"The Soup Incident"

In the story, “Billy Bud, Sailor” by Herman Melville, the main character, Billy Budd is a well respected and handsome sailor is now on the British H.M.S Bellipotent ship. He is a positive and youthful character who is well liked by many expect for John Claggart. There is no specific reason why he doesn’t like Billy Budd. The reader could get an idea that Claggart doesn’t like Billy because of his looks or popularity since those traits are mentioned often.

In the text, it describes the first encounter that Billy has with Claggart. Billy happens to spill the soup by accident when Claggart happens to walk by and steps over the soup. He first doesn’t realize who spilled it until he took another look and saw it was Billy Budd. At that moment, he makes a humorous remark saying “Handsomely done, my lad! And handsome is as handsome did it, too!” (Melville, Herman, 2487). Along this remark, he makes an “involuntary smile or rather grimace” (Melville, Herman, 2487). Claggart’s words are making fun of Billy. He’s basically saying even though Billy is handsome, he’s not all that perfect like everyone is making him seem. The crew members start to laugh at Billy. He thinks it’s funny and starts to laugh also. My English professor pointed out that Billy doesn’t realize he is being laughed at. This shows that he might be a clueless guy.

This incident is significant to the text because it shows that even though Billy Budd is portrayed as perfect, he still has at least one person John Claggart that doesn’t like him. Billy is warned that Claggart doesn’t like him but doesn’t take it serious. Billy doesn’t see the negatively in people and has a positive view on everything. That is important because it gives us an idea of what the reader can expect later in the story. It shows us that Billy Budd is a friendly and positive person but later in the story that all changes when other incidents occur. This is an effective method that the author chose to do by foreshadowing. So overall, it’s important to the overall text because it helps the reader understand events that might happen and why they happened.


Work Cited
Melville, Herman. "Billy Budd, Sailor." The Norton Anthology American Literature. 7th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. 2468-523. Print.