Billy Budd

A detailed Summary of Billy Budd


Herman Mellville's Billy Budd is and extremely divisive novel when one considers the dissension it has generated. The criticism has essentially focused around the argument of acceptance vs. resistance. On the one hand we can read the story as accepting the hanging of Billy Budd as the necessary ends of justice. We can read Vere's condemnation as a necessary military action performed in the name of preserving order aboard the Indomitable. On the other hand, we can argue that Billy's execution as the greatest example of injustice. The basic question at stake is: Is Vere's conduct right or wrong? In either case, since Billy Budd is an ethical text, why is there an absence of the emotion guilt? Here we have a story about two murders. Billy kills Claggart and Vere (Although indirectly, the decision is ultimately his) kills Budd. Neither of the murderers show guilt in the form of remorse. For a narrative that tries to put the reader in a moral and ethical position, isn't it ironic tha


After the Hanging of Billy Budd, the story no longer relates the events on board the Indomitable. For this reason we are never shown Vere's emotional reaction to the decision to kill Budd. The only reaction we get is immediately before the death, when Billy cries out, "God bless Captian Vere!" At this moment, Vere "stood erectly rigid as a musket in the ship armorer's rack." Melleville accounts for Vere's emotion at this point by describing it as "stoic self control or a sort of momentary paralysis induced by emotional shock." Either Vere is completely indifferent, or he is overcome by the weight of the events and is physically frozen. In either case, no release of emotion is evident and Vere's inner feelings regarding his action are concealed from the reader.

Essentially, injury can be remunerated by pain, which is vitally how punishment works in human culture, and how it works in Billy Budd. Billy's punishment is a hanging which is certainly an infliction of pain. It is th

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Approximate Word count = 663
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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