The narrator begins by speaking of a phenomenon known more frequently in the days before steam ships. Often in seaports, bands of sailors walking about town would consist of any number of normal sailors and, at the center of their group, one superior specimen. Melville dubs this central figure the "Handsome Sailor." The other sailors would surround him "like a bodyguard," and the Handsome Sailor would accept the other men's adoration "with the offhand unaffectedness of natural regality" (291).

The narrator goes on to explain that the Handsome Sailor was no dandy; invariably, he was also a physically powerful man, often skilled at fighting. And the Handsome Sailor was also an ethical and upright being; strength and beauty alone would not have been enough to make him into a hero among his shipmates.

Billy Budd, the narrator tells us, was in some respects an example of this kind of man. He was a twenty-one-year-old foretopman on the H.M.S. Bellipotent. Toward the end of the eighteenth century; not long before the start of our story, he was impressed, or forced, into military service. He had set out to sea aboard an English merchant ship called The Rights of Man, but in those dies the British fleet was severely undermanned. To fill gaps in their crews, British military vessels would board civilian ships and force men into the King's service.

The narrator describes the scene of impressment. The boarding officer, Lieutenant Ratcliffe, chooses Billy immediately, and does not take any other men. Billy says nothing in protest. Lieutenant Ratcliffe invites himself into the shipmaster's cabin, sniffs out the liquor, and begins to drink. The merchantman's shipmaster, Captain Graveling, tries to explain to Ratcliffe that Billy is indispensable. The other men love him, and his mere presence keeps the peace aboard ship. Only one sailor, Red Whiskers, disliked him. One day, he jabbed Billy insultingly under the ribs, and Billy gave Red Whiskers a sound beating. After that fight, Red Whiskers gave up his enmity for Billy. All of the men go out of their way to help Billy, the Captain tells Ratcliffe; Ratcliffe is stealing his peacemaker.

Billy appears, his belongings in a chest, and Ratcliffe tells him to repack his things in a bag. Life in the military means a shorter supply of space. After repacking, Billy sets out in the tiny craft that will take him to the Bellipotent. He is almost cheerful, crying out with great spirits, "And goodbye to you too, old Rights-of-Man."

Billy, at heart a fatalist, accepts his conscription with good cheer. Unlike many of the other impressed men, he goes about his work without sullenness. In part, the narrator tells us, his cheer may be connected to his youth and the fact that he has no family waiting for him at home.

Analysis

Melville's prose is some of the most impressive stuff written in English. His sentences are long, complex, and difficult; one of his most important literary influences was Shakespeare, and Melville shows a Shakespearean fondness for cramming a sentence to its maximum capacity. His writing is also marked by long digressions, which initially seem unrelated to his central story. His description of the Handsome Sailor phenomenon, for example, includes an anecdote about an experience he had in Liverpool, where he saw a number of sailors flanking a tall and striking black man who drew looks of awe from all who passed. After this bypath, Melville seems to remember himself, and comes back to the central story: the next paragraph begins, "To return" (292).

Anyone who has read Melville's masterpiece Moby Dick will be familiar with Melville's love of allowing himself to be distracted. These digressions are an integral part of Melville's work. He is virtually unmatched in his power to set a tone; every new event in a Melville novel breathes in an atmosphere of images and brief stories set down previously by the author. His approach is one that could easily fail in the hands of less gifted writers, but Melville is able to use his digressions to craft worlds that seem rich, complete, living.

He begins by sketching his central character. First, he describes a type of great man, the Handsome Sailor, and then he gives us Billy, who seems representative of this category of man, although the narrator tells us immediately that in several key respects Billy is a divergence from the basic formula. Billy's shortcomings will be described later. But by suggesting that Billy does not match perfectly with this ideal, the narrator is also moving Billy beyond the ideal. He is not a category: he is a man, a unique character with his own strengths and weakness.

The Handsome Sailor is a motif of the novella. Like the Handsome Sailor, Billy is physically beautiful. The narrator calls him "welkin-eyed," meaning that his eyes were an intense, sky-colored shade of blue. His appeal to others is direct and immediate. Lieutenant Ratcliff chooses Billy even before all the other men have come on deck for inspection, and because of the quality of his pick he feels no need to take any others. He is also physically powerful, as we learn from the story of Red Whiskers. And he exudes a simplicity and basic goodness that works magic on the other men. Captain Graveling says that Billy is his most valuable sailor, and that his arrival changed the dynamic on the ship: "But Billy came; and it was like a Catholic priest striking peace in an Irish shindy. Not that he preached to them or said or did anything in particular; but a virtue went out of him, sugaring the sour ones" (295).

These are the three basic qualities of the Handsome Sailor, but Billy has several other important attributes. For one, he is very young. He is also naïve and often unknowledgeable in the ways of the world, even the world of sailing etiquette. His goodbye to his old ship is a serious breach of naval etiquette that displeases Ratcliffe, but Billy means no insult by it. He is also extremely simple. He accepts his fate without complaint. And he has no family. He is alone in the world, a beautiful and unique being without a family to miss, and so is adaptable to the impressment in ways that the other sailors are not.

His farewell to the ship is also a bit of foreshadowing: "Goodbye to you, old Rights-of-Man" refers not only to the ship but to the philosophical rights of man. The impressment is the first curtailing of Billy's rights. Equally symbolic is the name of Billy's new ship, the H.M.S. Bellipotent, which combines latin roots derived from the words for "war" and "power." This period in history was a difficult one for sailors and their commanding officers, as Melville will soon show us. Billy Budd shows Melville's old theme of the relationship between the individual and society; this hero is thrust into a situation where great forces work on and against him.

On the Bellipotent, Billy is not the same kind of center of attention that he was on the merchant ship. The crew is larger, and many of the military sailors have their own share of good looks, physical prowess, and fine character: "As the Handsome Sailor, Billy Budd's position aboard the seventy-four was something analogous to the rustic beauty transplanted from the provinces and brought into competition with the high-born dames of the court" (299). Billy is unaware of the change; a lack of self-consciousness about his charisma is one of his most appealing traits. But even on the Bellipotent, his presence is welcomed by crewmen and officers. His beauty is described as being deeply Saxon (blond and blue-eyed), and possessing something of the serenity of Greek sculpture. Though he is a foundling, his whole look suggests that he might carry some of the grace and loveliness of a mother whom we can surmise was beautiful. There is something princely about him, suggesting aristocratic lineage.

When Billy was being formally mustered into the service, the officer learns that Billy was a foundling. Billy is unselfconscious and honest. He tells the officer that he does not know his birthplace or the identity of his parents. He was found in a silk-lined basket at the door of a good poor man in Bristol.

Though intelligent, he is illiterate. But he loves to sing, and often improvises his own songs.

The narrator speaks of the nature of virtue and civilization, suggesting that truly superior men seem to have some quality stemming not from convention or custom; they possess a simple goodness that seems to belong to some long-lost, primitive era.

Billy has one noticeable defect. When in the grips of strong emotion, he cannot speak. His words come out as a stutter. The narrator muses that this defect is evidence that the devil has his say in all things, just as God does.

The narrator finishes this chapter with a tone of foreboding: "The avowal of such an imperfection in the Handsome Sailor should be evidence not alone that he is not presented as a conventional hero, but also that the story in which he is the main figure is no romance" (302).

Analysis

Melville devotes an incredible amount of attention to Billy's physical characteristics. Few now debate the frankly homoerotic content of Billy Budd; only the most reactionary of high school English teachers deny that male-male desire is a driving theme in the novel. For his own part, Billy's own desires do not play a significant role; it is his power to excite desire in others that is key. In The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Sedgwick does a brilliant reading of the novella through the lens of desire and the question of homo/hetero definition. For the purposes of this ClassicNote, Sedgwick's work is too difficult to condense here, but the curious student should consider reading it, along with Sedgwick's introduction to her book, which maps out the conceptual framework for her analyses.

Suffice to say, Billy excites different kinds of desire in the men around him. For many of the men, the attraction is a kind of hero-worship or affection for a superior specimen, not necessarily sexual in nature. But Melville never makes a clear distinction between "homoerotic" and "homosocial" attraction, and the slipperiness of the divide is part of the territory for nineteenth-century literature. The sight of his face and body gives pleasure to the men around him; the nature and degree of that pleasure, we can assume, varies with each man. Melville uses metaphors that ground Billy firmly in a world of sexual competition; he compares Billy to a rustically beautiful girl who then finds herself in a court full of fine ladies.

He brings together some strong elements that make Billy into something of a legendary figure. His proportions and manner are described in heroic terms; we also hear intimations that he must come from noble blood. But paradoxically, Melville also makes Billy something of a savage. The idea of the noble savage appealed immensely to Melville; in Moby-Dick, Queequeg is Melville's version of these ideas. Billy is as well, although in a different way. Melville writes at one point that true nobility of spirit is something not found in civilization, but in some kind of primal state that predates civilization . There is nobility in man that is natural and comes not from the city. Billy is compared at several points to Adam, man in nature before the Fall.

But Melville also believes in evil, or at least some aspect of fate that is hostile. Fate is a key theme in this book, and fate is usually sinister in Melville's work. He writes that Billy's speech impediment under stress, though not evil in itself, is proof that evil has a hand in making the world: "In every case, one way or another he [the devil] is sure to slip in his little card, as much as to remind us ­ I too have a hand here" (302). Though there is nothing evil about a speech impediment, evil here is defined in aesthetic terms. It mars the perfection of Billy's person. Also, this speech impediment will later cost Billy his life.

Melville finishes the chapter with a darkening of tone and a bit of grim foreshadowing. He assures us that this novella will be no romance. We are headed toward an unhappy ending. From that moment on, the novel is framed by a grim certainty that something will go wrong; Melville has framed his novel like a tragedy in which the horrible ending is already known. This move is consistent with Melville's view of fate as a hostile force.

Billy's speech impediment is also a metaphor for an idea that was important to Melville: the inability to communicate. Billy Budd was written after the failure of Melville's masterpiece, Moby-Dick. Melville began to fear that his vision was not communicable, that no audience would ever understand him. In fact, it took until several decades into the twentieth century for Melville to be appreciated; today, he is venerated as one of the greatest literary minds in history, and Moby-Dick is often called the greatest novel in English. But critical and commercial failures were all that greeted Melville during his own life, and in his work one can see the desperation of a man who speaks and speaks without being heard. Billy's inability to speak during times of emotion will mean that later, he cannot speak the truth and save himself.

The Bellipotent is on duty in the Mediterranean, but the narrator assures us that this fact is not important for the story. What is important is the historical context of the times, and this the narrator relates to us in some detail.

The central events of the story take place in the summer of 1797. In April of that year, two major mutinies had shaken the security of Great Britain's navy. The French Revolution had ignited fears of similar bloody disorder in the British Empire, and the Empire was also dependent on its navy for defense. Napoleon was on the move, and Britain's force at sea was her primary means of defense.

Melville takes a bypath, digressing to speak of the beauty of the old ships and naval values, and the excellent heroic qualities of Admiral Nelson, whose victories in the Nile and at Trafalgar saved his country from Napoleon.

Melville returns to speak of the tension of the time. Vigilance against mutiny was an obsession, and officers did not trust their own crewmen. At some battles, officers stood with drawn sword behind the men working the guns.

Analysis

These three brief chapters establish the historical background of the story, so essential in understanding the fate that befalls Billy. On one hand, he establishes that this period was one of turmoil. But soon afterward, he cannot help but dwell on one of the marvelous feats of the age, the naval exploits of Admiral Nelson. Melville's digression in Chapter 4, when he speaks of Nelson, seems implicitly to justify the harshness of the navy towards its crews.

However, to say that Melville is insensitive to the injustices of life aboard a warship could not be farther from the truth. Melville had a deep and abiding concern for democracy and human rights, and his digression praising Nelson seems almost excessive. He is playing up a kind of narrative, a story praising a man so effusively that it seems to justify the man's methods and the methods of the military force in which the man serves. Melville loves the sea and the men who sail it, but the reader should be careful not to confuse Melville with his narrators. The narrator is a separate voice, and through him Melville can adapt a more subtle and sophisticated perspective. Toward the end of the novella, Melville will expose more critically the machinery of war.

Our hero is going to be destroyed by the same forces that made Nelson's victory possible, but to call Billy Budd a critique of the navy also seems too simple minded. Melville is not writing Billy Budd to try to force the military to change its methods. Rather, he is describing a situation where human rights and military power are part of a difficult and paradoxical situation. The navy ostensibly defends, among other things, the freedom of Britain. But in defending that freedom, it must deny liberties to its own crews. Thrown into this situation are questions of duty and obligation, which we will explore later when we come to the character of Captain Vere.

Melville is not necessarily for or against certain policies. He is more interested in how they play out to produce a tragedy, and the ethical questions brought up by the situation. Billy Budd is an innocent, thrown into a world full of treachery and cruelty that he is simply too good-natured to expect. Melville is capable of a deep and sinister irony, but the reader must avoid the temptation of either taking all of his statements at face value or seeing dark irony everywhere. He is content to offer complex situations, with complex implications; often, however, we must sort out the implications ourselves.

The narrator says that on board the seventy-four on which Billy now serves, a high level of discipline and morale is maintained because of Captain the Honorable Edward Fairfax Vere. He is a good captain, a bachelor in his forties, mindful of his crew's welfare, but also strict in the enforcement of discipline. He is a bold and intelligent commander, and though of noble blood did not rely solely on these connections for the advancement of his career.

He is an undemonstrative man, not particularly quick to laugh, and on ship he is an unobtrusive captain. He is given to moments of dreaminess and staring out at the ocean. In the navy his nickname is "Starry Vere," bestowed on him by a friend who had come across the name in a poem. He is also an extremely well-read man, stocking his shelf with a formidable list of books each time he sets out to sea. At times he can seem pedantic, because he makes allusions to ancient events as often as to modern ones, oblivious to the fact that most of the men with whom he speaks do not do much reading beyond the newspaper.

The narrator also describes John Claggart, the master-at-arms, warning us that his portrait will fail to grasp the true stuff of the man. During this period, the master-at-arms had evolved from a weapons instructor into a kind of chief of police. Claggart is thirty-five years old, tall and lean, though not puny-looking. His appearance suggests intelligence. He is a pale man, and the narrator hints that something is not quite right with Claggart's health. Nothing is known about Claggarts's past, but rumors abound that he is a knight or nobleman who was pressed into the navy after committing some kind of crime. The narrator tells us that in those days, the British navy was so short-staffed that common criminals would be brought in from prisons to fill ship rosters. The narrator mentions that Claggart came into naval service only recently, as a low-ranking officer, but by his shows of competence rose quickly to master-at-arms. Rumors about him are to be expected, because the master-at-arms is never an officer with whom the crewmen feel comfortable.

Analysis

Melville finishes his sketches of the story's principal players. In Vere, we have a man of principal. Melville emphasizes Vere's devotion to his office; he cannot make compromises on discipline, but he does care about the welfare of his crew. Vere is also a man of well-considered but firm principle, no stranger to deep thought and abstraction. He reads voraciously, has considered his own convictions, and stands by them: "In view of the troubled period in which his lot was cast, this was well for him. His settled convictions were as a dike against those invading waters of novel opinion social, political, and otherwise, which carried away as in a torrent no few minds in those days, minds by nature not inferior to his own" (312). Vere sees his own actions and decision within the tremendous context of his day's social and political turmoil; this way of seeing things will have profound implications later on.

Claggart is the third of our main characters. His physical description is consistent with a certain tradition of representing the devil: a tall, thin, sinister, intelligent-looking and constitutionally imperfect man. His unknown past heightens the anxiety about him; the narrator tells us that he may have a shameful or criminal past.

The characters, though Melville fleshes them out and makes them real, are deeply allegorical. Billy Budd is the innocent, the noble savage, man before the Fall, Christ. All of these tropes come together in him. Vere is principal, law, order, justice; he is also the father figure to Billy's Christ. Claggart is malevolence cloaked in power, abused authority, evil itself.

Billy Budd loves his job as foretopman, working with the other young men, but with plenty of free time to relax high up on the masts and look down on the decks below. He is keen to do his duty: when he first arrived, he saw a sailor get whipped for a minor offense, and the sight made him eager to avoid even tiny infractions of ship rules. But despite his eagerness, nothing he does seems perfect. He is often receiving harsh rebukes for minor infractions from Claggart's corporals.

Billy befriends one of the older sailors, known as the Dansker. This older sailor previously served under Nelson aboard the H.M.S. Agamemnon, and during previous service he has acquired some impressive scars. The Dansker is the one who bestows Billy's nickname upon him: "Baby Budd." The Dansker and Billy have a great deal of affection for each other, and Billy shares his concerns with the old veteran. The Dansker warns Billy that old "Jemmy Legs" (Claggart) is "down on" Billy. Billy is perplexed; Claggart always has a kind word for him when he passes. The Dansker insists that these kind words come also because Claggart is down on him.

Billy is incredulous, and he believes his disbelief is vindicated when he spills his soup in Claggart's presence. Claggart laughs off the incident, using his rattan to tap Billy from behind, and moves on. But Billy does not see Claggart's expression as the master-at-arms walks away. Claggart's face becomes terrifying, closer to his true feelings, and the expression frightens a drummer boy who bumps into him in the hall.

Analysis

The Dansker takes to Billy for reasons not altogether made clear by the author. In part, he seems worried about what will befall a man as innocent as Billy: his face is marked by "a speculative query as to what might eventually befall a nature like that" (319). Billy, because of his wholesomeness, appeals to the old man. Any worry on the Dansker's part, however, is abstract. We will see later that he does not interfere in any events, or even give advice. For Billy's part, he looks up to the Dansker as a grizzled old veteran, with stories and experience to share.

Melville makes their friendship one of opposites: Billy's wholesome, innocent nature is juxtaposed to the more cynical and world-wise character of the Dansker. The juxtaposition is physical, also: the Dansker is marked by experience, literally, in the scars on his face, which make a sharp contrast to the unmarked and perfect skin of Billy Budd.

The Dansker is a somewhat mysterious character. Melville does not make clear why he likes Billy so much, or why exactly he bestows on Billy the nickname of "Baby." But he seems to know instinctively why Billy has become a target of Claggart's officers. Claggart is "down on" Billy. Arguably, the Dansker diagnoses Claggart's feelings for Billy as sexual, although the old sailor keeps his opinions hidden. He says that the officers harass Billy because Claggart is "down on" him:

"Jemmy Legs!" ejaculated Billy, his welkin eyes expanding. "What for? Why, he calls me Œthe sweet and pleasant young fellow,' they tell me."

"Does he so?" grinned the grizzled one; then said, "Ay, Baby lad, a sweet voice has Jemmy Legs."

"No, not always. But to me he has. I seldom pass him but there comes a pleasant word."

"And that's because he's down upon you, Baby Budd." (321)

The passage implies a sexual attraction by Claggart for Billy. The Dansker is nearly teasing Billy with what he doesn't understand: Jemmy Legs has a "sweet voice," to Billy at least. The cause of the antagonism and the cause of the sweet voice, according to the Dansker, are one and the same. The Dansker rolls the whole situation into one ambiguous phrase: Claggart is "down on" Billy. And we see more of Billy's innocence: he just doesn't have any idea what the Dansker is talking about.

Chapter 10 is the infamous "spilled soup" chapter, which further establishes the sexual nature of Claggart's feelings for Billy. As Claggart passes by the mess room, the "greasy liquid streamed just across his path" (321). Claggart, instead of reprimanding Billy, turns the situation into a kind of grim joke that Baby Budd doesn't seem to understand. He taps Billy from behind with his rattan, pointing down to the "streaming" soup, and says "Handsomely done, my lad! And handsome is as handsome did it, too!" (322). Melville is none-too-subtly suggesting ejaculation. In case we didn't get it, the narrator tells us that Claggart was about to "ejaculate something hasty at the sailor" (319), the key word appropriate for the suggestive image Melville has just placed before us. Handsome Billy spills his soup, described as "greasy" and "streaming," across the path of Claggart, who taps Billy from behind with a stick and then compliments the boy's looks. His words to Billy are "equivocal," and only Claggart seems to understand the hidden implication of what he has said to Billy. The young sailor simply takes this light-heartedness as proof that the Dansker is mistaken.

The narrator points out that sometimes, in some men, a target's harmlessness makes him all the easier to hate. On board a seventy-four, all men have contact with all of the other men. The crew is a small, small world, and it is the only world for long periods of time. Any friction between persons can soon become bitter hatred. The narrator begins to ask about the nature of evil in man.

Claggart's deepest problem, the narrator tells us, is a deep, innate depravity. It is not a continuous insanity, but something more sinister: "toward the accomplishment of an aim which in wantonness of atrocity would seem to partake of the insane, he will direct a cool judgment sagacious and sound" (326). His evil is his capacity for malevolence, and the cool intelligence he employs for malevolence's sake.

We then move to the nature of envy, and the feelings evoked in Claggart when he beholds Billy. Billy's innocence and good looks both give Claggart all the more reason to hate the boy; Billy possesses goodness, and is devoid of malice. Claggart can never be so. He is also drawn by it: "Yet in an aesthetic way he saw the charm of it, the courageous free-and-easy temper of it, and fain would have shared it, but he despaired of it" (328).

Claggart comes to interpret the spilled soup as an insult from Billy. His hatred of Billy has become so profound that he is waiting for some sign that the malice is reciprocated; such is the nature of evil in men, which seeks justification for itself. One of his corporals, a disgusting little man named Squeak, fills Claggart's ears with false reports of Billy's dislike for Claggart. Squeak has noticed Claggart's antipathy for Billy, and he is eager to ingratiate himself to his master. Claggart takes every small gesture from Billy as signs of something grave; that, too, is the nature of hatred. Thus he justifies his hatred of Billy, and moves toward a plan of terrible, unjust revenge.

Analysis

These three chapters defy summary; they are an extended meditation on the nature and origins of evil. The theme of evil is important to the novella. While Melville treats his subject with humility, not daring to remove the ineffable and mysterious elements of evil, he is not afraid to explore, with convincing and articulate brilliance, the psychology of hatred. Claggart is moved to hate what he cannot possess: Billy's goodness and beauty. There are yet more hints of a sexual attraction, as the narrator speaks of Claggart's fascination with Billy's physical appearance. Claggart sees "in an aesthetic way" Billy's attractiveness, and "fain would have shared it" (328). The language is ambiguous. He wishes he could have Billy's charm; implicitly, he wishes he could have Billy. His hatred of Billy also may come from a fear of rejection: he protects himself by imagining that Billy has already rejected him, and that Billy is nursing a deep hatred for him.

Part of Claggart's evil is the "perversion of conscience." He has subverted his own sense of right and wrong, twisting his conscience, seeing justification for his hatred where none exists. Claggart's anger parallels the devil's. In both the Christian and Moslem interpretations of the devil, Satan came to hate out of jealousy. In Christian lore, Satan rebelled against the God who had been nothing but benevolent to him, out of envy for God's power and goodness. In the Moslem tradition, the final straw was the creation of man. When God told all of the angels to bow before this new creation, Satan, jealous of the new creature, refused.

So in Billy Budd, we are dealing with an archetypal form of evil, the kind of evil that feeds on its hatred of goodness. Billy's innocence and Claggart's malignance are going to come into conflict, at the cost of both men's lives.

A few days after the soup incident, Billy has a disturbing experience. Late one night, due to the heat, Billy sleeps on the forecastle instead of in his hammock, stretched out alongside three other men. He is woken by a strange voice, which invites him to a secluded part of the deck. Billy, of a nature not able to refuse any request, and more than a little disoriented, follows. There, a man from the afterguard asks if Billy was impressed into service. The stranger mentions that he himself was, and that he has been talking to other men aboard the ship who were impressed. The man indirectly asks Billy if he would help in the event of a mutiny, offering Billy two guineas.

The terrified Billy, stuttering, tells the man to be gone, and the afterguardsman leaves in a hurry. In the commotion, two of the other forecastlemen are woken, but Billy's explanation puts them at ease.

Billy is terribly disturbed by the incident, and does not quite know how to wrap his mind around it. He has never been approached by any agent of secretive or underhanded business before. Later, he sees the afterguardsmen in broad daylight, and the man smiles and greets Billy as if they were friends; Billy is so thrown that he does not respond. He does not report the night incident, fearful of being a "telltale" (tattle-tale), but he does mention the incident, indirectly, to the Dansker. The Dansker is confirmed in his suspicions that Claggart is after Billy. The Dansker calls the afterguardsman a "cat's paw" but refuses to elaborate, wary of giving too much advice.

Billy, despite the Dansker's warning, does not suspect Claggart. The narrator defends Billy's innocence. His nature is simply too good to suspect the man who has always treated him kindly. Billy is no dolt, but his intelligence "had advanced while yet his simple-mindedness remained for the most part unaffected" (336). The narrator goes on to say that sailors are often an innocent, juvenile group of men. Accustomed to living within a fixed system of rules and obeying orders, they are strangers to the hazards of living in a world where every man obeys his own free will. In comparison, landsmen are duplicitous and distrustful creatures.

The small reprimands for tiny infractions stop, and Claggart's kind words grow more enthusiastic than ever. But when looking at Billy, Claggart occasionally loses control, betraying strange emotions. At times, Claggart's glance "would follow the cheerful sea Hyperion with a settled meditative and melancholy expression, his eyes strangely suffused with incipient feverish tears" (338). The emotions swing wide: at other times, seeing Billy would bring out a red light flashing forth from his eyes.

Billy thinks the master-at-arms acts strange, but does not suspect him of malice. Nor does he make anything of the strange behavior of the armorer and the captain of the hold: these men dine with Claggart, and so the master-at-arms often speaks to them in confidence.

The narrator finishes Chapter 17 saying that while Billy more or less settles back into peace, Claggart's hatred continues to eat away at him. Something is going to break.

Analysis

Billy's reaction to the afterguardsman's approaches shows the boy's incredible innocence. He cannot bear to be involved in anything secretive, and his stutter kicks in. He is both angry and powerless in the face of the proposal, threatening the man with force if he doesn't leave Billy alone, but also stuttering terribly and losing his composure. Nor does Billy know how to react in the following days, when the afterguardsman tosses off casual greetings at Billy.

Melville is always asking questions about the place and responsibilities of an individual. One of many titles for Billy Budd (see Context) is Billy Budd, Sailor which emphasizes Billy's role as one unit in his majesty's navy. His duties regarding the planned mutiny are to report the suspicious activity, but he has a schoolboy's sense of honor and will not betray his fellow sailors. That is one choice Billy makes, and indirectly it costs him his life; had he come forward right away, Claggart's later accusation would not have been possible. Many of the other characters also deal with duty: Vere will act out of duty later on. The Dansker, on the other hand, absolutely refuses to get involved in anything, even in a situation that seems to threaten his young friend's safety. He has apparently reached the conclusion that non-interference is the best way to preserve himself.

Melville connects Billy's innocence to his vocation, and also makes a connection between innocence and a life of constrained will. Two themes come together here: innocence and principle, the two forces embodied in Billy and Captain Vere. Life lived within systems, obeying orders, makes an ease of trust possible that is unknown to landsmen. Certainly, Melville is commenting on the power of law and principle in controlling and improving men. Yet the affects of such a system are not unambiguous. Billy's lack of experience in the world of free wills also makes him somewhat helpless. And, of course, despite what the narrator has said, we have evidence that not all sailors are innocent. Billy has become entangled in a conspiracy of some sort. However, Melville does make his conspirators transplanted landsmen. He hints that the afterguardsman may not always have been a seaman, for he is "chubby too for a sailor, even an afterguardsman" (334). Claggart, if he is involved, is new to a naval career as well. Still, although Melville makes the conspirators somewhat more removed from the world of the sea, the fact remains that ships, also, can be dens of evil, and that law can be manipulated.

Again, we see mysterious, unsettling hints of Claggart's conflicting feelings for Billy. When Billy passes, Claggart sometimes has involuntary tears in his eyes: "Yes and sometimes the melancholy expression would have in it a touch of soft yearning, as if Claggart could even have loved Billy but for fate and ban" (338). This language suggests desire, and passion: Melville uses the ambiguous word "passion" again and again to describe Claggart's feelings for Billy. But the emotions swing wide. Melville gives us an impossible, unreal image to describe Claggart's rage: "But upon any abrupt unforeseen encounter a red light would flash forth from his eye like a spark from an anvil in a dusk smithy" (338). The image has to be metaphor, but even so it is unsettling and supernatural. Claggart, though given a real psychology that develops and partially explains the nature of evil (he is arguably given more motivation and psychological depth than, say, Shakespeare's Iago), is also an allegorical stand-in for the devil.

While on a mission that carries the Bellipotent far from the fleet, she catches sight of an enemy frigate. The Bellipotent gives chase, but the enemy ship escapes after a long hunt.

After the escape, Claggart approaches Captain Vere and tells him that a sailor has been making trouble on the ship, organizing and riling up those men who were impressed into service. Captain Vere distrusts something about Claggart, and his suspicion grows when Claggart says that the troublemaker is Billy Budd. Vere can hardly believe it. He knows of Budd: he complimented Radcliffe on his choice of a man who "in the nude might have posed for a statue of a young Adam before the Fall" (345). Vere was hoping to suggest Billy's promotion to captain of the mizzentop, a post which would have brought Billy more frequently under Vere's eye. Vere reminds Claggart that there is a price to be paid for false witness. Claggart, making show of being offended, tells the captain that he has proof. Vere decides to try to deal with the matter quietly, so as to find out if the charges are true; he wonders at this point not how he will deal with the allegedly mutinous Billy, but how he might deal with the lying Claggart.

Vere orders Albert, his hammock-boy (a kind of captain's personal attendant) to summon Billy discretely to the aft part of the ship. He is not to tell Billy that the final destination is Vere's cabin until the last moment.

Billy is surprised to be brought to Vere's cabin, but he is not afraid: he feels that the captain has always looked with favor on him, and thinks that perhaps he is going to be promoted. Vere orders Claggart to tell Billy what he has just told him. The captain is planning to study the faces of accuser and accused. Claggart repeats the accusation. Billy, as always when seized by powerful emotions, cannot speak. Vere at first cannot understand the silence, but watching Billy's tortured expression soon guesses the problem. He tries to soothe Billy, telling him to take his time, but the gesture is so tender it only makes Billy's stutter worse, "bringing to his face an expression which was as a crucifixion to behold" (350). Unable to speak, and in the grips of emotions that the young man cannot control, he strikes Claggart, who falls down dead. They try to help Claggart up, but his form is completely inert. Vere takes in the situation, and then orders Billy to go into an aft stateroom and remain there until summoned.

Keeping the body out of sight, Vere has Albert summon the surgeon. The surgeon comes and verifies that Claggart is dead. A distressed Vere exclaims, "Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!" (352). Vere orders that the body be moved to a compartment, and he announces his intention to call a drumhead court. He tells the surgeon to inform the lieutenants of what has happened, as well as the captain of the marines. These officers must keep the matter to themselves.

Analysis

This confrontation decides Billy's fate. Melville's buildup pays off, as a number of important themes and ideas here reach their fulfillment.

We see that Vere is not immune to Billy's looks and innocence. Already, he was considering promoting Billy so that the boy would more often be under his gaze. And Billy's charisma and good nature make Vere reluctant to take Claggart's word, to the point that even before meeting Billy, he is already considering how to deal with Claggart's lying. Vere is also extremely good to Billy in the cabin, patiently telling the boy to take his time. For the middle-aged bachelor, Billy's beauty and innocence have a strong appeal.

Vere immediately recognizes that something is amiss. Claggart may be intelligent, but he is unable to fool the captain. Vere recognizes the performance, and his unwillingness to trust the master-at-arms is consistent with the character description given to us earlier. Note Vere's depth of compassion throughout the whole encounter: despite the looming threat of mutiny, he gives Billy the benefit of the doubt. And as Billy stutters, Vere treats him with patience and understanding.

But Vere does not make exceptions to his principles. He reaches the decision, almost immediately, that despite Billy's innocence the boy must hang. Vere, though in the position of power, is also bound by his own ideas of honor and responsibility. No exception can be made; in the turmoil of the times, Vere clings to principle and responsibility as life-preservers.

Billy's speechlessness in this dramatic scene is one of the most loaded moments of the novella. His silence dooms him. As noted earlier, Melville's later works are marked by an obsession with the inability to communicate. His own literary failures scarred him, and he feared that his work, his vision, would never make a difference. This terrible fear works its way into Billy Budd. The Handsome Sailor's fatal flaw is a small stutter that at this critical moment costs him his life. Unable to speak, Billy lashes out in frustration, like a beast, and dooms himself in the process. Interrupted communication is an important theme of the novella, and closely connected to this idea is the theme of isolation.

Claggart and Vere are both, in different ways, isolated men. Claggart's machinations are his own, and no one on board is privy to his thoughts. Even the narrator, who often feels free enough to explain the thinking and motivations of the other characters, expresses doubts about his ability to describe Claggart: "His portrait I essay, but shall never hit it" (313). Even the narrator won't go too close to Claggart. The master-at-arms is left alone to contend with his secret obsession with Billy; compounding his isolation is this lonely desire for a man whom he will never be able to have.

Vere, too, is isolated. As an erudite and sensitive man in the military, as well as a bachelor, he gives the impression of one who does not have many soul mates in the world. And at the end of the novel, the captain is burdened with the duty of seeing to Billy's execution.

The cabin scene gives us three men together in a room, but with each firmly separated from the others. Claggart is there, presenting one front while secretively plotting his next move, preparing to lie and present false evidence against Billy. Vere is there, and he too is presenting a front: while allowing Claggart to think that he is only investigating the matter, he is actually waiting for Billy's innocence to make itself obvious. And finally Billy, brought in without a clue as to what's going on, hears the accusations but cannot make his thoughts known; he lacks even the speech necessary to defend himself.

The allegorical elements of Billy Budd are also in full affect. There is a tradition of looking at Billy Budd as a Christ story, with Vere as the Father. He is the bachelor with no children of his own, trying to help the boy who has never known his real father. Also, note that Billy's expression as he is trying to speak is "as a crucifixion to behold" (350). However, the Christ reading is not some magic key that unlocks the whole novella, however strong the temptations to use it that way may be. The reading is only one strand of a complex work. More will be said about the Christ reading later.

There is a fated nature to what happens. Though Billy makes choices, and conducts himself in a way that saves Vere and preserves the Bellipotent's ability to serve the King, he has no choice but to die. He kills Claggart in a moment where he has lost control. He certainly has done nothing to deserve Claggart's hatred. The theme of fate is worked through the whole novella. Vere brings it up: immediately after Claggart falls dead, Vere addresses Billy as "Fated boy" (350). Billy is lost, crushed between the forces of Claggart's hatred, Vere's sense of duty, and the threat posed by recent mutinies during a time of impending war. Billy loses his life because of his situation, rather than because of any particular thing that he has done.

Without pushing the Christ reading, Billy remains a symbol of goodness and innocence. He is a kind of natural, perfected man, noticed by Vere as a man like Adam before the Fall. He possesses natural nobility, male beauty, and youthful innocence. But these gifts do not protect him from the world, where a creature can be hated not despite his beauty and goodness, but because of them.

Melville continues to develop the symbolism of Claggart as the devil. He describes his corpse with serpent imagery: "The spare form flexibly acquiesced, but inertly. It was like handling a dead snake" (350). Claggart is at once a real character and a metaphor for the nature of evil. Part of what makes him frightening is the mystery surrounding him. Although his motivations are hinted at, the true root of his malevolence can never be satisfactorily explained away. Claggart's paradox is that he wanted both to have and to destroy Billy. Though it costs Claggart his life, he arguably has gotten what he wanted. Billy has touched him, and Billy will die. Even dead, Claggart is frightening: silent, serpent-like, taking his secrets with him, and having successfully caused the destruction of a creature who has never done him wrong.

Vere's orders surprise the surgeon, because normal procedure would be to hold Billy until later, when his case can be referred to the admiral. The surgeon worries that perhaps Vere is not completely well mentally. The other officers, on receiving Vere's orders, also feel that the case should wait for the admiral.

The narrator asks how one can distinguish the colors of the rainbow. No one can delineate the exact line where one color ends and the other begins; the same, he says, is true of sanity and insanity. The surgeon is concerned about Vere's breach of normal protocol, and though Vere seems reasonable enough in other ways, the surgeon wonders if perhaps Vere is just slightly off his balance.

The narrator reminds us of the period. News of Billy's case might spread and ignite mutiny, and so there is a need to deal with the case quickly. Vere is not insensitive to the difficulties of the case. He knows now that Claggart was lying, and the Billy is innocent of evil intent. But the Captain also knows that he must make a decision quickly; with an ever-aggressive France flexing its muscles, the navy is critical for Britain's safety.

At the trial, the three officers making up the court are the first lieutenant, the captain of the marines, and the sailing master. Captain Vere is the only witness. The officers are amazed by the case, not expecting Billy to be capable of either the false charges brought up by Claggart or the true crime that Billy has undeniably committed. After Vere presents his version of events, Billy confirms it. But he also denies Claggart's accusation, and Vere says before all that he believes Billy. When questioned, Billy has to admit that he was aware of no malice between himself and Claggart. Billy tells one lie: when they ask if he is aware of a mutiny brewing, he says no, not wanting to inform on his shipmates. When an officer asks why Claggart would lie about Billy if there were no malice between them, Billy is unable to answer. He turns to Vere for help. Captain Vere says that the question cannot be answered, nor is it relevant: they must deal only with the blow and the consequences of the blow. Billy does not understand the import of his words, but the other officers do: Vere thinks that Billy must be hanged.

Billy is returned to his compartment, and Vere and the officers have to deliberate. For a while, there is silence. Then Vere addresses the court. He argues passionately that despite Billy's innocence before God, he must hang. Their duty is not to natural conscience, but to the king, and in the midst of this war and considering the recent mutinies, no chances can be taken. According to the Mutiny Act, the penalty for a crewman striking and killing a superior officer is death.

The threat of mutiny is still real. Even if the court explains the mitigating circumstances of Billy's case, the crew would think that a light penalty means that the officers fear them. Mutiny could result. There is no way out.

The court finds Billy guilty. He is to be hanged the next morning.

Captain Vere himself tells Billy of the verdict. The narrator says that no one knows what happened in that cabin, but probably Vere told him the whole truth about the court proceedings. He speculates that Vere, old enough to be Billy's father, "caught Billy to his heart, even as Abraham may have caught young Isaac on the brink of resolutely offering him up in obedience to the exacting behest" (367). When Captain Vere leaves the compartment, his face reveals an intense, terrible suffering.

Analysis

Melville's rainbow of unclearly delineated colors is a metaphor not only for the permeable barrier between sanity and insanity, but the ambiguity and difficulty of the moral dilemma facing the drumhead court. In Billy's situation, compassion and justice are ranged against duty and necessity. The line between right and wrong is not clear. Captain Vere makes his choice, prioritizing his duty as an officer of the king. Melville does not come down in so definite a way. Billy Budd is a book about questions. The text invites us to make our own judgment: "Whether Captain Vere, as the surgeon professionally and privately surmised, was really the sudden victim of any degree of aberration, everyone must determine for himself by such light as this narrative may afford" (353).

The Christ reading of Billy Budd includes an interpretation of Vere's choice, drawing parallels between Captain Vere's decisions and the divine plan of God the Father. Just as God sent his son to be sacrificed for the good of all, Captain Vere sacrifices Billy for the good of the fleet and the safety of Britain. In the brief time that Billy and Vere have been involved in this situation, they have developed a father-son bond. Captain Vere is old enough to be Billy's father, and Melville throws the connection into relief by making Vere a childless bachelor and Billy a foundling. These two men, without family attachments, come to a strong mutual understanding in the brief time they know each other. The relationship is tender, despite its newness. Yet the Captain is going to sacrifice Billy for the common good. Melville reminds us of another biblical sacrifice, when Abraham, in obedience to God's will, prepares to kill young Isaac. The parallels here perhaps work better than in the Christ reading. As Abraham was bound by duty to God's will, Captain Vere is bound by duty to the security of his nation. Vere, because of his firm belief in his principles and his loyalty to the British Empire, must ignore questions of guilt and innocence.

But even as both the narrator and Captain Vere explain the forces necessitating Billy's execution, the text continues to pose questions. The duties of war are explicitly admitted by Vere to be against Nature: "But do these buttons that we wear attest that our allegiance is to Nature? No, to the King" (361). Remember also the word that Melville uses earlier, when the narrator tells us that we must decide if Vere suffered from an "aberration." The world is not simple; Vere cannot simply choose his system of values and then escape the consequences of what he admits to be natural justice. Nor does he try to. He sees his duty in a particular light, and then acts accordingly. The theme of an individual's place in society is in full force here. Vere's decision is a problematic one. Particularly in light of the twentieth century's history, readers may become uncomfortable when Vere asks, rhetorically, if "private conscience should not yield to that imperial one formulated in the code under which alone we officially proceed" (362). Vere's values, though here in defense of a free England (whose freedom depends in part on the impressments of unwilling civilian sailors), would not be completely unfamiliar to, say, a loyal German soldier under Nazi Germany.

Melville has already made sure that we understand some of Vere's key characteristics. When introducing Vere, he tells us that Vere is a man of deep principle. He is committed to defending Britain against the revolutions on the continent, "not alone because they seemed to him insusceptible of embodiment in lasting institutions, but at war with the peace of the world and the true welfare of mankind" (312). Captain Vere serves the crown out of real loyalty to British institutions and British conceptions of freedom and the welfare of man. He is not an unthinking, obedient Nazi; from the start, his philosophical bent has been impressed upon us by Melville. His opinions do not come without consideration. His talk to the court shows "the influence of unshared studies modifying and tempering the practical training of an active career" (360). Unshared does not have a negative connotation here; the studies are unshared because Vere has no minds as fine as his own in his peer group. But the important part is that Captain Vere's book learning goes hand-in-hand with his experiences as a military man. Vere's name is symbolic: although some read "vere" as "to swerve," that hardly seems appropriate. It's the one thing Vere does not do. He is sure in his duty, sure that his principles stand for something. He departs from normal protocol, but with the good of the ship and his nation's safety ever in mind. "Vere" puns on "verity," truthfulness and integrity.

We must reach our own judgments about Vere. Melville has his narrator heap regular praise upon the captain; judging from the tone and intelligence of the praise, to dismiss it all as ironic seems absurd. We are forced, in part, to judge Captain Vere on his own terms. But Melville also makes sure to let us know that Vere's principles come at a price.

Billy, at any rate, seems to understand Captain Vere. Vere's decision, rather than drive the two men apart, seems to bring them closer together. Later, we will see that Billy harbors no malice toward his captain.

That night, in the second dogwatch, all hands are called and Captain Vere tells the crew that a sailor has struck and killed an officer. Said sailor will be hanged the next day. At some point, although Melville does not give us an idea of the time beyond that it is "a suitable hour," Claggart is buried at sea with all the honors appropriate to his rank. Billy's transfer from the cabin is done quietly. In both the case of Claggart and Billy Budd, the officers strive to do all things by the book, so that the sailors will sense no disturbance in ritual or routine.

Billy is kept in the upper gun deck. That night, he sleeps between two cannons. The chaplain comes to see him, but on seeing Billy peacefully asleep cannot bear to wake him. He returns early in the morning, before dawn, to find Billy awake. Billy receives him politely, but he has little need of comfort. He listens to the chaplain's words about death and Christ but does not seem touched by them. The chaplain is moved by Billy's innocence, and as he leaves, he kisses Billy on the cheek.

At dawn, all hands are assembled to watch the execution. Before Billy is hanged, he calls out, "God bless Captain Vere!" The other men, as if their wills are not their own, repeat his benediction. Vere reacts not at all to this occurrence. As Billy hangs, he is hit by light from the heavens, taking on "the full rose of dawn" (376). His body does not move at all, save with the motion of the ship. There are no spasms of death.

We move to a few days later, when the ship purser and the surgeon are at a meal discussing the body's lack of movement. The purser attributes the phenomenon to strength of will. The surgeon, speaking arrogantly about proof and science, discounts the idea. But he must admit that the body's stillness is inexplicable. Not liking the turn of the conversation, he excuses himself to tend to a patient.

We return to the scene of Billy's execution. There is silence for a moment, and then a low murmur, ambiguous in meaning and possible promising dark developments, begins among the men. But the gathering is dispersed, and the men are put to work. They are brought together again a few hours later for Billy's funeral. Billy's body, wrapped in the canvas of his own hammock, is dropped into the sea. Sea birds shriek and dive at the place where the body dropped down, and for a while they circle over the spot where the body sank underwater. Superstitious as always, the sailors attach meaning to this event. Another unarticulated, low, murmuring sound begins among them, but once again whistles and shouts put the men back to work.

Analysis

The scene with the chaplain is loaded, not because of anything that happens but because of Melville's detailed musings on the paradox of a man of the cloth serving on a warship. Also, the meeting with the chaplain would seem to nullify the reading of Billy Budd as Melville's reconciliation with Christianity and God. Melville was a confirmed unbeliever where Christianity was concerned, although he appreciated Christianity on an aesthetic level. There are fierce strains of the mystic and the transcendentalist in him, but he does not work these strains into a system of belief, nor is he consistent in his attitudes throughout his literary career. Each book must be examined on its own.

The chaplain's faith, though being presented to one who has been depicted throughout the book as a Christ or god on earth, makes no significant impression on Billy: "It was like a gift placed in the palm of an outreached hand upon which the fingers do not close" (373). From the sense we have of Billy, most readers feel that he does not need it. Nor, for that matter, does the chaplain. When he sees Billy sleeping, he quietly steals away. Melville suggests that the chaplain believes he has "no consolation to proffer which could result in a peace transcending that which he beheld" (372). The chaplain, in talking to Billy, still feels no fear for Billy's soul: "innocence was even a better thing than religion wherewith to go to Judgment" (373). He is so moved by Billy that before leaving he kisses the condemned on the cheek.

Melville reminds us again and again of the contradictions in the chaplain's work. The chaplain's faith is necessarily compromised, as he is "the minister of Christ though receiving his stipend from Mars" (372). He is powerless to act on conviction: "Marvel not that having been made acquainted with the young sailor's essential innocence the worthy man lifted not a finger to avert the doom of such a martyr to martial discipline" (373). Though a minister of God, the chaplain eats the King's bread. Melville is simply reminding us of the contradictions that are part of every human life. As Melville is always asking the place of an individual in society, the chaplain's entrance provides yet another situation where different ethical systems come into conflict, and yet an individual must live with both. Despite the Christ elements of the story, Melville will not stand for having his novella being reduced to a story of taking comfort in Jesus. He finishes the chapter of the chaplain's visit with words that come close to indicting religion. Speaking of why the chaplain is there, he says that the minister "lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force" (374). Contradictions abound for the chaplain, and most of the contradictions are none too flattering for the Christian faith. War and its machinery are unavoidable. The chaplain meets Billy between two cannons. Even as Billy is visited by his final spiritual guide, they are surrounded by the unholy implements of warfare.

But arguably, Billy's death scene is asking us to believe in something. Billy's power over others is once again clear. When he calls out "God bless Captain Vere!" the other men echo him, as if he is a religious leader. Much has been made of Billy's name. Some interpreters have suggested that Budd comes from Buddha; Melville was no stranger to the writings of Indian spirituality, and he lived in a period when Indian mysticism was in vogue among educated American elites. Such an origin for Billy's name would emphasize Billy's saintliness and awareness, which transcend both conventional knowledge and religion. His execution is something of a miracle: there are none of the spasms always seen in deaths by hanging.

Melville also plays with Billy's name during the death scene. In going to his death with such grace, Billy shows the full power and beauty of what a nature like his is capable of. As Billy hangs, the skies seem to pass comment: "At the same moment it chanced that the vapory fleece hanging low in the East was shot through with a soft glory as of the fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision, and simultaneously therewith, watched by the wedged mass of upturned faces, Billy ascended; and ascending, took the full rose of the dawn" (376). Never one to waste time with subtlety, Melville turns Billy into a martyr blessed by near-visions and near-miracles. We see a vision of the "fleece of the Lamb of God," cementing Billy's link to Christ. The body does not twitch, as all bodies do when hanged. Again, Melville plays with Billy's name, turning it into a symbol of the boy's metamorphosis into something beautiful and powerful: Billy Budd takes on the rose of dawn. His death is also a transformation. Melville does not describe his body as hanging. He chooses to emphasize the upward motion of the execution, so that Billy is not suspended: he ascends.

Regarding the body's mystic stillness, Melville inserts a tiny chapter relating a later conversation between the purser and the surgeon. Typically, he makes neither man a particularly bright debater. The purser wishes to chalk up Billy's stillness to an act of will. The surgeon refuses to accept anything that cannot be explained easily and rationally. He excuses himself before the conversation can turn to fields in which he feels uncomfortable. Melville is pushing us into the territory of belief. The surgeon plays the role of the skeptic, but the irrational skeptic: he fears what he cannot explain. But Melville does not make it easy for us. The purser is not exactly a brilliant man. The narrator tells us he is "more accurate as an accountant than profound as a philosopher" and the way the purser speaks confirms this assessment. Both officers have missed something vital in Billy's death: one out of lack of astuteness, and the other out of a fear of the scientifically unexplainable. Later, we will see the very different reaction the sailors have in the years after Billy's death.

In the short term, immediate discipline and routine are used to keep the sailors in line. The threat of mutiny is just below the surface. After Billy's death, and again after his funeral, there begins among the men an inarticulate and ambiguous murmur, one that might very well signal a rebellion. It is kept in line by routine, by form, by the rituals of sea life.

The narrator apologizes for real life's ragged edges, which do not correspond to the "symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction" (380). While the principle part of the story is over, there are still some stories that need to be told. He promises that three chapters will suffice.

Not long after Billy's execution, the Bellipotent came up against the French line-of-battle ship Athée (the Atheist). During the battle, Captain Vere was seriously wounded. Under a subordinate officer, the Bellipotent managed to subdue the enemy ship and made it back to the English port of Gibraltar. There, Captain Vere lingered for a few days before his death. The captain, therefore, was not destined to see the great battles to come at Trafalgar and the Nile. Not long before his death, an attendant heard the drugged Vere murmuring "Billy Budd" again and again. The senior officer of the marines hears of the incident from the attendant, but says nothing about who Billy Budd was.

A few weeks after the execution, an article reporting the incident appears in one of the officially sanctioned papers. As the article reports it, Billy was involved in a plan for mutiny. When confronted by Claggart, he stabbed the master-at-arms. The article speculates the Billy must have been a foreigner masquerading as an Englishman. The article goes on to decry the loss of Claggart, whom the article praises as a respectable man, the kind of man who by fulfilling his duties as a petty officer helps to keep His Majesty's navy efficient.

But the sailors who knew Billy seem to know instinctively that Billy was innocent. Though they do not know the details of the story, for years afterward they keep track of the location of the spar from which Billy was suspended. They follow the spar's career as it goes from ship to dockyard to ship to dockyard again, until it ends its career as a dockyard boom. For the sailors, a sliver from the spar is like a piece of the Cross. One of the sailors who knew Billy composes a sailor's song, "Billy in the Darbies" ("Billy in Irons"), about Billy awaiting his execution. The novella ends with this song.

Analysis

Despite the allegorical nature of the novella, which has long made it popular on high school reading lists, Melville begins his denouement by telling us that fable and fact cannot finish the same way. This moment requires a suspension of disbelief, because the novella is, in fact, fiction, but Melville is actually making a more profound distinction.

If Melville were a different kind of writer, we might close with Billy's execution. We have the beautiful martyrdom, and Vere's justifications would seem less problematic. The Christ allegory would close, tidy and uncomplicated. But in light of what follows, a complicated situation takes on a dark, unsettling edge.

For one thing, Melville suggests that Captain Vere, in steadfastly doing his duty, may also have had partially selfish motivations. The narrator bemoans Vere's early death, which cut off the possibility of Vere participating in the great battles at Trafalgar and the Nile. But listen to why: "The spirit that Œspite its philosophic austerity may yet have indulged in the most secret of all passions, ambition, never attained to the fullness of fame" (382). Passion is the same word he used to describe Claggart's secret obsessions. Melville is hinting that another side of Vere may have existed, one interested in earthly rewards and renown as much as duty. But it is only a possibility.

The ship responsible for Vere's death has a symbolic name: Athée, or the Atheist. Crude allegory cannot be imposed here, but the name suggests that the specter of disbelief and cynicism haunts the novella's story. Billy's beautiful sacrifice, his transfiguration; perhaps after all they were only tricks of light. Maybe his death was nothing more than a waste, the product of a petty officer's hate and a captain's misguided sense of duty. Maybe his death was without meaning. Captain Vere, for one, cannot seem to escape his own conscience. He mumbles Billy's name on his deathbed, unable to put aside his thoughts about the boy. And though the narrator seemed gung-ho enough at the start of the novella about the glories of war, he here does not shy away from its dark side, suggesting that the Athée is the most apt name imaginable for a war ship. War, when revealed in all of its ugliness, tends to pulverize the stories we tell to justify it.

The news article further problematizes our comfort with Vere's decision and Billy's seemingly acquiescent martyrdom. Both men served a cause that has some undeniably ugly machinery. The biased news article is clear propaganda, designed to keep up moral and convince readers of the navy's goodness and necessity. There is a fiercely xenophobic strain as well, as the article suggests that Billy may have been a foreigner masquerading as a true Englishman. Earlier, Melville also reminds us that war is business when he speaks of "oil supplied by the war contractors (whose gains, honest or otherwise, are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest of death)" (370). At the start of the novella, the narrator praised the heroics of Nelson and the glories of naval victory. As the novel closes, he hits a very different note. He mentions the business profits of war, suggests ambition as part of the makeup of even the most dutiful and honorable man, and shows the biased and unjust reporting of officially sanctioned wartime papers. These dark notes are not constitutive of an anti-war polemic; what Melville is doing is far subtler. Captain Vere is undoubtedly an honorable man. But we might become too comfortable with his viewpoint and Billy's death if Melville did not show us the ugly machinery of war.

In turning the spar into a relic, he brings Billy's parallels to Christ back to the forefront. But we are left to consider, as Vere did on his death bed, the difficult questions surrounding the boy's execution. Following these unsettling ending notes, we have the eerie sailor's song, where the waiting Billy imagines being dead at the bottom of the sea. Though the sailors think of Billy as a kind of Christ, the song does not imagine Billy waking up in heaven. The final note is dark and unsettling, as the speaker of the song imagines death in the deep: "I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist" (385). Fable and allegory elucidate and instruct. Billy Budd does something else. Melville gives us difficult situations, with difficult questions, but refuses to resolve them for us. The final images of the novel are disconcerting, dark. We are left in imagined darkness, with Billy's corpse, forced to come to our own conclusions about the events surrounding Billy's death.

• Biography of Herman Melville
• About Billy Budd
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Chapter 1
• Summary and Analysis of Chapter 2
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 3-5
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 6-8
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 9-10
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 11-13
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 14-17
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 18-19
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 20-22
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 23-27
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 28-30
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• Author of ClassicNote and Sources
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• Test Yourself! Quiz 1
• Test Yourself! Quiz 2
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