Billy Budd by Herman Melville Term Paper over the Short Story Billy Budd, his life, why he wrote the book, and religious symbolism.

BILLY BUDD, SAILOR
BY HERMAN MELVILLE
In December 1885, Herman Melville finally retired from his job at the New York Custom House. Unable to support himself through his writing, he had been working there for 19 years as a customs inspector. He was 66 years old, and he had not written fiction in almost 30 years, though he had been writing and publishing poetry steadily. At some point during the following two years, he began to work on a poem that would eventually be called "Billy in the Darbies," about a mutinous sailor, shackled aboard ship, awaiting his execution. The poem was intend…