Christian Symbols in Herman Melville's "Billy Budd, Sailor"

 

Although the narrator rarely alludes to the Bible explicitly, Billy Budd contains many implicit allusions to the imagery, language, and stories of the Bible, creating a sustained parallel between Billy’s story and Christ’s Passion, the story of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross. Like Christ, Billy sacrifices his life as the innocent victim of a hostile society. He possesses a remarkable degree of innocence and purity, leading the narrator to compare him to Adam before the Fall. When questioned about his parentage Billy replies that “God knows” who his father is. Though Billy himself is not patently ironic, the narrator’s sense of literary play makes this statement provocatively double-layered.


During the interview between Claggart, Vere, and Billy, Billy’s speechlessness is “as a crucifixion to behold,” and Vere later refers to Billy as “an angel of God.” At the moment of Billy’s death, the sunlight filters through the clouds making it seem like “the fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision.” Billy's last words "God Bless Captain Vere!" echo Christ's own cry of forgiveness in Luke (23:24) – "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." After his death, furthermore, the yardarm from which he was hung becomes an object of veneration to other sailors, such that “a chip of it was as a piece of the Cross.”

Claggart functions as a satanic figure, tempting Billy into evil and working to destroy him throughout the novel. Satan is not a part of the story of Christ’s Passion, and Claggart’s temptation of Billy more closely mirrors the serpent’s temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden than anything in the Gospels. The narrator makes Claggart’s connection to the serpent in Genesis more explicit by comparing Claggart’s dead body to the corpse of a snake. Several scholars have compared Claggart to the Biblical figure of Judas in his betrayal of the innocent Christ, Budd.

Vere’s role in the story parallels that of Pontius Pilate in the Gospels, as he is the official who permits the sacrifice by following the letter of the law instead of his own conscience.


The novella’s innumerable Christian references form a complex web of associations and contrasts. Critics remain sharply divided over whether Billy Budd’s religious imagery represents Melville’s embrace of religion or harsh critique of it, which illustrates the ambiguity of the religious allegory in the story. Melville leaves to each reader the decision of what the connection between Billy Budd and Christianity signifies.


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