Billy Budd Essay

        Billy Budd is displayed as a young man with a naïve and ignorant character in the novel who is unable to comprehend Claggart’s evil intentions. Previously mentioned, Billy Budd is a “Handsome Sailor” as said by the author or a sailor with extremely good looks. Due to this, Billy is naturally able to fit in, get along, and be liked by other sailors. But this causes problems when Billy soon assumes that every person on the ship admires him and ignorantly thinks that his fellow sailors all have good intentions and happy feelings toward himself. And being a young, ignorant sailor who has never experienced anything evil, Billy is disillusioned by his own naïve nature and character and mistakes Claggart as a friend. An example of Billy’s ignorant character is when he accidentally spills a bowl of soup on the ship and can’t even sense the hatred in Claggart’s joke-like response when he says, “Handsomely done, my lad! And handsome is as handsome did it too!”(p.34). And Billy is still too naïve to believe that Claggart is out to get him even when he asks an old, wise sailor named Dansker who says that “Jimmy Legs (Claggart) is down on you” or after Billy.

        Billy Budd, though extremely naïve and ignorant at times is symbolized as innocence is this short story. Melville portrays Billy as innocence and Claggart as evil and he relates Billy to Christ and also to Adam before the fall to further signify Billy’s extreme innocence. One of Billy’s most-prominent qualities in this story was his innocence and it was surprising that before his execution, a chaplain or priest who came to see Billy felt that after seeing him “that innocence was even a better thing than religion wherewith to go to Judgment” (p.78). This shows how strong Billy’s innocence was and how his fate related so much to that of Christ- that they both had to die as innocent figures due to evil people. The author also relates Billy to Adam before the fall and to a barbarian to further present to readers the purity and natural innocence of Billy before he is confronted with Claggart’s hatred and evil.

        Overall, the character of Billy Budd was that of a person who was very innocent, but yet, also ignorant. Though he was very ignorant and naïve, he was still able to understand the idea of death and was ready to face it. After reading the novel, one would say that Billy was a very influencing figure because of his wondrous character traits and symbolism in this story. This story was very intriguing and genuine and gave readers a whole new view on the idea of innocence.