Study Guide

Billy Budd Characters

By Herman Melville

Depending on which edition of Billy Budd you're using, you may have a good-looking Fabio type guy...

The narrator doesn't know a lot about John Claggart – just like he doesn't know a lot about...

In the narrator's description of Captain Vere, perhaps the key point he makes is that Vere is...

The Dansker is a quiet old Danish man aboard the Bellipotent that acts as something of an oracle...

Graveling is the Captain aboard the Rights-of-Man, Billy's old ship. When Ratcliffe recruits...

Ratcliffe serves as the boarding officer for the Bellipotent. When examining the men from the...

The afterguard is a stranger that appears on deck to ask Billy if he will take part in a mutiny....

The chaplain appears late in the novel to give Billy his last rites before he is executed. He...

The surgeon is called in after Billy strikes Claggart. He can immediately see that Claggart is...

The Purser makes a brief appearance after Billy's execution as "a rather ruddy, rotund person...

Squeak is one of the master-at-arms' "more cunning corporals," known for his squeaky voice and...

On board Billy's old ship, the Rights-of-Man, Red Whiskers was the one man that initially didn't...