Billy Budd And The Enlightenment Era

The enlightenment era, from the 1650s to the 1800s, lead to many new ideas of how life should be lived. One of these ideas stemmed from Thomas Paine's book called The Rights of Man. Herman Melville shows through his novel, Billy Budd, his view on the enlightenment period through the names of the three ships he includes in his novel and what they represented in the story. Let us observe how the Rights of Man, the Bellipotent, and the Atheiste got their names and how they relate to Melville's view on the enlightenment era with respect to the fight for individual rights.
The Rights of Man is the first ship that Billy Budd is on and Melville uses this ship to show the ideal of what was desired when referring to individual rights. The Rights of

This shows that this is an ideal place for innocent people like Billy Budd. There is no thought of causing harm to one another except the one incident Billy had with Red Whiskers, however even that conflict was resolved. There wasn't any clear hierarchy on the ship except for the captain and everyone seemed to have equal liberties on this ship. This almost describes some sort of Utopian society so possibly Melville is try to convey that this is the popular desire during this time during the enlightenment period.
On the next ship Billy Budd with drafted to be a part of, the Bellipotent, describes the reality the world was in at the time. Melville says that the Bellipotent "was not unusual in those hurried days, having been obliged to put to sea short of her proper complement of men" (Melville 5). This shows that the bellipotent didn't care about the sailors on the ship but only the task that the ship had to complete for the war effort. The Bellipotent was described as a huge warship with a clear individual who's word was law. This was the polar opposite of what the Rights of Man represented. Since it was the time of war which is also far from the ideal, this ship needed a strict social structure to

In the story the Atheiste destroys Bellipotent and also kills Captain Vere which represents the Atheist getting rid of the corrupt rulers who use religion as a way to control people, just as Captain Vere uses the war effort to maintain his power over his crew. This last ship is the result of peoples' anger towards religion and corrupt rulers. This relates to the beheading of the kings during the French Revolution. Melville is trying to show how atheism gained power over religion because of the corruption that was caused by people who claimed to have divine right, or self-proclaimed power received from a deity. This wasn’t described as a victory even though the Bellipotent isn't exactly a ship that holds good morals. Melville is trying to show that this response to the corruption of rulers isn't the right response because it was the people who were corrupt, not religion. However this is how atheism gained power during the enlightenment