LITR 4232:
American Renaissance
Student Presentation Summary
Thursday, 3 April:
Melville, Billy Budd (complete;
through page 2714)
Reader: Corrie Lawrence
Discussion notes:
Lisa Bailey
We
will be using a blend of objectives one and three to approach this text:
1. To use critical techniques of "close reading"… as [a way] of studying classic… literature and cultural history of the "American Renaissance" (the generation before the Civil War).
3. To
use literature as a basis for discussing
representative problems and subjects of American culture (New Historicism),
such as equality; …class; the individual and the community; nature; the
writer's conflicted presence in an anti-intellectual society.
Objective 1: Setting the Stage
Textually
In
Billy Budd, Herman Melville sets a
complex stage with numerous forces at work against each other.
He
painstakingly erects multiple complex levels of good and evil; intelligence and
ignorance; right and wrong; feeling and rationality. Each of the three main characters is keenly drawn as a
varying representation of these abstract concepts.
Billy Budd
– Baby Budd (2675), Beauty
(2682), the Handsome Sailor (2676)
Budd
is the embodiment of “simplicity” (2679) – not intellectual
“one
to whom not yet has been proffered
the questionable apple of knowledge…” (2662) – innocent
“welkin
eyed” (2678)
“the
jewel of ‘em” (2659)
“peacemaker”
(2659)
speech
impediment or “vocal defect” (2663) -- tragic flaw?
“’sweet and pleasant fellow’” with the “spirit of a game cock” (2659)
John Claggart
– master-at-arms, Jemmy Legs (2675)
Characterized
by a “mania of an evil nature” (2678)
“a
depravity according to nature” (2678)
“a
peculiar ferreting genius” (2673) --intelligent,
experienced
“nothing
was known of his former life” (2671)
“hint
of something abnormal or defective in the constitution of his blood” (2671)
“lurked
a bit of accent in his speech” (2671)
…suggestive of foreign birth
“red
light would flash forth from his eye” (2686)
-- deceit
Captian the Honorable Fairfax Vere
– Starry
Vere (2669)
“a
sailor of distinction” (2668)
“seen
much service…various engagements” (2668) -- experienced
“mindful
of the welfare of his men” (2668)
“thoroughly
versed in the science of his profession” (2668) -- educated
“grave
in his bearing” (2668) -- serious
on
occasion had a “certain dreaminess of mood” (2668)
I agree with Allison Amaya’s comments
on this text in the spring of 2001 when she asserts that, “several passages in
the story use references to the eyes to symbolize how they are a window to the
intelligence a person has.” This is one of the points of contrast made in
character description. For example
Budd’s eyes are innocent, blue, constant and clear; while Claggarts are an
unnatural violet mentioned to sometimes flash with red (2686), and then change
to a “muddy purple” when he confronts Budd in Vere’s presence (2692).
Examples
of character provided in the previous sketches, such as Amaya’s reference to
the eyes, suggest that the characters are for the most part distinctly good or
evil, experienced or not. – After setting the scene for the reader with these
circumstances in the first half of the novel, Melville bombards the reader with
complicated matters concerning justice in the second half.
Objective 2: The Problem of Justice
and Morality
With
style in keeping with the true classicists, Melville leaves the reader with a
not entirely complete picture -- some events are forever left in a haze.
As
the main conflict of the story is presented, both Billy and Claggart’s
characters remain static for the most part. It is Captain Vere that is required
to make and live with monumental decisions – And he does this…but what are
we to think of the process?
Melville
does not sort these issues out for us; he instead challenges the reader to
intellectually assume responsibility for deciding if Captain Vere’s decision
was ethical and upright.
“Who
in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange
begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does
the first blendingly enter into the other?
So with sanity and insanity.” (2694)
“Whether
Captain Vere…was really the sudden victim of any degree of aberration, every
one must determine for himself by such light as this narrative may afford.”
(2694)
(1)
Was Captain Vere acting in his
right mind? – If so, is he vindicated in his handling of Billy’s case?
We
are told by the narrator that Claggart hated Billy because he was driven by a
“passion in its profoundest”…”the gall of [his] envy” (2680). On page
2679, this rhetorical question is posed:
“Did
anybody ever seriously confess to envy? Something there is in it universally
felt to be far more shameful than even felonious crime.”
Envy
drove an otherwise seemingly intelligent/rational man to a heinous end –
Discussion notes:
Question 1: Was Captain Vere acting in
his right mind? If so, is he
vindicated in his handling of Billy’s case?
Jennifer:
I think hindsight is always 20/20.
Dawn:
It’s a catch-22. You have to do
something.
Dr. White:
Well Captain Vere loves Billy, but on the other hand, who is his duty to? Billy,
the ship, the service , the nation? The right answer changes.
Deterrean:
He sees both sides, the duality of his decision.
He knew he had to do something to insure order on the ship.
Corrie:
Was it so urgent that he couldn’t wait?
Sandra:
I think he felt it was that urgent.
Deterrean:
Well, given the context of the situation, it wasn’t an insane decision.
Sandra:
As readers we can see both sides of the situation.
Deterrean:
The situation casts a darker light on what Billy did.
On the mythic side, Billy can be equated with Jesus sacrificing his life.
Jennifer:
What is the real motivation for Melville’s story resembling Christ’s story,
but not?
Laurie:
Maybe the question is rather between justice and mercy?
Question 2: Is this a realistic or romantic motive? Does this motive applicably transcend the bounds of literature and time?
Deterrean:
Usually the reason envy arises is you see the completeness of others and the
incompleteness of yourself. We can
certainly understand this in our time.
Dr. White:
I think love and envy get tangled up sometimes; where does one end and the other
begin? Compare Corrie's quotation of Melville on the colors of the rainbow.
Dawn:
That incompleteness and self-loathing are so far away from that spiritual love
that it really points out the depravity in man.
Deterrean:
When you see someone so special, it’s like God has shown them to you, sent
them to you. In some ways Satan is pitiable in that he is so far removed
from the light of God, it makes him darker.
Dr. White:
Good connection to the Byronic hero.
Deterrean:
It’s that being on the outside of love that drove Claggart mad.