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 Continue Reading...
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. Continue Reading...
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 sea Continue Reading...
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 Continue Reading...
Billy Budd, Sailor There are many themes to be considered in Herman Melville's story of Billy Budd; individualism verses society, the vulnerability of innocence, and conscience verses law. In this paper we will explore the latter in the context of t Continue Reading...
Melville and Clarel Introduction Herman Melville is typically mostly known for his novel Moby-Dick, but the prose writer turned to poetry in his later years after his novels (following Moby-Dick) failed to be best-sellers. Poetry, it was thought, wou Continue Reading...
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 Cla Continue Reading...
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 ar Continue Reading...
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 Continue Reading...
Racine's Phaedra -- Compared to Blake's "Lamb" and Melville's Billy Budd As Bernard Grebanier states, Racine's Phaedra speaks "with the violence of life itself" (xiv). If one were to compare the French playwright's most famous female lead to the Eng Continue Reading...
Thus he becomes, much like the title sailor of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, a figure who is martyred as a result of intolerance. Budd draws the ire of the captain of his ship because he is attractive and charismatic in a way that defines conventio Continue Reading...
Civil Liberties and Temporary Security: Billy Budd and Guardians "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither." Benjamin Franklin's statement is often invoked in times of warfare, when civil liberties tend to be most Continue Reading...
Chillingworth from the Scarlet Letter with Claggart from Billy Budd Herman Mellville admired Nathaniel Hawthorne and presented him as the lucky strike of faith for the American literary world. According to Melville, the genius of Shakespeare had fo Continue Reading...
Unfortunately, we have had no more success at finding that limit than Mill did, for what we see all around us today is that very same "political despotism" of which Mill speaks with trepidation. Mill writes that it is the "majority" who makes "the Continue Reading...
