Billy Budd
Billy Budd
When analyzing someone's actions, it is often difficult to tell whether they are driven by duty, inclination or both. Is what drives a person to do something important, or is it the act itself that we should care about? In the film Billy Budd there are three main characters whose actions are questionable at some point or another. These actions can be explained with the help of three different philosophers.
From the very beginning the title character in the film Billy Budd exemplifies Rousseauian ideals. Billy is taken from a ship called The Rights of Man. This ship, whose name is cleverly reminiscent of the document "Declaration of the Rights of Man", is based on equality. The officials wear plain clothes so that they can not be distinguished from the men working. There is also no division of labor- every man does his part to keep The Rights of Man moving.
When Budd is moved from his ship to the naval Avenger he is thrown into a society that he has never encountered before. Now aboard a ship with a clear division of labor, Billy Budd is forced to adjust to his surroundings. While to some, Billy may come across as dumb, he is quite the opposite. With his wide eyes taking in what is all around him, Billy asks only the questions which will give him exactly the information that he is looking for. When he witnesses a flogging, Billy Budd's question was about why the man was being flogged. "It is against him being man," Billy says in response to the apparent unwarranted flogging of his fellow crew member. This shows Billy's view that the laws put in place by society do not always reflect what is inherent to man.
Billy Budd starts off the film as very close to nature. By the end of the film however, we can see how he was socialized by his time on the Avenger. Throughout the film Billy is barefoot, but when he is being hanged the camera shows that he is wearing shoes for the first time. Billy's shoes...
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