How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"And good-bye to you too, old Rights-of-Man!" (1.12)
FYI: The Rights-of-Man was a pamphlet by Thomas Paine that claimed that political revolution is permissible if a government is not respecting the natural rights of its citizens. What role does this political viewpoint play in the story? How might it be related to the mutinous climate of 1797? Does the philosophy seem to condone or condemn what happens to Billy aboard the Bellipotent?
Quote #2
As to his enforced enlistment, that he seemed to take pretty much as he was wont to take any vicissitude of weather. Like the animals, though no philosopher, he was, without knowing it, practically a fatalist. (1.16)
Here is one the narrator's many naturalistic descriptions of Billy Budd. What does it mean to be "practically a fatalist"? How is this different than holding the philosophical position of fatalism? Would you rather hold a fatalist position naively or philosophically?
Quote #3
Well, should we set aside the more than disputable point whether for various reasons it was possible to anchor the fleet, then plausibly enough the Benthamites of war may urge the above. But the might-have-been is but boggy ground to build on. (4.5)
Jeremy Bentham is the father of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is a practical moral philosophy, which states that the greatest good can be determined by that which promotes good for the greatest number. Does Captain Vere seem to use a utilitarian philosophy when he is deciding what to do with Billy? If you can't use the might-have-been, then what other ground is there to build on?
Quote #4
With nothing of that literary taste which less heeds the thing conveyed than the vehicle, his bias was toward those books to which every serious mind of superior order occupying any active post of authority in the world naturally inclines: books treating of actual men and events no matter of what era – history, biography, and unconventional writers like Montaigne, who, free from cant and convention, honestly and in the spirit of common sense philosophize upon realities. (7.2)
Consider the enormous bias inherent in the narrator's claim: "those books to which every serious mind of superior order occupying any active post of authority in the world naturally inclines." Could an American author use a phrase like this today? Why not? What has changed since Melville's time that makes a line like this no longer acceptable? How does our current view of such lines affect how we read Melville?
Quote #5
"That is thoughtfully put," said Captain Vere, "I see your drift. Ay, there is mystery; but, to use the scriptural phase, it is a 'mystery of iniquity,' a matter for psychologic theologians to discuss." (21.22)
Compare this quote to the latter part of the quote above. How can Captain Vere be interested in those who philosophize upon realities, and yet not use philosophy to deal with the real nature of Billy's case? How does he draw the line between law and philosophy? Is his decision about Billy's fate a philosophically informed one?
Quote #6
When some days afterwards, in reference to the singularity just mentioned, the purser, a rather ruddy, rotund person more accurate as an accountant than profound as a philosopher, said at mess to the surgeon, "What testimony to the force lodged in the will power." (26.1)
Here, we get a bit of the purser's folk philosophy surrounding the fact that Billy's body did not twitch after he was hung. The surgeon undercuts it by appealing to scientific opinion. Philosophy often seems to be undercut by the findings of science. Does science ever get undercut by the findings of philosophy?
Quote #7
[The Surgeon:] "It was phenomenal, Mr. Purser, in the sense that it was an appearance the cause of which is not immediately to be assigned." (26.7)
The surgeon here argues that one cannot discern the cause of Billy's body not twitching. Does the fact that the cause is not scientifically known mean that you cannot try to interpret the phenomenon? What other types of phenomena have no scientific cause in the novel? How is the reader expected to deal with them?
Quote #8
Upon sailors as superstitious as those of the age preceding ours, men-of-war's men too who had just beheld the prodigy of repose in the form suspended to air, and now foundering in the deeps; to such mariners the action of the seafowl, though dictated by mere animal greed for prey, was big with no prosaic significance. (27.5).
The narrator here describes what the sailors read into the fact that all the seafowl gathered around Billy's body. Again, we have a contrast between a natural phenomenon and how the men interpret it. If the men's interpretation is not grounded in fact, then why does the narrator refer to it as "prosaic significance"? Why doesn't he refer to it as "prosaic insignificance"?
Quote #9
[Captain Vere:] "With mankind," he would say, "forms, measured forms, are everything; and that is the import couched in the story of Orpheus with his lyre spellbinding the wild denizens of the wood." And this he once applied to the disruption of forms going on across the Channel and the consequences thereof. (27.6)
These are Captain Vere's thoughts surrounding the importance of military form. He applies them after Billy is executed. The men begin to murmur, and he has the boatswain call them back to duty. How are the character's behaviors restricted by form throughout the novel? Zoom out for a moment: How does the narrative form effect how we read and interpret the story of Billy Budd?
Quote #10
[Dr. Johnson:] "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." (29.4)
These words come from Dr. Johnson. They are quoted in a newspaper article that appeared shortly after the incident on the Bellipotent. The point is that Claggart's behavior refutes the idea expressed in the quote. When you know the hypocritical nature of the article, do Claggart's actions actually support the quote? Do they give it credence in general or just in this particular instance?