Billy Budd

BILLY BUDD

There are many ways you can argue if the novel Billy Budd was a good novel or a bad one. You can determine this by looking at such things as plot, character, and the use of language. The book is about a sailor that has been impressed (the act of forcibly taking sailors and making them serve in the navy) by the British navy. It is set in the late 1700’s during the French Revolution which overthrew the anarchy, addressed peoples concerns, and it was mainly a focus on human rights. The Revolution also influenced the way sailors thought because of the mutinies at Spit head and Nor. And due to Billy’s notable qualities he became the handsome sailor(the natural leader of the crew). Also since the British Navy needed so many people to fight with them they picked up many people making their ships crew multi cultural. But Billy went onto the ship not only to find out that his life will come to an abrupt stop. The novel appealed in many ways with both likes and dislikes.

The novel was fairly good due to its plot layout. The early setting in the late 1700’s, and the whole sailor aspect was good. the things that make the novel interesting is that its on a boat in the old age and if someone gets injured or something similar to that the healing process will not be as good. just knowing that can make you look at the book a whole new way because you look more for violence sometimes than peoples discussing something. The only problem was the plot was can also be a little confusing at times. In order to enjoy the novel you really should know the parts of a boat such as the bow, stern, etcetera; just to make things less confusing and better to understand. Also it can make it more exciting because you know where they would be on the boat and you know if a person can be maybe close to falling off the boat. The plot was also interesting because you know that the people on the boat are far away from land so if anything happens such as a low supply of food then you know they most likely will not be able to get back to land to replenish their food supply. It is just mainly interesting because you know that they, for the most part; are cut off from society, because they have no way of contacting them. They did not have things like cell phones or anything then so they had to rely on each other.

The novel was not so great due to some of the characters. Mr. Claggart to be more specific. The role he played was the ships master-at-arms.