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... t survived both a military and civil tribunal with his honor intact. However public testimony cast doubt on his sanity. Melville read of these proceedings in the Albany newspapers and received eyewitness accounts of the alleged mutiny from his cousin Get Gansevoort, a lieutenant aboard the Somers who guarded prisoners and assisted at their execution. Gansevoort publicly condemned the captains actions, but privately sided with the victims.
Critics surmise that Melville, who had a brush with a shipboard uprising in Papeete, identified with the situation, which he used as the basis for Billy Budd. For a nation that had undergone the agonizing paranoia of a civil war, the short novel speaks volumes. Billy, like many people caught up in conflicting loyalties, represents two possible modes of morality. As a member of the British navy, he owes allegiance to the flag and the law-bound nation it represents.
From my personal point of view, he is a civilized person who owes devotion to order and decency. When the public stance comes into conflict with private, Billy must violate one to satisfy the other. By actually killing the tormentor, Billy calls into play Captain Vere, who has come to love Billy like a son. Vere, also a victim in this scenario, is forced to exercise his military authority in spite of the fact that execution will not right Billy's wrong. The irony of this impasse is that impersonal laws, when applied to Billy's crime, call for death. And so a public citizen and military man is hanged, thereby destroying the private soul who conquered evil with one involuntary blow of his fist.
Billy Budd is a typical Melville story-a sea story, the authors favorite genre. It treats rebellion, contains rich historical background, abounds in Christian and mythological allusions, concentrates action on actual incident, and concerns ordinary sailors. Melville uses many devices to extenuate this story. Such devices include irony, symbol, foreshadowing, suspense, extended metaphor, rhetorical question, dictation, simile, biblical allusions, mythical figures, and stories. The novel is inevitably interpreted as allegory. Melville's prose contains the rhythm of poetry.
The sentences are long and the chapters short. Thus producing an impression of completeness. The story develops simply, unhurried; yet the action rises to frequent dramatic cataclysms. By making the story short, he shows himself as a writer at his deepest and most poetic. Most of the writing is expository. The event takes place sequentially, but from a retrospective point of view.
Digressions are used at strategic moments to often give the ultimate background to illuminate a particular event. Overall, the novel depends on sustained irony in that it dwells on the discrepancy between the anticipated and the real. The irony involves paradox, a statement that is self-contradictory or false. For example, Billy, hanged as a felon, is immortalized as a saint, blessed at the moment of his death by the sailors ironic repetition of his words, God bless Captain Vere!
One suggested theme of Billy Budd is the corruption of innocence by society. Melville seems to prefer the primitive state over civilized society. If this posthumous work is indeed the authors last will and testament, then the theme may indicate his personal resignation and acceptance of the imperfection of life. It also reflects his dissociation from religion, which had always been full of contradictions and uncertainties for him. Finally, in this terminal work he seems to adjust to the incongruities of life as a necessary tragic factor. Through acceptance and endurance, his characters-and the author as well - discover a peace and understanding gained through suffering and reflection.
Critics sum up Melville's final words with an explanation of innocence and perfection in this novel. They see two concepts as unequal. Billy, though innocent, is not perfect. Rather, he embraces death as a means of atoning for evil and goes willingly to his death, blessing Captain Vere as Christ blessed his enemies. If this analysis is true, Billy may represent Melville's late-in-life subordination of will to Gods infinite judgement. Another view of Billy is the consummate peacemaker who brings about brotherhood of man through martyrdom.
Although evil is the ultimate victor and takes its place alongside good, natural goodness remains unconquered in the human heart. In the real world, evil exists unmitigated, unexplained, unmotivated, and impossible to grasp. Billy, hopelessly unsuited to exist in such a world, is its obvious victim. Melville's comparison of the two irreconcilable facets of Claggarts nature to Chang and Eng, the famous Siamese twins who were joined together in life and death, suggest still another theme in this mysterious and complex tale. The two, like Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, represents two sides of human nature. On one hand, Claggarts strength resides in his job as shipboard peacekeeper: then, when evil takes control, his evil bent rears up like a coiled snake to strike out at goodness. Like Aristotle's golden men, the conjunction of these two extremes is the only viable solution. Such a blend is found in the nature of Claggarts foil, Captain Vere.
Perfectly proportioned, he opposes innovation and change, but remains at peace with the world. He is truly a balanced man. Some critics view the story as a commentary on the impersonality and essential brutality of the modern state, exacting the death penalty of the innocent. Billy succumbs to a hostile environment because he lacks the sophistication and experience to roll with the punches.
Unlike the shifting keel of the ship, Billy is unable to lean either way and so must break apart and sink to the bottom. In such a state, the peace loving Rights-of-Man cannot operate without protection of the Bellipotent, a symbol of warfare and usurper of those rights. In turn, the Bellipotent can protect the merchant ship only by impressing men from the ship protects. This arbitrary snatching of men to staff the warship equates with the arbitrary justice of wartime, which snatches Billy from a safe berth and makes an example of him. Melville obviously concerns himself with the historical development of humankind and particularly with isolated episodes in which history devours a single expendable individual.
Furthermore, Melville sees Christianity as the center of an order, which seem to be slipping away. Because these dismal thoughts invaded the peace of his declining years, Melville deserves greatness for tackling so great an inquiry. Melville appears to have added the last three chapters to square the story with reality. They also serve as a completion of the myth.
It is the memory of Billy rather than Claggarts or Vere that survives. The poem reads as though it takes place in Billy's mind both before and after his death. His death softens into a peaceful sleep amid the twining seaweed that comprises his final resting-place. Bibliography:
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