Bill_Budd

Bill Budd Billy Budd Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were perfect. They were innocent and ignorant, yet perfect, so they were allowed to abide in the presence of God. Once they ate a piece of fruit off the Tree of Good and Evil, however, they immediately became unclean as well as mortal. In Billy Budd, the author, Herman Melville, presents a question that stems directly from this original sin of our first parents: Is it better to be innocent and ignorant, but good and righteous, or is it better to be experienced and knowledgeable' I believe that through this story, Melville is telling us that we need to strike some kind of balance between these two ideas; we need to have morality and virtue. To illustrate his theme, Melville uses a few characters who are all very different, the most important of which is Billy Budd. Billy is the focal point of the story and the single person whom we are meant to learn the most from. On the ship, the Rights-of-Man, Billy is the center of attention among his shipmates; a leader, not by authority, but billy, budd, claggart, vere, melville, good, god, captain, judgment, innocent, evil, death, story, first, billy’s, against, about, ship, out, man, court, adam, world, reason, mutiny, later, between, better, ananias, two, since, question, principle, place, person