Parallels between Billy Budd and the Life of Melville As with many great works of literature, it is important to become familiar with the author's life and the period in which he lived. This understanding helps clarify the meaning and meaning of his work. In many ways, Billy Budd depicts issues important to Herman Melville with both direct and indirect parallels to the Civil War period and particular individuals in Melville's life. Important to the creation of Billy Budd were war, current politics, slavery, and even the assassination of President Lincoln. This essay seeks to identify the analogous relationship between these events and the particular individuals in Melville's life who inspired him to write Billy Budd. Melville seems to have lived a life inevitably centered on war and politics. His grandparents were fighters in the Revolutionary War, and Melville was 42 when the Civil War broke out. Melville also spent much of his life as a sailor. Although he never participated in the war in any official capacity, we see evidence of how the Civil War had a clear meaning in his life by examining Billy Budd and most of his other works. Politics was a major factor in Herman Melville's life. Although he was known to never vote, he tenaciously held to his socio-political views. During that time, it was common for politics to be a big topic of family discussion as common political beliefs strengthened the American family. At that time there was great dissension between Democrats and Republicans. Furthermore, families lived and behaved according to the ideals of a particular faction. The Melville family generally shared the... center of the card... always. Melville was slowly saying "goodbye" to his days as a sailor. His hopes that the world would see progress in the destructive way he perceived were shattered. As The Civil War World mentioned the parallel, "like Billy Budd's death in Herman's last romance, it derives its meaning from the mystery of life, from the existential beauty of youth in its careless and vigorous dream march towards his starry end,” Melville died with his goal unachieved, despite his attempts to communicate with Americans through creative literature. Herman Melville's Billy Budd gives us insightful thoughts on the struggle between good and evil, Christ versus Satan, subordination and insubordination, progress and stagnation and manages to correlate them all in one novel. Works Cited: Melville, Herman. Billy Budd and Other Stories. New York: Seal - NAL, 1961.