Dialectical Journal Billy Budd

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Billy Budd Dialectical Journal Important Symbols/Quotes “Billy in many respects was little more than an upright barbarian.” “Making a salutation as to the ship herself, “And good-bye to you to, old Rights-of-Man.” “There was just one thing amiss in him. No visible blemish indeed, but an occasional liability to a vocal defect.” “And for my life, ‘tis the king’s!” “Wholly there to avoid even the sight of an aggravating object on must needs give it Jonah’s toss or jump overboard himself.” “To pass from a normal nature to him one must cross “the deadly space between.” What they represent The author portraying Billy as a very innocent and morally correct sailor. It is symbolic in the fact that he really is saying good bye to his rights as he is taken from his old ship to a new one without him having a say in it. Though Billy has a great physical appearance he has one blemish. And that is his speech impediment. He has that blemish so that he as equal as everyone else and that he is not a perfect person. It shows that a life lost is a sacrifice for the greater good of the King’s, and the country in which they fight for. This shows that when the people come in contact with each other one must not aggravate another or the other shall be upset. It foreshadows the upcoming events. It shows the great difference between a normal being and of Claggart in which the difference is the deadly space between. “Now something such as one was Claggart, in whom was the mania of an evil nature, not engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or licentious living but born with him innate, in short ‘a depravity according to nature.” “Claggert magnetically felt, had in its simplicity never willed malice or experienced the reactionary bite of that serpent.” “Billy Budd was like a young horse fresh of the pasture suddenly inhaling a vile
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