Billy Budd Before Referencing
Herman Melville's Billy Budd: A Perfect Storm of Injustice
Who is responsible for Billy Budd's death? Discuss how Captain Vere, Claggart and Billy himself all contribute to Billy's downfall.
Herman Melville's 1891 seafaring novella Billy Budd is a Christian allegory, transposed into the relatively contemporary setting of a British naval vessel. The Christian Bible details the death of Christ as a series of betrayals and injustices. The popular leader and teacher Christ is betrayed by one of his own followers, Judas, and is handed over by the leadership of his own nation to the Roman judge Pontius Pilate. Pilate washes his hands of his responsibility for a man whom he believes is innocent, because Christ will not verbally defend himself, and because the Roman authorities have charged him with preserving order amongst the populace. Pilate acquiesces, going against his better moral instincts.
Similarly, Billy Budd is a man unjustly accused by Captain Claggart, a man who is jealous of the love Billy's fellow sailors feel for Billy, because of Billy' kindness and good heart. However, as in the death of Christ, no single man, not even Claggart, bears the blame alone for Billy's trial, conviction, and death by hanging. Billy's treatment is the result of constellation of factors on the ship. Equal blame must be placed upon the Royal Navy and also upon the Honorable Edward Vere, who oversees Billy's court-martial and conviction for murder
Like Christ, Billy Budd is of uncertain parentage. Budd is an illiterate founding, and was impressed into serving His Majesty's army. The ship on which he serves is in a state of great tension, because of fears of the French attacking the ship, and also the constant threat of mutiny by unwilling and impressed crews of sailors. "Discontent foreran the Two Mutinies, and more or less it lurkingly survived them. Hence it was not unreasonable to apprehend some return of trouble, sporadic or general... At sea precautionary vigilance...
Frequent interception of American ships to impress American citizens was a major cause of the War of 1812. ("Impressments." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. 10 Aug. 2005, (http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/history/A0825052.html) The enforced and arbitrary nature of the fate of impressment, and Budd's fate of facing the code of military law, which was different from the life he was accustomed to, did not understand, and had not agreed to, was thus the result of
They will say that Vere was only doing his duty to keep open rebellion and mutiny from occurring on his ship. I say he is lucky no such mutiny arose following his cynical judgment upon Billy. Billy Budd was a sailor beloved of all who met him. That Vere judged him guilty should have provoked the crew to judge Vere unfit for command. Such would have been fitting. But the
Billy Budd Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" -- Guilty as Charged! With this singular word, "guilty" the reader draws his or her breath in horror, when contemplating the moral character of Billy Budd against the character of the sailor's accusers and also those who judge him according to the naval code of law. Yet if the author of this paper sat alongside Chief Justice of the Court of Naval Review and, after all
Point ONE: Billy Budd: Critic Eugene Goodheart is the Edythe Macy Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Brandeis University. He writes that while critics are generally divided between those who see Captain Vere as "an unwitting collaborator" with Claggart and those who feel Vere was correct to have Billy sent to the gallows. In his piece Goodheart explains that Billy is "…variously seen as Adam before the fall, as a noble
Thus, Melville clearly portrays Billy as the greatest of innocents, infused with godlike looks and a pure heart. As this type of a character is realistically unlikely, many readers can quickly interpret Billy to be, therefore, a symbol of innocence. Indeed, even in his hanging Billy's image remains intact, as his last words are: "God Bless Captain Vere" (1426). This innocence, however, meets with the harsh ruling of justice. Indeed,
Frankenstein -- Billy Budd BILLY BUDD & VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN: TWO TRAGIC FIGURES After a close reading of Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus, first published in 1818, and Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, published around 1855, it is quite clear that the main characters, being Victor Frankenstein and Billy Budd, share some common attributes. Both are young, adventurous and full of curiosity and are caught up in a world that through
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