Billy Budd (Chapter 8-14 Response)

Question 6

Billy’s trait of kindness leads him into the forechains. When a fellow sailor awakens him from his sleep and tells him to rendezvous at the forechains, he complies. His kind and naive attitude will force himself to follow any instruction given, regardless of its suspiciousness. This is not a good set of traits for Billy, which is a weakness of his, as due to this, he will follow every order. This innocent trait may get him into trouble many times, as his fellow sailors could trick him into performing bad deeds, as well as placing him in awkward situations. One person whom may take advantage of this is Claggart, as the story indicates toward the envy that he has to Billy.

Question 7

The incident involving the soup that Billy spilt has many meanings. First, when Claggart arrives on scene, he comments “Handsomely done, my lad! And handsome is as handsome did it, too!” (p. 322) At this point, the sailors around laugh at this notion, and Billy dismisses the thought that Claggart would be “down on him” (p. 320) as Dansker described in the previous chapter. But immediately after the incident, we see another crew member bump into the master-at-arms, invoking the newly revealed wraith of Claggart: “Look where you go!” (p. 322). This change in attitude towards different characters indicates one of two things, either Claggart does has a disliking of the drummer-boy whom he had collided with, or he is hiding his true expression of feeling when taking to Billy. Of the two, the most likely is the latter. What Billy does not see after Claggart makes his comment on “handsomeness” his facial expression turns to one with a more bitter taste, which we may be able to assume that he is internally disliking Billy, yet does not wish to reveal it to him. It is later revealed that Claggart envies Billy for his handsomeness and his lack of experience to this feeling.


Envy, a characteristic of Claggart, the Master-at-Arms.