Billy Budds Innocence Essay, Research Paper

Billy Budd~ There is a lot to be said about innocence. If one is with innocence, than one can so no wrong but that isn?t all. Innocence is not always a good thing. It can make a person na?ve or blind to certain or all evils, which would seem as if they were blind from the world. This is the prime example of our friend Billy Budd. He was innocent and unaware and heedless of the evil that was Claggart approaching him ready to destroy him, like the devil waiting to feed off a dead carcass and take the soul to eternal damnation. It is known that Billy?s naivet? was his own downfall, by shielding his precious eyes. Yes, Billy was innocent of evil, but that very ingenuousness? what one might call a precious blessing only given to a child? was a key and lock to Billy?s crucifixion. Too much innocence isn’t always a good thing, and Billy?s example is one of “too much of a good thing,” because if were NOT as innocent, let?s pretend, he would have been even the least bit apprehensive to the evil that Claggart kept throwing right at Billy?s face. He would have kept his distance and not let him even get within his comfort zone with a 5o foot stick!

Being that Melville chose BB to be the symbol of Christ (good) and Claggart the symbol of the Devil (bad), it’s is easy then to pick out our tragic hero? and of course what makes our tragic hero? But of course, his tragic flaw, and with Billy, his flaw is his innocence. It seems as if Billy just doesn?t get it and you want to reach in the book and strangle him for it! Q He can?t retain information learned or even heard, and he seems as if he were a child trapped in an older body. He can?t express himself as a child often cannot and does so the only way it knows how. A cry. In this, it’s a stutter. A physical manifestation of the innocence, and his brain has it?s way of protecting itself with it.