Character/ portrayal of Billy Budd in Herman Melville's "Billy Budd, Sailor"

 

His real name is William Budd. The word “Budd” suggests emerging flower and typifies the notion of innocence and immaturity. He is young, handsome lovable Sailor whom is falsely accused of conspiracy mutiny by the evil master-at-arms Claggart. He is impulsive and suffers from impediment in voice. For his impulsive nature he strikes Claggart on the forehead and kills him unintentionally. This action was taken against the naval decorum. Though unintentional, the act is taken as an offence against military discipline. Trial goes on against Billy; he is pitied by some officers but as a matter of discipline he is hanged. The officers could recognize innocence in his behaviour and were against rapid judgement but ironically, he was condemned to death by hanging.

The greatest irony is that for this unjust action the main responsibility for the decision goes with Captain Vere, an intellectual and thoughtful man and a father figure to Billy. He was a follower of strict military code and he forced the officers to agree that the only penalty for Billy was death and this is how he followed the strict military code.


The common name ‘Billy’ suggests a boy or young man. He is so immature in the sense of naive, he is also known as “Baby Budd.” The name Budd suggests the bud of a flower yet to blossom--pastoral values of the heart. Budd also evokes gods: (1) The most important Celtic god was Hu, the Celtic Apollo, also known as Beli and Budd; and (2) the Buddhist god also was called Budd. Melville’s dedication to his shipmate suggests that Jack Chase could have been a real-life model for Billy, giving his mythic narrative an origin in fact, and in personal as well as world history.

Billy is a remarkably handsome twenty-one-year-old sailor whose good looks are augmented by a loyal, likeable, cheerful nature. Many critics, noting Billy Budd's virtuousness, peace-making ability, forgiveness of Vere before his death, and the many Biblical references in the book, characterize him as a Christ figure. He is associated with Christ’s peace-making abilities; so he is addressed as “peace maker”. Another point of likeness with Christ is that nothing is said about his parents, and he is presented as an orphan. Symbolically, Budd is "crucified" on the yardarm; that his body never twitches as it swings aloft suggests some kind of divine intervention.

Budd has also been said to embody the primitive innocence of Adam: “Billy in many respects was little more than a sort of upright barbarian, much such perhaps as Adam presumably might have been ere the urbane Serpent wriggled himself into his company.” Like that first man he is a victim of evil- personified not by a serpent but by Claggart. Budd's only imperfection is the stammer that afflicts him when he is nervous or upset, and it is this flaw which not only gives him his humanity but brings about his downfall.

Budd's essential passivity is exemplified by his easy acceptance when he is impressed onto the Indomitable and is most dramatically expressed when he blesses the captain just before he is hanged. Even Budd's one act of violence--striking out at Claggart--could be viewed as passive since it leads directly to his ultimate submission to the authority that rules over him. The fact that Budd, an ideal person, is sacrificed, weighs heavily upon the crew and humanity in general; such sacrifices, Melville implies, are often unavoidable if the greater order of civilization is to be maintained.


Billy is both common enough to be representative and exceptional enough to become a tragic hero and even a god: He is the legendary Handsome Sailor and is compared to Apollo for his beauty, to Hercules for his good-natured strength and to Achilles for his vulnerability--his innocence, which renders him incapable of coping with evil. Melville has presented Billy as a fine physical specimen. At the age of 21 he was famous for his good looks and gentle innocent ways. So he is called Handsome Sailor, and Adam before Fall from Garden of Eden. Though illiterate, he could sing very well.

Billy is depicted as literally as well as figuratively asleep. He gets called aside by a whispering stranger who tries to persuade him to join a gang of impressed sailors, implicitly plotting an uprising— “Couldn’t you--help--at a pinch?” The loyal Billy stutters and threatens to throw the plotter overboard. The man disappears and Billy is questioned about the incident by two forecastle men. Now Billy loses his innocence. He implicates himself when he decides not to be an informer on his shipmates and keeps the subversive incident to himself, except in consulting the old Dansker.


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