Billy Budd

Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" -- Guilty as Charged!

With this singular word, "guilty" the reader draws his or her breath in horror, when contemplating the moral character of Billy Budd against the character of the sailor's accusers and also those who judge him according to the naval code of law. Yet if the author of this paper sat alongside Chief Justice of the Court of Naval Review and, after all nine judges had gone over this case, the author of this essay as well would must conceded that Vere was right in hanging Billy Budd from the point-of-view of a sailor and a justice at sea.

From a purely disinterested, democratic human perspective, outside of the law of the sea, Billy Budd of course, should indeed be seen as a saintly young man in terms of Budd's own moral attitudes and conduct towards his fellow human beings. Yet,...
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