Free Essay on Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville

A proper reading of this novel Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville discloses that Billy Budd is an embodiment of innocence. Although, Billy Budd possesses all the requisite characters of a handsome sailor, he is majorly characterized by extreme naivete instead of moral strength or even courage. It is clear from the novel Billy Budd, Sailor that it is Budds lack of awareness of the contrast between good and evil that gives an upper hand to Claggart, so that he is easily drawn away from virtue into violence. Thus, in this particular novel, it is clear that while Billy Budd is a representation of the vulnerability of innocence, Claggart is an embodiment of evil. He denotes Budds placidity to be a rather dangerous facade: hence, he destroys Budd for mere reason of his innocence. From the foregoing, it is evident that in this particular scenario as captured by the novel, evil subsists in order to corrupt good.

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Furthermore, it is important to make note of the fact that in Billy Budd, Sailor, men who tend to confront the law suffer conterminous repercussions with men who tend to come up front with: thus, law and evil are intimately linked. This is perceivable from the fact that the men on the ship trust the set of rules set than they trust each other causing paranoia to abound in the ship. In fact, Billys demise tends to be a connotation of justice. This is because; Herman Melville asserts that society is run by laws rather than individual consciences in order to meet a social role. For instance, in order to fulfil the law, Vere does a morally wrong thing, that is, condemning Billy who tends to be an innocence soul. To sum everything up, it is perceivable from the above responses that the novel Billy Budd, Sailor, presents a vivid discrepancy between evil and good as well as between moral and justice.