A Violent Experience

Herman Melville, the author of Billy Budd, had a roving disposition and a desire to support himself idependently as a young man. Much like the main character in his novella, he often took jobs on ships and wrote most of his great works from his experiences on these voyages. He eventually settled down with his wife, Elizabeth Shaw, on a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Later in life, however, his books did not do so well with scathing reviews and proclamations by reviewers that Melville had become insane. He soon went into debt and managed to get a job as a customs inspector. His final novella, Billy Budd, was unfinished at the time of his death on September 28, 1981. It was finally published in 1924.
In Melville's final novella, Billy Budd, the main character, is what the handsome sailor should be: young, good looking, and very good at what he does. Later, he is impressed from the Rights-of-Man on to the navy ship the H.M.S Bellipotent. He is an innocent young man, incapable of violence and is about to be thrust into a world of war. Joyce Addler refers to Billy Budd as "White Jacket's sailor," and that he is "from the first the symbol of the good and beauty out of keeping and doomed in the world of war. (Addler, 266)" When he meets Claggart and sees the whipping of a fellow sailor, he does his best to avoid making mistakes that might give him the same fate. However, Claggart is at the same time looking for Billy to make a mistake so that he can show how imperfect Billy actually is. Addler notes that Billy stands for the light and Claggart for evil and that, "for what is evil for man is war's good; what is good for mankind is what war has no place for. (Addler, 267)" Billy Budd has a sort of innocence that makes him vunerable to the war-like qualities of Claggart. Claggart is envious of Billy's innocence, something he can never regain, so he plans on taking away his innocence. Being so unused to this world of violence and constantly watching out for himself and his mistakes.
Billy Budd is taken from his freedom on the Rights-of-Man, a ship where he could maintain his right to freedom, and forced into the violent bowels of the Bellipotent, a ship where he is constantly in danger of becoming a victim of violence. Joyce Addler calls this "Melville's Philosophy of War," where the innocence of a young handsome man is taken away from him by others who wish to do him harm.

Works Cited:
Addler, Joyce Sparer. "Billy Budd and Melville's Philosophy of War." Modern Language Association 91.2 (1976): 266-76. Web. JSTOR. 22 Nov 2009.