Peter Mills
10/3/11
Billy Budd

Billy Budd, written by Herman Melville over a period of five years, was left unfinished at his death in 1891. The version that I read was published by the Penguin Group with permission from the University of Chicago. The book explores the theme of justice, centering on the punishment Captain Vere gave to Billy for killing the master-at-arms. This is a very descriptive book, and since the book isn’t all that long, not much happens to Billy on the boat before the central event occurs.
In the beginning of the book, Billy is taken from a merchant ship, the Rights-Of-Man, and impressed into the service of the Bellipotent, a British warship in need of soldiers. Billy is the sort of sailor one might call handsome, and he is tall and strong. Throughout the book, Billy is shown to be liked by almost everybody. Although young, Billy has been at sea all his life and he knows how to do his job. Unfortunately, there is one who doesn’t like Billy, and his name is Claggart, the ship’s master-at-arms. Claggart hates Billy, although it is unknown why he does. What the narrator does state in the book is that Claggart has, “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.’” (326) So it is not at all surprising when Claggart falsely accuses Billy of being involved in mutiny. Another thing to note is that Billy Budd has a speech impediment, and when he is falsely accused, he is so astonished he can’t talk. So instead of speaking, he lets his actions speak, and strikes Claggart full on the head, killing him. A raging debate ensues between the captain and his other officers, trying to determine what justice to bring to Billy. Eventually, Billy is sentenced to be hung, and Billy Budd dies on the Bellipotent.
I believe the justice Billy Budd received was incorrect. “In certain matters, some sailors even in mature life remain unsophisticated enough. But a young seafarer of the disposition of our athletic foretopman is much of a child-man. And yet a child’s utter innocence is but its bland ignorance, and the innocence more or less wanes as intelligence waxes. But in Billy Budd, intelligence, such as it was, had advance while yet his simple-mindedness remained for the most part unaffected.”(336) Billy Budd was like a child, and is it correct to hang a child? The book also states, “Besides, he had none of that intuitive knowledge of the bad which in natures not good or incompletely so foreruns experience, and therefore may pertain, as in some instances it too clearly does pertain, even to youth.” (336) Billy’s nature was so genuinely good that he didn’t really understand the nature of evil in other people. Billy’s impulsive response was motivated by his sense of right and wrong. He had been unfairly accused, and his natural reaction was to defend his honor and protest the injustice of the accusation. The officers should not have hung Billy Budd, for Billy was wronged first, and it was not his intention to kill Claggart.
Overall, Billy Budd lengthened my vocabulary and spured my thinking to a deeper level. Although difficult to read, it was worth it to read about the complex problem the captain had to face and how he worked it out.