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 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). Billy is so good and so innocent that he tries his hardest to stay out of trouble. “What then was his surprise and concern when ultimately he found himself getting into petty trouble occasionally about such matters as the stowage of his bag…which brought down on him a vague threat from one of [the ship’s corporals]”(31).

These small threats and incidents establish the tension between Claggart and Billy, and set the stage for a later confrontation. They also force Billy to search for help. The person he goes to is yet another type of character presented in this book. Red Whiskers. Red Whiskers was an old veteran, “long anglicized in the service, of few words, many wrinkles, and some honorable scars”(31). Billy recognizes the old Dansker as a figure of experience, and after showing respect and courtesy which Billy believes due to his elder, finally seeks his advice, but what he is told thoroughly astonishes him. Red Whiskers tells Billy that for some reason, Claggart is after Billy, but Billy cannot believe it because he is so innocent and trusting. 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 no few minds in those days, minds by nature not inferior to his own”(25-26). Vere is a man who believes in rules, regulations, and procedure. In his opinion, everything must be done according to instruction, and deviation from that set way of thinking and operation is wrong. This way of thinking is illustrated as Melville commits what he calls a “literary sin”: In this matter of writing, resolve