Billy Budd Sailor

Melville’s Testament of Resistance in Billy Budd, Sailor

Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor is about the necessity for law and order and

deciding whether to follow your personal beliefs versus following the laws that have been set by

your society. In the novella, there is a situation where Billy Budd strikes Claggart. Captain Vere

is trapped with the predicament in dealing with Billy. “The way in which Captain Vere deals

with the situation exemplifies how society requires the division of one’s internal thoughts from

one’s societal responsibilities” (Davidson 127).

“The deepest controversy over Billy Budd hinges upon our estimate of Captain Vere.

Unlike Billy and Claggart, Vere is an ordinary man of the world; unlike every other character in

the novel, he is called upon to make a moral decision –for even the members of the drumhead

court, after they have expressed their reservations , merely agree to accede to the verdict Vere

has directed. The central question, to put it as bluntly as possible, is whether Vere’s decision, that

Billy must be hanged, is the right one. Vere was seen as embodying Melville’s acceptance of the

tragic conflict between divine and human law, and of the horrible necessity, upon occasion, of

doing what goes against one’s natural feelings for the sake of upholding society’s demands”

(Richter 23).

Chapter 64 of Moby Dick gives us a very in depth look at how the world would be if laws

were not set for society to follow. “Fellow-critters: I’se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat

dam noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin’ ob de lip! Massa Stubb say dat you can fill

your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by God! You must stop dat dam racket! You is sharks,

sartin: but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is noting more dan

de shark well goberned.” (Melville, Dick, 251). Melville is trying to illustrate that without law... [continues]

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