Themes of Good and Evil in Billy Budd Many themes relating to the conflict between good and evil can be found in the short story Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Perhaps one of the most widely recognized themes in Billy Budd is society's corruption of innocence (Gilmore 18). Society in Billy Budd is represented by an eighteenth-century English warship, the HMS Bellipotent. Billy, who represents innocence, is a young twenty-one year old sailor with physical strength, beauty, and good nature (Voss 44). A member of the crew aboard the merchant ship Rights of Man, Billy is impressed by the English navy and is taken aboard HMS Bellipotent. As he boards HMS Bellipotent, he calmly says "Goodbye, Rights of Man", a farewell to his ship and his crewmates. However, this farewell is not only meant for his ship, but also for his royal rights, the rights that would have kept him innocent until proven guilty in a normal society (Gilmore 18). The society represented by HMS Bellipotent is very different from that of the outside world, as the various laws and regulations in place during the war transform a civilized society into a more primitive state. The rights fought for during the war were no longer held by the men aboard the Bellipotent in an effort to maintain order as best they could (Gilmore 18). Billy was impressed by the English navy's need for good sailors. The Rights of Man cannot survive in the war-torn waters of the ocean without the protection of the Bellipotent, and the Bellipotent cannot protect the Rights of Man unless he impresses the sailors (Tucker 248). On HMS Bellipotent, Billy faces destruction by a force that doesn't know... half the page... of the Encyclopedia. 1994 ed.Bloom, Harold. The Chelsea House Literary Criticism Library. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989. Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Views by Herman Melville. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Foster, Edward, ed. Six nineteenth-century American novelists. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1968. Gilmore, Michael T., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Billy Budd. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1971.Tucker, Martin, ed. Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism by English and American Authors. 4 vols. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1966.Van Doren, Carl. The American novel. New York: The Macmillian Company, 1968. Voss, Authur. The American tale. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973.