Billy Budd Allusions

Over the course of the cliffhanging story Billy Budd by Herman Melville, the author repeatedly uses biblical allusions to deepen the story and expand the reader's understanding of specific characters in the book. The author does this when he compares the character Billy Budd to Adam (before the fall) and even Jesus Christ to develop Billy as the quintessence of purity, perfection, and benevolence. In chapter two, when the narrator is initially describing Billy, the author compares Billy to Adam in the bible. The text states “Billy in many respects was little more than a sort of upright barbarian, much such perhaps as Adam presumably might have been ere the urbane Serpent wriggled himself into his company.” This quote tells the reader how pure and holy the narrator thinks Billy is and goes as

In the text it states “To them a chip of it was as a piece of the Cross. Ignorant tho’ they were of the secret facts of the tragedy, and not thinking but that the penalty was somehow unavoidably inflicted from the naval point of view, for all that they instinctively felt that Billy was a sort of man as incapable of mutiny as of willful murder.” This quote from the book shows how the sailors felt about Billy Budd after his death; they thought he was wrongly punished for a crime he didn’t commit. They saw him as a christ-like sacrifice for the good of the rest of the crew. The narrator compares Billy’s gallows to the cross Jesus was crucified on to exaggerate how much the sailors valued Billy and his sacrifice for them. If Billy hadn’t sacrificed himself, I think some of the other crew members would have been hung as well for conspiring to mutiny. Even though Billy was in the end hung for murder, the slightly ignorant crew viewed the hanging as a false punishment for leading a