughout the novel, the narrator represents the conflicting views of the characters from a third-person perspective. Through this depiction, Billy's innonence as well as society's destruction of innocence are revealed.
The Lord of the Flies gives an accurate insight to the problems that we are faced with everyday like violence, greed, fear, and religious power and shows how civilization and savagery contrast because of this. It shows us no matter who we are evil lies within all of us. This is exemplified through the breaking of the conch, the Lord of the Flies (pigs head), and through Jack. This novel shows that even the most innocent of children can turn evil, everyone is capable. Friedrich Nietzsche once said ““Man is the cruelest animal.”
Additionally, we learn that while he was recuperating, his wife died of carbon-monoxide poisoning trying to get to the hospital to see him. The entire story is basically told in Chapter 2.It is also in this chapter that Billy,"time-travels for the 1st time The series of scenes and fragmentations of Billy 's life in chapter 2 alone unnerving. Had we leaned the corse of events in a normal chronological sequence, rather than tidbit here and there, the events would have been m,ore understandable. We learn of his wife 's death in chapter 2, yet we learn the full circumstances of her death in chapter
This world and its beliefs provide Billy with a way to escape the mental prison of his mind where even the sound of sirens caused him great distress. From the chronology to the diminishing reaction to the important moments in his life, Billy’s life becomes completely chaotic and meaningless, but he would not prefer any other alternative because this was the only one which was mentally
Innocence is usually associated with youth and ignorance. The loss of one’s innocence is associated with the evils of the world. However, the term “innocence” can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Similarly, the loss of one’s innocence can be interpreted in more than one way, and, depending on the interpretation, it may happen numerous times. The loss of innocence is culture specific and involves something that society holds sacrosanct. It is also bounded by different religious beliefs. Still, no matter which culture or religion is at hand, there is always more than one way to lose one’s innocence, and every member of that particular culture or religion experiences a loss of innocence at least once in their lives. In addition, the individual’s loss of innocence will impair him or her emotionally and/or physically.
There are several reasons why John Claggart attempts to destroy Billy Budd. One might ask why and come up with the obvious and not so obvious answer, even though we know the real reason for his downfall. That was his innocence. Yes, Billy Budd was innocent of evil, but that innocence is what made him unable to see the evil out to destroy him in Claggart. Too much innocence is not always a good thing, but a little helps from doing wrong.
Throughout the history of American Literature, the use of the ‘bad boy’ or the rebel in the literature has always fascinated readers. We may ask ourselves why would a bad person with typically bad morals and a bad attitude appeal to people in society? American society typically flocks toward certain characters in literature, based on their character. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, we are able to examine one of the most famous rebellious young men in the history of American literature. Huck reveals all the typical qualities of a ‘bad boy’, while retaining his inner compassion. Through analysis of Huck and other characters in American Literature, we can come to a conclusion that the ‘bad boy’ is usually a character that is non-conforming to society, such as in religion, school, and moral standards, while retaining their compassion inside. Although these rebellious boys may look tough and scary on the outside, on the inside they actually have a good heart and are able to have feelings such as remorse, regret, love, and compassion for others. In addition, there is a thin line between the American bad boy that we all know and love, and truly a bad person. Both come off tough on the outside, but it is the inner character that will separate ‘the men from the boys’. The rebellious boy we are fascinated boy has a good heart, while the other ‘bad boy’ is bad in all aspects. People are drawn to the inner moral fiber, not how bad people are on the outside. This is why Huck is so famous in literary history. It is evident that he has a tough outside, but a caring personality on the inside.