Essay on the Dilemma of Billy Budd -- Billy Budd Essays

The Dilemma of Billy Budd Herman Mellvilles Billy Budd is and extremely divisive novel when virtuoso considers the dissension it has generated. The criticism has essentially focused most the argument of acceptance vs. resistance. On the one hand we potentiometer read the story as accepting the hanging of Billy Budd as the necessary ends of justice. We can read Veres condemnation as a necessary military action per shited in the name of preserving order aboard the Indomitable. On the other hand, we can turn over that Billys execution as the greatest example of injustice. The question has been asked if Veres conduct is right or wrong. In either case, since Billy Budd is an ethical text, it is very odd that thither is an absence of the emotion guilt. Billy Budd is a story about two murders. Billy kills Claggart and Vere (although indirectly, the decision is ultimately his) kills Budd. Neither of the murderers demonstrate guilt in the form of remorse. For a narrative that tries to put the reader in a moral and ethical position, it is ironic that the characters themselves dont exhibit what would seem most ethical. ... ... To read the story as either accepting or resisting an ethical dilemma is perhaps debatable. The point of the story may be to state mans need to punish and retaliate with soil through means that may be befogged. The reader may be upset with the death of Billy Budd not for the seemingly unjust killing of a sympathetic character, but for its illustration of a society coming apart at the seams one which doesnt necessarily make sense considering human nature, but one that is so closely linked to social systems, it is doubtful that it could ever be changed.