Billy Budd, Sailor 6

Study Guide Questions for Ch. 21-23

If you are looking for the beginning of the study for Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Honesty, Justice vs. Despotism, Prudence

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What did Melville say about “innocence and guilt?”

2. Which three men did Captain Vere choose for his drumhead court?

3. What did Billy say as to why he struck Claggart?

4. How did Billy respond when asked why the Master-at-arms (Claggart) would have “maliciously lied” about him?

5. In Vere’s speech to the drumhead court, what did he tell the men had happened “in receiving [their] commissions?”

6. According to the text, why did Captain Vere argue it would not be prudent to “mitigate the penalty” for Billy’s offense? 

7. What is it easy for a noncombatant to do “forty years after a battle?”

8. What was Billy’s exact sentence by the drumhead court?

9. What did the Senior Lieutenant observe upon Captain Vere’s face as he left from talking with Billy?

10. How much time had elapsed between Claggart’s confrontation with Billy and Captain Vere’s private discussion with Billy?

11. Who alone was allowed to speak with Billy after his sentence had been announced to the crew of the Bellipotent? 

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. What was Melville’s point with his analogy about a rainbow and sanity?

2. Melville states “the unhappy event which has been narrated could not have happened at a worse juncture.” Why was this the case?

3. Melville says of Captain Vere, “though a conscientious disciplinarian, he was no lover of authority for mere authority’s sake.” What did Melville mean to communicate about Vere by saying this?

4. Captain Vere chose an “officer of marines” as one of the members of his jury for the drumhead court. Though he had some positive qualities the text states Vere had some “misgivings” about this choice stating, “he was an extremely good-natured man, an enjoyer of his dinner, a sound sleeper, and inclined to obesity.” Why might these qualities give Vere some hesitation about him being on the jury?

5. In the midst of the trial, in response to a question raised about Claggart's motives, Captain Vere said, “Quite aside from any conceivable motive actuating the Master-at-arms, and irrespective of the provocation to the blow, a martial court must needs in the present case confine its attention to the blow's consequence, which consequence justly is to be deemed not otherwise than as the striker's deed." What is Vere’s point?

6. Just prior to Captain Vere’s speech to the drumhead court (after Billy had been dismissed) the text tells us, “Turning, he to-and-fro paced the cabin athwart; in the returning ascent to windward, climbing the slant deck in the ship's lee roll; without knowing it symbolizing thus in his action a mind resolute to surmount difficulties even if against primitive instincts strong as the wind and the sea.” What primitive instincts is Melville referring to?

7. Melville wrote of Vere, concerning his speech to the drumhead court, “something both in the substance of what he said and his manner of saying it, showed the influence of unshared studies modifying and tempering the practical training of an active career.” What did Melville mean here?

8. What did Vere mean when he said, “the Mutiny Act, War’s child, takes after the father?”

9. What was Melville’s point when he wrote, "Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it?”

10. Why is it significant that Captain Vere delivered the news to Billy himself instead of having someone else do it?

11. Melville wrote, “If possible, not to let the men so much as surmise that their officers anticipate aught amiss from them is the tacit rule in a military ship.” Why would this be the case?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. Given that the drumhead court unanimously believed Billy to be a good and honest man and Claggart to have acted with malice, do you think they made the right decision concerning Billy’s sentence? What reasons might you state in favor of their decision? What might be said against their decision? What do you believe they should have done and why?

2. In Captain Vere’s speech he spoke of the “clash of military duty with moral scruple.” Do you believe one’s duty can conflict with what is morally good? Stated differently, can anyone have a duty to do what is immoral? Suggest a situation in which duty and moral responsibility may come into conflict and then explain what you think a person ought to do in such a situation.

3. Vere states in his speech that “in receiving our commissions we in the most important regards ceased to be natural free-agents. When war is declared are we the commissioned fighters previously consulted? We fight at command. If our judgements approve the war, that is but coincidence.” How should we think about the concept of military service as Christians given what Vere has said here? Should Christians submit themselves to any situation in which they would cease to be morally free-agents? Explain your answer thoroughly. 

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read 2 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Peter 3:18. How might these passages of Scripture relate to Melville’s statement, “innocence and guilt personified in Claggart and Budd in effect changed places?”

2. Read Romans 13:1-7 and 2 Timothy 2:1-7. How might this passage influence your thinking about Christians, military service, and consigning one's own will to someone else’s charge?