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Melville's Billy Budd As Melville's Billy Budd as "An Inside Narrative" Author(s): William Braswell Source: American Literature, Vol. 29, No. 2 (May, 1957), pp. 133-146 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2922102 Accessed: 21/10/2010 08:16 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=duke. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Literature. http://www.jstor.org Melville's BILLY BUDD as "An Inside Narrative" WILLIAM BRASWELL PurdueUniversity A S WITH Moby-Dickand manyother classics, it is possibleto finddifferent meanings in BillyBudd, complementary rather thanconflicting, byreading it on differentlevels. One wayof read- ing it whichseems to me worthyof furtherexploration is as "an insidenarrative," which Melville himself called it in a subtitlein parentheses.This phrasemay obviously be interpretedin various ways. It maybe takenmerely to imply that the story is restrictedto theinner life of a singleship. It mayalso be takenas a hintthat the storyis "inside"in a familysense, on accountof thepart played in the Somersaffair by Melville'scousin Guert Gansevoort. But it seemsto me that Melville intended the subtitle in stillanother sense. I believethat Billy Budd may justifiably and profitably be considered as an insidenarrative about a tragicconflict in Melville'sown spirit- ual life. The Indomitable,which may be regardedmerely as a man-of-war,or, on anotherplane, as the worldof Christendom, appearsto me acceptablealso as a microcosm,the world of an indi- vidual-specifically,the world of HermanMelville-and the story ofwhat happened aboard the Indomitable, the symbolical projection ofa personalcrisis and theresolution of it. Thisis notto saythat BillyBudd is an allegory,nor to arguethat its symbols have fixed, rigidlyrestricted meanings throughout the narrative;in fact,the shiftingsimilitudes and the rich allusivenesssuggest new truths everytime one readsthe novel. Still,a generalsymbolical pattern maybe discerned. Withthe Indomitable a microcosm representing Melville, certain aspectsof his being are dramatized in CaptainVere, Billy Budd, and Claggart.The divine,or semidivine,origin of Melville'sbeing is suggestedin thefact that Vere is ofnoble lineage and thatBilly and Claggart,although their origin is uncertain,are reputedto have noblemen'sblood in theirveins. The Kingis a symbolof the Deity: I34 AmericanLiterature he does not physicallyappear in the story,but he is the supreme authorityunder whose law the ship operates. Billy Budd and Claggart are contrastingsymbols. Billy, the handsome,strong, lovable sailor, represents the good tendencies,the tendenciesoften designated as "the heart,"and the epithet"welkin- eyed"' suggestsa celestialquality. During his serviceaboard the Rightsof Man it is said thata virtuegoes out of him, sugaringthe sourmembers of thecrew. He is innocentas Adam beforethe fall. Afterhe has been impressedfor duty aboard the Indomitable,he is so unsuspectingand so unfamiliarwith the ways of evil thatat first he thinksClaggart likes him. Later he is horrifiedby the false chargesthat Claggart brings against him. He strikeshis accuserthe fatal blow only because an impedimentin speech preventshim fromdefending himself orally. Billy'scharacter arouses pity, but so does Claggart's. In defining Claggart'sevil nature,Melville suggests analogies between him and Milton'sSatan, especiallySatan's being cast into hell for his plot againstthe Deity and his partin bringingabout the fall.2 Claggart's historyis obscure,but it is rumoredthat he "was a chevatlierwho had volunteeredinto the King's navyby way of compoundingfor some mysteriousswindle whereof he had been arraignedat the King's Bench."3 His pallor is "in part the resultof his officialseclusion from the sunlight."4 While his officekeeps him below decks, "welkin-eyed"Billy is a man of thetop. At an unforeseenencounter of the two "a red light" flashesforth from Claggart's violet eyes "like a sparkfrom an anvil in a dusk smithy."5Yet, looking on Billy beforehe bringsabout his downfall,Claggart is filled with sadness,like Satan lookingon Adam in the Gardenof Eden. Clag- gart'slifeless body is comparedto a dead snake. His depravity,like Billy's goodness,is accordingto nature. He is the only person aboardwith the exceptionof Vere who is "intellectually"capable of realizingthe moral phenomenonof Billy's character;yet, "appre- hendingthe good, but powerless to be it,"a naturesuch as Claggart's 1 Melville'sBilly Budd, ed. F. BarronFreeman (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), pp. 136, 192. Referencesthroughout are to this edition,as correctedby the Corrigendapublished by the same press. 2Norman Holmes Pearson,"Billy Budd: 'The King's Yarn,'" AmericanQuarterly, III, 99-114 (Summer, 1951), contains provocative discussion of Milton's influence on Billy Budd. 3BillyBudd, p. I69. 'Ibid., p. I68. 6 Ibid., p. 208. Melville'sBilly Budd as "An Inside Narrative" 135 has no recourseleft but "to recoilupon itselfand like the scorpion forwhich the Creator alone is responsible,act out to theend thepart allottedit."6 Withfreedom of will deniedhim, Claggart is doomed to therole he plays. He has furthersymbolical significance. As Billy symbolizesthe heart,so Claggart roughlysymbolizes "the head." His brow is "of the sort phrenologicallyassociated with more than average intellect."7A significantcomparison of the two men points out thatif Billy's"face was withoutthe intellectuallook of the pallid Claggart's,not the less was it lit,like his, from within, though from a differentsource. The bonfirein his heartmade luminousthe rose- tan in his cheek."8 The intellectualClaggart's bleached complexion suggeststhat he is sickliedo'er with the pale cast of thought. The contrastingsymbolism of thetwo men is subtlyindicated also in the fatalscene in Vere's quarterswhen Billy is confrontedwith Clag- gart'scharges against him. Billy'simpediment in speechhere be- comesa superbfigure for the inarticulatenessof the heart. Captain Vere'ssoothing words, instead of calmingBilly, touch his "heartto thequick," so that,still unable to speak,he strikesClaggart a power- ful blow upon "the forehead,so shapelyand intellectual-lookinga feature in the master-at-arms.. ."9 A line not used in the final version,as transcribedby Freeman,describes Billy's blow as "electri- callyenergized by the inmost spasm of his heart."'0 The blow comes then,in effect,directly from the heartto the head. And as a result of it,Captain Vere is confrontedby a crisis. But thisterrific blow of Billy's,this lashingout of the heartat the evil representedby Claggart-is thereanything comparable to it, symbolically,in Melville'sown life? I believethat thereis. It seemsto me thatthe part of thenarrative leading up to thedramatic scenein Vere's quartersmay be said to representthe earlypart of Melville'sspiritual life. With ruddy-cheeked,welkin-eyed Billy saunteringon the deck in the sunshine,joking withfriends, and with the pallid, scheming Claggartslyly promoting his own interestsbelow deck,but stillnot openlyasserting himself, Captain Vere has no problemout of the ordinaryto contendwith. The relationshipbetween heart and head nIbid., p. I92. 7lbid., p. i68. 8Ibid., p. I90. 9 Ibid.,p. 226. "0Ibid.,p. 228, n. 45. I36 AmericanLiterature in Melville's early life seems to have been, on the whole, well- balanced,with the heartsomewhat predominant. There are signs of a dichotomybetween heart and head at the end of Mardi,where all the travelersexcept Taji are convertedto the religionof the heartpracticed on the island of Serenia,but Taji sails out into the open sea in pursuitof theultimate truth. Melville'snext two books, Redburnand White-Jacket,show his compassionateheart in their ferventpreaching of Christiancharity, but thereis ample evidence thatduring the period in whichhe wrotethese novels he continued assiduouslyto cultivatethe head. Moby-Dickis predominantlyan expressionof theheart, but with a differencethat sets it offfrom the earlier books. In additionto the compassionfor mankind, there is now an impassionedhatred for the sourceof man's grief. In the earlypages of the novel,when pre- paringfor the entranceof Captain Ahab, Melville writeswith ad- mirationfor the type of pageant characterwho has a "globular brain" and a "ponderousheart."" However one may feel about Ahab's brain,he is a man of greaterheart than some criticsap- parentlyhave realized. Therehas been a tendencyof late in certain quartersto interpretMoby-Dick too muchin themanner of a
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