How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Billy was now left more at a loss than before. The ineffectual speculations into which he was led were so disturbingly alien to him that he did his best to smother them. It never entered his mind that here was a matter which, from its extreme questionableness, it was his duty as a loyal bluejacket to report in the proper quarter. (15.5)
These lines come up in Billy's defense after he fails to mention his encounter with the afterguardsman. First, how does duty tend to react when it encounters something that is unclear? Does it leave or it does it attempt to bring it to light so as to make it conform to duty? Second, is there any excuse for ignorance and naiveté when it comes to doing one's duty?
Quote #2
The father in him, manifested towards Billy thus far in the scene, was replaced by the military disciplinarian. (19.8)
Here is a description of Vere's action toward Billy after he hits Claggart. Do Vere's fatherly feelings have to go against his sense of duty in this scene? Is there any way for him to reconcile his sympathy for Billy with his duty as a Captain? As the action progresses, do you think he succeeds in this goal or not?
Quote #3
To argue his order to him would be insolence. To resist him would be mutiny. (20.2)
Duty, by its very nature, is hierarchical. You have to be dutiful to something, and likely that something is in a more powerful position than you are. Isn't there something wrong with the concept of duty, though, when a man can't express his own thoughts and common sense for fear of what a higher-up will tell him? Does the surgeon have a duty to express his feelings that the captain is mad? If so, can you think of a way that he could carry out this duty?
Quote #4
But a true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more of self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to marital duty. (21.7)
Which vows are more difficult to keep, those of the military commander or those of the monk? Get ready for an intentionally badly worded question: What if the duty to question one's duty were part of one's duty? Is this true in the case of the monk? In the case of the mariner?
Quote #5
But though a conscientious disciplinarian, he was no lover of authority for authority's sake. (21.8)
This seems an accurate characterization of Captain Vere based on his actions. Or does it? Let's be harsh on the Captain for a moment. If he isn't a lover of authority for authority's sake, why does he still condemn Billy Budd?
Quote #6
But an innate repugnance to playing a part at all approaching that of an informer against one's own shipmates – the same erring sense of uninstructed honor which had stood in the way of his reporting the matter at the tie, though as a loyal man-of-war's man it was incumbent on him, and failure to do so, if charged against him and proven, would have subjected him to the heaviest of penalties; this, with the blind feeling now that nothing really was being hatched, prevailed in him. When the answer came it was a negative. (21.17)
Here, our narrator speculates as to why Billy fails to turn in the afterguard. Does it not seem that he is still serving some kind of duty? Could one characterize loyalty between sailors as some kind of duty? Wouldn't it seem odd to preach absolute loyalty to the men and then expect them to turn each other in at the drop of a hat?
Quote #7
[Captain Vere:] "For the compassion, how can I otherwise but share it? But, mindful of paramount obligations, I strive against scruples that may tend to enervate decision." (21.27)
Before the drumhead court, Captain Vere tells the men to put their moral obligations aside. Question: Don't moral scruples always seem to declare themselves when there are "paramount obligations"? What makes these obligations paramount to Captain Vere?
Quote #8
[Captain Vere:] "We fight at command. If our judgment approve the war, that is but coincidence. So in other particulars. So now." (21.28)
When a man as enlightened as Captain Vere is doing nothing but fighting at command, you begin to think about whose judgment actually is supporting the war. Also, let's say that his moral sense does support the war in which he is fighting. Does that make his participation in the war moral or is it still "but coincidence"? How could you untangle his sense of moral duty from his sense of military duty?
Quote #9
The face he beheld, for the moment one expressive of the agony of the strong, was to that officer, though a man of fifty, a startling revelation. That the condemned one suffered less than he who mainly had effected the condemnation was apparently indicated by the former's exclamation in the scene soon perforce to be touched upon. (22.4)
What role does agency play in feelings of guilt? Is Billy more peaceful because the situation is out of his control anyway? Is Vere in pain because he feels responsible? If he was just doing his duty, did he really have agency? If he was just doing his duty, why should he feel responsible?
Quote #10
[Captain Vere:] "Marvel not that having been made acquainted with the young sailor's essential innocence the worthy man lifted not a finger to avert the doom of such a martyr to martial discipline. So to do would not only have been an audacious transgression of the bounds of his function, one as exactly prescribed to him by military law as that of the boatswain or any other naval officer." (24.9)
Let's say that Captain Vere had stepped out "of the bounds of his function" and helped Billy. Would this have been presumptuous? Would it have suggested that he considered himself better than "the boatswain or any other naval officer?" In what ways does Captain Vere have to practice what he preaches? What might happen if he didn't?