Many writers, both of fiction and of philosophy, have struggled with the relationship between human society and the fundamentals of human nature. Despite the righteous intentions underlying the laws of a community, they are occasionally in opposition with an individual’s beliefs of justice. Melville examines such a conflict between man and society in Billy Budd, Sailor, which situates that very dichotomy as the central theme of the novel. The title character is a wholly virtuous man whose execution for treason provides the reader with the most immediate sense of the tragic in the novel. Such a simplistic reading would limit the text, however. It is through Billy’s relationship with the other members of the crew, and notably with Captain Vere, that a better insight into Melville’s theme can be ascertained. There is no doubt that Billy is in fact guilty of killing Claggart; what is at question is whether Vere was morally right in following the law which executed him. The entire notion of human justice is questioned as Melville implicitly condemns the society which created it. The author frequently suggests that Billy Budd is himself a character too pure and innocent to exist in the society of the novel. Simultaneously however, Vere is forced to uphold the authority of the law despite his acknowledgment of Billy’s ultimate innocence. It is questionable, however, whether his narrative provides any solutions to the problems that it considers. Billy Budd, Sailor does not provide any conclusion for the moral difficulties it presents, but instead is a representation of the struggle faced by all intelligent people to determine their own morality.
From the outset of Billy Budd, Sailor, Melville presents the protagonist as the zenith of human morality. Indeed, the text seems an extended paean to the glorious constitution of his Handsome Sailor. An introduction to his character is given by the captain of the Rights-of-Man who calls Billy “my best man ... the jewel of ‘em”(p. 295) and “my peacemaker” (p. 296). Billy soon demonstrates that he is worthy of such praise by quickly ingratiating himself with the crew and despite his inexperience as a sailor he readily becomes acclimatised with the machinations of the Bellipotent. His physical beauty is likened alternately with Hercules and Apollo, and the narrator emphasizes that Billy’s “person and demeanor” had a “particularly favourable effect ... upon the more intelligent gentlemen of the quarterdeck” (p. 299). Yet it becomes apparent that Billy’s very nature separates him from the rest of the crew, and indeed from society as a whole. While he had gained the admiration of the crew, Billy is nevertheless mocked by them for his punctuality and meticulousness. More importantly however, his virtuous nature lends comparisons with the higher, divine sphere. Billy’s very job as foretopman gives him an ‘angelic’ view over his crewmates. After his death the crew, by taking pieces of the spar from which he was hung, treats him almost as a guardian angel or even as a Christ figure. Billy’s correspondence with Christ is overshadowed, however, by the narrator’s frequent equation of the protagonist with Adam before the fall. He is regarded by the narrator as an “upright barbarian” who lacks the faults imparted by civilization which as a whole has “a questionable smack as of a compounded wine” (pp. 301-2).
It is this comparison which suggests the protagonist’s ultimate innocence. Billy has no sense of the evil in the world. That he serves aboard a ship of war remains one of the central ironies of the text. It is the Dankster who first notices this aspect of Billy’s nature, seeing “something which in contrast with the warship’s environment looked oddly incongruous”
(p. 319). “[He] had none of that intuitive knowledge of the bad which in natures not good or incompletely so foreruns experience” (p. 336), and thus did not recognize the threat posed by Claggart. During the investigation into his accusation, Billy remains ignorant of Claggart’s purpose, believing that he was perhaps receiving a promotion and therefore unaware of the “forewarning intimations of subtler danger” (p. 348). Indeed, Claggart is the “urbane Serpent” (p. 301) who, in attempting to introduce the knowledge of evil to Billy, precipitates the protagonist’s downfall. Yet, unlike Adam, Billy’s Fall is not a fall from the Divine Grace of Eden, but instead from the false Eden of earthly society. He was not directly stung by the knowledge of evil imparted by the Satanic Claggart; alternately by violently lashing out and killing Claggart, Billy was demonstrating his rejection of the Forbidden Fruit. Billy did have to suffer the consequences for his impropriety within earthly society however, and his earthly Fall is a satirical reflection of Adam’s fall. “The immediate consequence of the Fall was death” (Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary, p. 374), which was certainly evidenced by Billy’s execution. However, the Handsome Sailor was not afraid in facing his trial or execution; he did not fear the law as Adam feared the Lord. Billy does not fear earthy justice because he knows he remains guiltless in the eyes of a higher authority: “I have eaten the King’s bread and I am true to the King” (p. 357). Indeed, as he gave Billy his last rights the ship’s chaplain was well aware of the protagonist’s ultimate innocence, and “felt that innocence was even a better thing than religion wherewith to go to Judgement” (p. 373). Certainly, Billy is accepted into the Divine Grace upon his death, as during his execution the symbols of his ascension are many.
It was into a strictly regimented and ordered society that the Handsome and angelic Sailor finds himself situated. By killing Claggart, Billy is indeed guilty of transgressing martial law, yet it is important to note that it was an imperfect and Fallen society which created the law. Therefore, while it was just that Captain Vere sentenced Billy to be hanged, the sailor’s death is viewed as unnatural by the crew, and indeed by Vere himself. The unintelligible murmurs of the crew upon hearing of Billy’s impeding execution and during his funeral attest to their sense that the act was a trespass against Divine Law. Vere must however conform to the martial law of which he is a part and the principle agent. He believes that the laws of a civilization are of paramount consequence in counteracting the chaos inherent in human nature: “With mankind ... forms, measured forms are everything; and this is the import couched in the story of Orpheus with his lyre spellbinding the wild denizens of the wood” (p. 380). It is therefore within this context that the chapters concerning the Nore Mutiny demonstrate their importance. Knowing the consequences of the Mutiny, Vere must remain true to the principles of the Mutiny Act, and thus hastily sentence and execute Billy. As Billy is indeed guilty of committing a crime against human laws, the tragedy of the novel revolves not around his fall of this noble sailor to being executed as a murderer. Alternately, the focus of the text surrounds Billy’s punishment as a symbol of the corrupt nature of a fallen society. The court and Captain Vere must treat him in an inhuman manner as it cannot operate otherwise. Vere himself recognizes this fault in the court, and that “a court less arbitrary and more merciful than a martial one” would likely acquit Billy of his charge for the extenuating circumstance that he “proposed neither mutiny nor homicide” (p. 363). The Captain cannot ignore his duties, however, despite his own beliefs.
In Billy Budd, Sailor Melville examines the difficulties faced by a character who cannot properly function or even exist within the confines of his society. Billy is characterised as following a higher and more pure law than that observed on the Bellipotent, yet Captain Vere cannot enforce any other system of justice than that which he does. The society of Vere and the law he represents is a Fallen one, and therefore it must ostracize an angelic figure such as Billy Budd. The tragic element lies not in Billy’s death, but in the rejection of the more pure and divine form that he represents. Melville stresses that men of intelligence will acknowledge such ideal forms when they present themselves, and certainly the intelligent characters of Billy Budd — Vere, Claggart, even the Dankster — demonstrate their awareness of Billy’s virtuous nature. Vere subsequently exhibits a profound sense of loss for Billy’s death. However, it remains dispiriting yet perhaps a truism that men created by a society derived from the Fall cannot distance themselves enough from its restrains to be free from envy and allow the existence of what they cannot be, that is, an ideal form.
Bibliography
Melville, Herman. Billy Budd and Other Stories. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.
Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Gen. Ed. Herbert Lockyer, Sr. New York: Thomas
Nelson Publishers, 1986.
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