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New essay on Billy Budd
Discuss major themes in the novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville
Billy Budd as an allegory
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Billy Budd by Herman Melville
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 partook of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge 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 book, Melville is telling us that we need to strike
some kind of balance between these two ideas; we need to have morality and
virtue; we need to be in the world, but not of the world.
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 book and the single person whom we are meant to learn the most from. On
the ship, the Rights-of-Man, Billy is a cynosure among his shipmates; a leader,
not by authority, but by example. All the members of the crew look up to him
and love him. He is "strength and beauty. Tales of his prowess [are] recited.
Ashore he [is] the champion, afloat the spokesman; on every suitable occasion
always foremost"(9).
Despite his popularity among the crew and his hardworking attitude,
Billy is transferred to another British ship, the Indomitable. And while he is
accepted for his looks and happy personality, "
hardly here [is] he that
cynosure he had previously been among those minor ship's companies of the
merchant marine"(14). It is here, on the Indomitable that Billy says good-bye
to his rights. It is here, also, that Billy meets John Claggart, the master-at-
arms. A man "in whom was the mania of an evil nature, not engendered by vicious
training or corrupting books or licentious living but born with him and innate,
in short a depravity according to nature'"(38).
Here then, is presented a man with a personality and character to
contrast and conflict with Billy's. Sweet, innocent Billy immediately realizes
that this man is someone he does not wish to cross and so after seeing Claggart
whip another crew-member for neglecting his responsibilities, Billy "resolved
that never through remissness would he make himself liable to such a visitation
or do or omit aught that might merit even verbal reproof"(31).
that is exactly what the reader is faced with themes about human nature, life and God “The
Takers had eaten off the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which was forbidden from them because no human should have more power than the gods. The Takers believed they needed knowledge of the gods because they felt they were above them. When in reality, the Leavers knew such knowledge couldn’t belong to any life on Earth other than the gods. Ishmael declared “It’s something like this; man was innocent until he discovered the difference between good and evil. When he was no longer innocent of that knowledge he became a fallen creature” (183), which describes the Leavers view of Takers’ culture.
death, and Captain Vere feels sorry for Billy and does not want Billy to suffer
He wanted to swim through her blood and climb up and down her spine and drink from her ovaries and press his gums against the firm red muscle of her heart. He wanted to suture their lives together.? This quote can portray Johns disturbed mind set, we see that he is consumed with rage ...
Can a man kill another man; yet, be a passive hero? In Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Seaths short story, “Billy Budd, Sailor (An inside Narrative)”, Billy Budd is characterized as a passive hero. Unexpectedly, Billy Budd is singled out and forced into the King’s service. Even so, Billy Budd has a positive influence with nearly all of his ship mates and officers. However, Billy’s affect with the new master-at-arms proves Billy does not have a positive effect on everyone. Ultimately, Billy Budd’s lack of adult experience becomes his downfall; because Billy is unable to comprehend somebody would aim to impair his persona.
In Genesis 3, the Fall of human beings is described. The serpent asked Eve if there were any trees that Adam and Eve could not eat from in the garden. Eve told the serpent that God said that they could not eat the fruit from the tree or touch the tree in the middle of the garden. The serpent told Eve that they would not die, but they would be open to the knowledge of good and evil like God. When Eve and Adam ate from the tree in the middle of the garden, they were opened to the knowledge of good and evil (The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha...
“And the Lord said, ‘But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (KJV Gen. 2:17).’” In History there has always been a debate on whether or not knowledge is helpful or harmful, such is the debate in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, a story in which society has banned books and shunned learning so all citizens will be oblivious to the nuclear war the government is raging in their own land. This is also the message in one of the most famous biblical stories in history, the story of Adam, Eve, and the Tree of Good and Evil which opened the eyes of Adam and Eve to see their own sins. The poem “Tree of Knowledge” by Bee Lovett quickly summarizes the story from Adam’s point of view. Both
The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which is one of the best books, is filled with incredible connections and fantastic foreshadowing. Once you pick up this book, you will need the key of being able to dissect the book in order to unlock its full potential. Through the three-and-a-half year-long journey that is To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee takes Jeremy Atticus Finch and Jean Louise Finch through a never-ending pile of events. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is about Jem and Scout Finch and their childhood in Maycomb, Alabama. Their lives consist of a never-ending-chain-of-events, many interesting and unique people, and life’s lessons that give Jem, Scout, and Atticus a fresh view of the world. Not many people have actually seen and experienced Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley, and this leads to incorrect thoughts about each character. Tom and Boo have a lot of good in them. They are both like Mockingbirds because they are both innocent humans harmed by the evil of mankind. In Harper Lee’s novel, both Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are innocent characters, but Boo’s kindness is hidden by rumors and Tom’s generosity is hidden by stereotypes.
themes of the play and helps us gain insight on other characters. I find the following quote to be
Harper Lee grew up in Alabama in a time when racism was rampant and the people were merely sustaining an adequate life due to the Great Depression. The story is set in the rural town of Maycomb, which is a place where, “there was no hurry, for there was no place to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with...” Maycomb is a slow paced, hot, poverty-stricken Alabaman town with outdated infrastructures where people had old-fashioned values and traditional views. These factors then spread an outbreak of fear, which dramatically steers the course of the novel.
Asal, Victor, Paul G. Harwood, and Udi Sommer. "Original Sin: A Cross National Study of the Legality of
Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952, the last of his fiction stories to be published before his death in 1961 (Lombardi). The novella is still celebrated to this day as a riveting tale of man versus nature under the most dire of circumstances. The story’s protagonist, Santiago, is a man with supreme determination and hope. His battle with the great marlin is an illustration of human strength, physically and mentally, at its finest. These qualities about him, along with the decisions he makes throughout the novel, give him similarities to Christ, while other elements of Hemingway’s prose can arguably serve as Christian symbolism as well.
First articulated by Augustine (A.D. 354–430), the doctrine of original sin holds that all of Adam’s descendants inherit the guilt of Adam’s sin and thus incur the punishment for Adam’s sin. Inheriting Adam’s guilt at birth, then, presumes one guilty before God at birth and destined for hell. This is the basis for the Catholic need for infant baptism, for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (that Mary herself was uniquely conceived free of Adam’s guilt), and for the belief that salvation is only available through connection with the Church via baptism. Moreover, the belief that God holds Adam’s descendants personally accountable for Adam’s sin calls into question the importance of our own free will as it relates to our moral accountability to God. That is, if God holds us accountable for the sin Adam committed, then the exercise of our own free will must, in God’s sight, be of little or no consequence. This leads to the Augustinian belief in predestination — that who is saved and who is lost is determined entirely by God’s sovereign election, and...
The Old Man and the Sea was written by Ernest Hemingway and published in 1952. This is a captivating fiction story about a man named Santiago and his adventure when one day, he goes on a fishing journey to catch the big one. However, this adventure quickly becomes one of pain and suffering when things take a turn for the worse.
The doctrine of original sin can be defined as the belief that “all of humanity is born with a built-in urge to do bad things… stemming from Adam and Eve's disobedience to God” (BBC). The traditional story as imprinted in the Christian Bible claims that original sin emerged in retaliation to Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit despite God’s clear commands, “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (New International Version, Genesis 2:4-3:24) This friendship, or covenant, with God was then broken, marking a separation. From a theological standpoint, we are the children of our parents – Adam and Eve – who inherit this submission to sin. Nonetheless, regardless of theological background, original sin is merely a sense of weakness humanity has imbedded to yield to sinful or evil acts. Moreover, this embedded drive in humans to commit evil doings is additionally used to rationalize “the need for police, the collapse of great civilizations, suicide, war, suffering and so on” (CNA).