Billy Budd: A catharsis of the feelings of pity and fear

 Billy Budd: A catharsis of the feelings of pity and fear

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Billy’s fate certainly arouses our pity. The feeling of fear in our mind is aroused by Claggart when he shamelessly makes a complaint against Billy to Captain Vere. The feeling of fear is again aroused in our hearts when is Billy is put on trial. We await the outcome of the trial with trembling hearts. Then comes the verdict of the court-marshal, and this moves us to the deepest pity. Our pity for Billy reaches its climax with his hanging. Similarly, our hearts are moved to pity for Captain Vere when we are told of the suffering that he undergoes after the sentence of death has been pronounced against Billy.

            Now, a catharsis or purgation of pity, fear, and the kindred emotions is also effected by this novel. The description of Billy’s hanging contains imagery, which is clearly symbolic. The imagery here suggests the Crucifixion and also the Ascension. When the noose round Billy’s neck is tightened, Billy’s body gives no shudder and Billy doesn’t gasp for breath. The complete absence of any spasmodic movement in Billy’s body at this time shows that Billy is no ordinary being. Billy must be a heavenly angel who had come to earth to accomplish a mission and after completion of the mission the celestial home. The birds, which flock to the spot where Billy’s body had been immersed and which circle the spot screaming, seem to represent nature’s lamentation over premature death of Billy. All more details, most of which represent Billy as a Christ-figure, produce in our minds a feeling of elation and exhilaration in which our distress and anguish are completely dissolved. In the final chapter we read an account of the glorification and deification of Billy; and we also learned that Billy has been immortalized in a ballad written by one of the sailors. This account also serves the same purpose as the symbolic description of Billy’s hanging and burial. The fate of Billy has thus an elevating and uplifting effect upon us.

Billy Budd: The tragedy of justice

Billy Budd: The tragedy of justice

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This demands to feel an intense and indelible sense of helplessness and agony.  A youthful sailor loved by his shipmates for his natural goodness, is put to death for the sake of seemingly formalistic insensate law. Law and society are portrayed in fundamental opposition to natural man.

The confrontation takes place in a stark and sombership board drama. Billy, the handsome sailor, is falsely and maliciously accused of muting by Claggart, the master-at-arms. Momentarily losing the power of speech while trying to answer, Billy strikes out at Claggart, and the blow kills him. Captain Vere, who witnesses the act must judge it, is caught in "a moral dilemma involving angst of the tragic", knowing full well Billy’s goodness, and that he didn’t intend to kill, Vere sees no choice but to apply the inflexible law of a military ship in time of war. Billy is hanged.

The problem of BillyBudd has produced many arguments. Some critics have considered it Melville’s “Testament Acceptance,” a peaceful, resigned coming –into –port after a stormy lifetime. Some have thought that Billy, though deed, triumphs because his sacrifice restores goodness to the world. Others have found the novel a bitter and ironic criticism of society. Most recently and persuasively, it has been called a Sophoclean tragedy, a contemplation of life’s warring values. All of these views have merit. But there is still more to be seen in Billy Budd.

            Melville’s last book seems clearly to be different from his earlier work. It is true that Billy and Claggart are archetypal Melville figures. But in Billy Budd neither of these characters is developed or explained, each remain static. Instead, the focus is upon a new kind of character the civilized, intellectual captain Vere. He is the only character whose feelings we are permitted to see, and his is the only consciousness; which seems to grow divining the action. In addition, the book’s focus is upon a new situation; not the old clash of good and evil, but an encounter of these natural forces, on the one hand, which society and law on the other. Significantly, Vere, and the dilemma of this encounter were, were the last elements to be added when Melville was writing, as if he had started out to repeat an old drama but ended up with something new and unexpected. Billy Budd is also different in that the central there is presented through the medium of a problem in law. And “law” is used not merely in the general sense of order as oppose to chaos. Instead, we are given a carefully defined issue. This issue receives an extra- ordinarily full treatment, which, together with its crucial position in the story, makes it the major focus of action and conflict.

            In approaching Billy Budd almost all critics whatever their ultimate conclusions, have started with the assumption that Billy is innocent, and that the issue is an encounter between innocence and formalistic society. But to say that Billy is innocent is a misleading start, for it invites a basic confusion and over simplification. By what standard is he innocent? Is it by law deriding from nature, from God, or from man? And to what is the concept of innocence applied-to Billy’s act or to Billy himself? Billy is innocent in that he lacks experience, like Adam before the fall, but he is not necessarily innocent in that he is not guilty of a crime. The problem of justice in the book is a profoundly difficult one; its possibilities are for richer than is generally recognized. In turn such recognition affects the reader’s view of Vere and, ultimately the understanding of the novel as a whole.

            Continued…

Billy Budd: The tragedy of justice

Billy Budd: The tragedy of justice

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Continued… from the previous

There are at least three basic issues in BillyBudd. First, how and by what standards should Billy or Billy’s act, be judged? Second, how does Vere, the men committed to society, perceive the problem and respond? And third, how adequate are the standards which society has adopted? The structure of the novel is such that these problems, are presented in three overlapping, climactic scenes: the discussion of the law; Vere’s actions and feelings and the execution, at which society is present and takes its final action.

            Indeed if Billy is innocent, why not Claggart? Is it just to blame Claggart for evil that was not his choice but was innate and inborn? His nature, “for which the creator alone is responsible,” must “act out to the end the part allotted to it,” this antipathy was no more within is control than Billy’s fist was under Billy’s control. Billy’s very existence and nearness was an excruciating unbearable provocation to Claggart as D.H. Lawrence’s young soldier is to his superior in the Prussian officer.

Nature contains both Billy’s goodness and Claggart’s evil. But in times of stress and extremity, the low of nature offers no support to goodness, and no check to evil. It interposes no objection. And it allows Billy to hill a weatherman who was not immediately threatening his life. Human law must set a higher standard. To do so, it must look beyond the immediate theatre of action. Harsh though this may be, we must be judged by a universe wider than the one in which our actions are played out.

            Natural justice, as the drumhead court sees it, has a second aspect: the guilt or innocence of the mind. Billy did not intend to kill. He testifies, “there was no malice between us … I am sorry that he is dead. I did not mean to kill him”. Moreover, Billy’s whole character shows an innocent mind. The sailors all loved him. These virtues were “pristine and unadulterated”. He was the Handsome sailor, blessed with strength and beauty, of a lineage “favored by love and the Graces”, with a moral nature not “out of keeping with the physical make”, “happily endowed with the society of high health, youth and a free heart”. Vere calls him “a fellow creature innocent before God”. The chaplain recognizes “the young Sailor's essential innocence”. Even Claggart feels that Billy’s nature “had in its simplicity never willed malice”

            Of course Billy cannot escape all responsibility for the consequence of his blew. He intended to hit Claggart, although possibly not full an the forehead, Intending the blow, Billy took upon himself the responsibility for the possible consequences. But shouldn’t his responsibility be limited because this was an unintended killing? At first thought, we agree. The law doesn’t punish children, it doesn’t punish the insane. An accidental killing isn’t murder. The law recognizes the difference between premeditated killing and killing in hot blood, or by provocation, or in fear, shouldn’t Billy’s innocent mind be considered in extenuation? But although modern law is more flexible than the Muting Act, its basic approach is similar; primarily it judges the action and not the man or his state of mind. "The law stands at a distance from the crime and the criminal, and judges “objectively”. And while such an approach may not satisfy the demands of divine justice, it is the only possible basis for human law" (Reich 379).

           

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Billy Budd: The tragedy of justice

Billy Budd: The tragedy of justice

Continued… from the previous

Despite the many indictments, it is remarkable that those who condemn Vere's decision seldom offer more than adhominem arguments based upon ironic readings of the text. Vere is viewed as a tyrant who blindly or weakly or insanely followed, rather than manfully defied, the “Forms, measured forms” of the muting act which demanded death as the penalty for striking an officer. Thus he is supposed to have violated those “primitive instincts”, forming the basis of natural law, which demand merely for one who wasn't only innocent of intent but as even Vere felt sure, had also rid the world of an “ananias”. To condemn Vere on such grounds, however, is in itself to violate the principles of natural law. It is to look but to the “frontage” as war and the Mutiny Act do, and to judge Vere by the consequence of his decision rather than by his intent as Vere said the court must judge Billy.

Yet Vere’s decision invites condemnation, as surly as it was meant to. Melville knew it would because he knew from the experience of his cousin, Guert Gansevoort, that the comparable conduct of the Somers affair hid been condemned. Moreover the Bellipotent’s surgeon, the court, and later “some officers” criticized vere’s handling of the case. While Melville was concerned to demonstrate the need for compassion, for Vere no less than for Billy, he was equally concerned to demonstrate that compassion will suffice for neither of these tragic figures. The power of compassion cannot exceed the power of historical circumstance to create the tragic necessity for in human action and in this Melville could rely on the authority of the father of the crucified Christ. Sympathetic understanding of Vere’s rationale is warrantable, but so is indignation at the necessity of Billy’s death. One must feel both pity and fear in response to this tragedy. In Billy Budd ,Sailor  Melville writes:

Now Billy, like sundry other essentially good natured ones, had some of the weaknesses inseparable from essential good nature, and among these was a reluctance, almost an incapacity, of plumply saying no to an abrupt proposition not seriously  absurd as the face of it, nor obviously unfriendly, nor iniquitous. And being of warm blood he hadn’t the phlegm tacitly to negative any proposition by any unresponsive inaction. Like his sense of fear, his apprehension as to ought outside of the honest and natural was seldom very quick. Besides, upon the present occasion, the drowse from his sleep still hung upon him. (43)

Some of the critical confusion, which has beclouded Billy Budd, has arisen out of an initial failure to define the “irony” which is supposed to throw its belief-making mechanism into reverse. So far as the ironic concept of Billy Budd is concern it is ironic enough in the Aristotelian sense (reversal of fortune, the irony of fate”) it is not ironic in the rhetorical sense (reversal of meaning, the irony of satire). Unhappy the presence or absence of this latter irony is difficult to prove, and proof has so far been largely limited to assertion and counter assertion. The critic peers into the text and sees, like Thurber at the microscope, his own eye. It helps but it doesn’t solve all problems, to say that irony is grounded absurdity. In much contemporary literature absurdity is the norm, and even in fiction best on traditional norms, the author’s notion of what is out of joint or his way of expressing it, may differ sharply from the reader’s. One can only inspect what close the text provides with an impartial eye and in the perspective of a scale of values as nearly exempt from the dangers of subjective manipulation as possible.

           

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Billy Budd:The problem of the existence of good and evil

Billy Budd:The problem of the existence of good and evil

On one level, the novel BillyBudd tells an exciting story of certain happenings on board the British warship called the Bellipotent in the time of the Napoleonic wars, but the novel has also to be read on a deeper level. The unintentional killing by Billy of the ship’s master at arms, and a few subsequent developments constitute the plot of the novel. But these incidents have certain symbolic meanings which cannot be ignored. In symbolic terms, this novel presents a contrast between good and Evil. It would be better to use the word “contrast” and not the word “conflict” or “clash” because a conflict or clash has to be a two sided affair while in this case the good is absolutely passive and , when it does come into action, it does so not deliberately but impulsively and thoughtlessly. Claggart’s false change against Billy is pre-meditated and pre-planned, but Billy’s attack on Claggart is an instantaneous reaction to the charge and by no means pre-meditated. Billy never anticipated such a false charge, and so he could never have contemplated any action against the accuser beforehand. Now, the problem of the existence of good and evil in this universe has always troubled all thinking people. Some of the twentieth-century novelists have especially felt concerned with this problem. As for Melville, early in his literary career he had begun to feel worried by this problem. The novel Billy Budd has as its theme the gulf which lies between good and evil. Good and Evil are the two irreconcilable extremes; and Melville here shows that there is no escape from the puzzlement and bafflement which the existence of good and Evil gives rise to in our minds. The only sensible attitude to be adopted in facing this problem is to accept the reality and to find comfort in religious faith.

Claggart and Billy represent the two extremes –black and white, or goodness and evil; and the novel tells the story of how these two men act and interact. Then there is a third character too; and this third character, namely captain Vere, represents the gray colour, a colour which occupies an intermediate position between black and white and which in this case, represents goodness with a strong admixture not of evil exactly but of an excessive preoccupation with duty, a preoccupation so excessive as to seem almost evil. Indeed, captain Vere’s obsession with his official duty seems fanatical and even insane. Here are, then, three characters, each of whom symbolically represents or embodies a particular aspect of human nature –wholly or almost wholly good; wholly or almost wholly evil; and a blend of the largely good with a zeal which, by its very excess, seriously undermines and weakens the good. In this connection, it may be noted that the very names of the characters have symbolic implications. The name of Billy Budd gives vise to a feeling of youthful happiness in us because of its associations with a rose –bud. The name Claggart has a jarring sound which, therefore implies discord and harmony. The name Vere is derived from the Latin word  “verite” which means truth. And, indeed, captain Vere embodies truth of a particular mind, though not the absolute or ideal truth. It has also been pointed out that Billy Budd, because of his goodness, represents the heart, and that Claggart, whose brow is large enough to suggest a more than average intellect, symbolizes the head as distinguished from the heart. Melville, when he was writing this novel, had begun to put his faith largely in the dictates of the heart and had repudiated the claims of the head. Captain Vere, according to this interpretation, symbolizes the will. The head and the heart in this novel come into a conflict with each other, though the heart symbolized by Billy isn't conscious of the conflict. The conflict leads to a catastrophe, and then captain Vere takes charge of the affair, taking a decision which itself proves to be controversial though many people would approve of this decision because it was the only sensible decision under the circumstances. The names of the ships in this novel, like the names of the major characters also have symbolic implications. The merchantship the Rights– of –Man has been named after the title of a book of political philosophy written by an author called Thomas plaine. The warship Bellipotent has a name which, literally, means a ship which is powerful in war. At one point in the story, the Bellipotent chases a French warship by the name of the Athee which means “atheist”. Some of the other French warships are called the Devastation and the Erebus (meaning Hell). The names of the ships are therefore in themselves significant.

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ORIGIN OF THE EARTH

ORIGIN OF THE EARTH

The Earth is one of the nine planets of the solar family. About the origin of the earth and solar family till now we are not getting any fixed theory because the most reasonable fact is still hidden. But the scientists have given different thoughts. They are Religious and Scientific concepts. Religious thoughts are not so much reasonable but the scientific concepts are in some cases reasonable.

Some of the thoughts are as follows:-

1. The Gaseous Theory Of Kant

   The famous German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant who anonymously published his views in 1755 was the real profounder of the nebular hypothesis. Kant introduced the Newtonian law of gravitation in his theory. He believed that the hard particles of supernaturally created matter collided with one another by gravitational attraction, and generated heat and rotation in this process. In this way the original static and cold matter was converted into a nebula (cast hot gaseous mass) rotating with such great rapidity that strong centrifugal force was created about equatorial plane. This led to the throwing off of successive gings of matter. The rings condensed into planets. What remained of the original nebula became the sun. The planets underwent similar spinning and threw off rings, which became their satellites.

THE INTERIOR STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH

THE INTERIOR STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH

INTRODUCTION.

Knowledge of the structure of the Earth is necessary in order to understand the surface features of the earth. The surface of the earth consists of mountains, plateaus, plains, valleys and other features. These different types of Landforms vary in size and distribution. While some of these landforms are formed by the external denudation processes which take place on the surface of the Earth. Other owes their origin to the internal forces, which operate in the interior of the Earth. There, it is necessary to learn about the interior layers of the Earth. An idea of the interior structure of the Earth has been obtained from a study of earthquake waves. These are called the crust, the mantle and the core of the Earth. The density, temperature and pressure of these layers increase with depth.

The Chemical composition and Physical State of matter inside the Earth is of great concern for study of landforms on the surface of the Earth.

Crust of the Earth or Lithosphere.

The surface of the Earth consists of rocks of various types. The layer of rocks forms a relatively thin layer and is called the lithosphere of crust of the Earth. The crust has an acreage thickness of about 60 km. This forms less than 1 % of the radius of the Earth. The crust is subdivided into two parts according to their composition. The top most layer is lighter having an average density of 2.7 gm/cu.cm. This layer consists of silicates and aluminum and other higher metals. This layer is called the sial (silicate+aluminnium). The sial layer is thick over the continents but is thin ocean floors.

Below the sial layer is a denser layer, which consists predominantly of silicates os magnesium and other denser metals. This is called the sima (silicate+magnesium) layer. The sima layer has an average density of about 3.0gm/cu.cm. The sima layer forms the ocean floors.

The composition of the crust layer is of great interest because we get most of our minerals from the crust of the Earth. The physical features of the Earth's crust influence land use and other human activities. The density of human population also depends on the nature of the relief features in an area.

Mantle or Pyrosphere

The mantle of the Earth lies below the crust of the Earth. The mantle has an average thickness of about 2840 km. It consists of mixed silicates between 3.0 and 5.5 gm/cu.c. Though the temperature of the layer is quite high, the high pressure of the overing layers keeps this layer in a solid state.

Core of the Earth or Baryshere

The core of Earth has a radius of about 3500 km. It consists mostly of metala. As mickel and iron are the two most abundant metals, the core is called Nife (nickel + ferom). The density of the core is between 12 to 15gm/cu.cm. This dense layer is also called the Barysphere. The core of the Earth is estimated to have a temperature of about 5500^oc. The metallic core and the abubdance o iron also explain the earth's magnetism.

Hot Girl (Haiku)

Hot Girl

Hey! Look, what a hot

She is a student of a college

Wearing a mini skirt.

English Literary Canon at a Glance ( Term Paper)

English Literary Canon at a Glance

Generally, the word “canon” refers to any group of writings that has been established as authentic; more specifically, those books of the Christian Bible that are accepted as Scripture. The term is used to describe collectively those works of a particular author that have been proven or are considered genuine, such as the canon made up of William Shakespeare’s thirty plays. Currently “canon” is often used to identify the classical and contemporary literature authorized by schools and universities as the core of literary study.

            The word “canon” was derived from Greek word which was used to denote a list or catalogue then came to be applied to the list of books in Bible. The Greek word “kanon”, signifying a measuring rod or a rule, was extended to denote a list or catalogue, then came to be applied to the list of books in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament which were designated by church authorities as comprising the genuine Holy Scriptures.

            The religious terminology of the word “canon” was later extended to secular works: the canon of literature. The canon of literature, on the other hand, emerges by way a gradual and unofficial consensus; is tacit rather than explicit. Then canonical status was afforded to a number of books from the classical to the modern period written by a number of authors such as Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens. These writers are venerated throughout literary history as writers of the classics; not only are they worthy of serious academic attention, they have also become “celebrated names” holding some measure of universal acclaim. This is also called canon formation.

Canon formation, or the process by which literary texts become legitimated, was traditionally understood as a "natural" process in which the "best" literature inevitably prevails in the test of time (e.g., Brooks, 1975). Concomitantly, the canon was envisioned as an archive of "the best that has been thought and known" (Bertens,2). In Arnold’s view, the process of canon formation was governed by objective aesthetic laws; texts entered the canon by virtue of their unanimously recognized. The process of canon formation generally, and the canonical status of any particular text, was assumed to be based solely on the literary merits and attributes of the text itself.

In the past 30 years, however, literary scholars have begun to question the simplicity of these traditional assumptions and worked to develop more socially contextualized models of canon formation. Newer models in literary criticism have shifted attention away from an exclusive interest in inherent textual attributes toward a broader focus on "the complex of circumstances" surrounding evaluations of texts. Researchers have begun to examine the historically specific cultural, political, and critical assumptions and rhetoric which position, interpret, and this create texts for readers. Butler writes, “And we have to acknowledge that reading a book sets up a transaction between author and reader, changing all the time as readers change” (24). There has been an increased recognition that canon formation is a social process and that part of the very cultural work canons perform is to deny or at least obscure the transitory and social nature of literary valuations. Although cultural sociology has great relevance for this work, the field has not paid adequate attention to the concrete and specific processes of canon formation and canonical change.

The literary canon of a country or a group of people is comprised of a body of works that are highly valued by scholars and others because of their aesthetic value and because they embody the cultural and political values of that society. Works belonging to the canon become institutionalized over time by consistently being taught in the schools as the core curriculum for literary study. As critic Herbert Lindenberger, among others, has pointed out, “… the process of canon formation and evolution is influenced by cultural and historical change, and the English and American canons have regularly undergone revision throughout the centuries”(141). In the twentieth century, for example, the English and American canons in the United States were "challenged in the 1920s by Jewish intellectuals like Lionel Trilling and Oscar Handlin who became important Ivy League scholars, and again in the 1960s, when sweeping cultural change brought the concerns of women, minorities, gays, and Marxist liberals to the forefront of literary study" (141).

Most recently, a reexamination of the American and English literary canons took place in the 1980s. Within academe, the European white male author model had already been thoroughly criticized during the 1960s and 1970s. Many works by women, gays, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and non-Europeans had made their way into college literature courses. However, the question of their permanent status as canonical works still remained to be decided: should they become a required and consistent part of the college curriculum, informed by the literary canon? This question has been hotly debated both by academics and non-academics since the early 1980s. The Modern Language Association sponsored special sessions on the canon during their annual conventions; scholars hotly debated the issue.

Just how far back the literary canon can be traced is a matter of some debate. Deconstructive, feminist, Marxist or new-historicist have questioned the process of canon formation and established literary canon too. Walder, Dennis writes:

The women's movement and the rise of feminism, have been responsible for the new thinking about language that has had such a profound effect upon literary studies over the last half-century. This effect may be discerned initially as the motive for displacing the traditionally accepted texts of the 'canon', although that has become part of a larger movement to challenge orthodoxy into accepting what have been increasingly identified as marginalized voices- whether by the procedures of pedagogy or by the politics of institutions. (5)

 The debate often focuses on the practical issue of what books to assign in college curricula, especially in required core-course in the humanities and in western civilization. Such debates created canon mono to poly. 

While the issue of which works belong in the English and American literary canon has not been permanently settled, a spectrum of opinion has gradually emerged. Some conservative scholars insist that the classics of English and American literature taught since the beginning of the nineteenth century must remain at the core of the canon since they represent the notion of tradition. These critics would exclude noncanonical works on the basis that they are marginal and do not represent the best literary achievement of the culture. On the other end of the spectrum are radical scholars who would almost completely replace the classics of the canon with noncanonical and documentary works.

The majority of scholars fall somewhere in the middle, however, in that they advocate keeping a modest core of classics in the canon but supplementing it with the best of literature by women and minorities. With the aim of carrying on and refining this debate, critics have written much about inclusion criteria for both American and English works. Scholars like Lillian S. Robinson, Nina Baym, and Anette Kolodny have injected questions of gender and empowerment into the canon debate. There has also been discussion about the political aspects of the canon, with critic such as Frank Kermode focusing on postcolonial aspects of minority literature. He assumes that “ the literary canon is a load-bearing element of the existing power structure, and believes that by imposing radical change on the canon you can help to dismantle the power structure” (28).

In conclusion, there are many ways in which literary works can be classified, but the literary canon seems to apply a certain validity or authority to a work of literature. When a work is entered into the canon, thus canonized, it gains status as an official inclusion into a group of literary works that are widely studied and respected. Those who decide whether a work will be canonized include influential literary critics, scholars, teachers, and anyone whose opinions and judgments regarding a literary work are also widely respected. For this reason, there are no rigid qualifications for canonization, and whether a work will be canonized remains a subjective decision.

Works Cited

Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. India: Prisma Books Pvt Ltd, 1993.

Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory The Basic. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Butler, Marilyn. “Repossing the Past.” Literature in the Modern World. Ed. Dennis Walder.  

            New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Corse, Sarah M and Monica D. Griffin. “Cultural Valorization and African American

Literary History: Reconstructing the Canon”. Sociological Forum. Vol. 12, No. 2,

1997.

Walder, Dennis. "Introduction".  Literature in the Modern World. Ed. Dennis Walder.  

            New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Hornby, A S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Ed. Sally Wehmeier. 6^th ed. 2000.

Kermode, Frank. “Canon and Period”. Literature in the Modern World. Ed. Dennis Walder.  

            New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Lindenberger, Herbert. “The Canon Debate: Some Comments on the State  of the Art”. 

CanonFormation Revisited. Ed. Rakefet Sela-Sheffy. New York: 2002.

Stevens, Charlotte. "The Literary Canon". The Literary Encyclopedia. 10 January 2007.   

Billy Budd: The tragedy of justice

Billy Budd: The tragedy of justice

Continued… from the previous

          This keynote is consistently echoed in Melville’s portrayal of his principals. Capping his introductory sketch of Captain Vere in chapter Vii, Melville emphasizes that nature like Vere’s are rare in that “honesty prescribes to them directness”. Characterizing the common seaman in chapter xvi he writes with simple nostalgia of the “old fashioned sailor” whose “frankness” stands in contrast to the landman’s “finesse,” “long head” “indirection”, and “distrustfulness”. In describing the life ashore Melville anticipates our popular concepts of gamesmanship, “an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it”. In the following chapter he appeals for acceptance of his simple protagonist by disarming the anticipated skepticism of the sophisticated reader and demanding in its place “something else than mere shrewdness”. His only devious and ironical character is the Villain Claggart, and to him he has Captain Vere say, “Be direct, man”. Here in short, is an internal scale of values as poorly contrived to nourish an ironic tone as can well be imagined.

            As the story develops, it becomes steadily plainer that the irony is all in the case and not in the author’s attitude toward it. Into his climactic episode in chapter xxi Melville built a classic Aristotelian irony by which “innocence and guilt ­­… changed places” and it became a fact as unalterable as the parricide of Oedipus that Billy had killed an officer in performance (however badly) of his duty. Then in the next breath, Melville extended his donnee to include the inevitable judgement of the captain, who “was not authorized to determine the matter on [the] primitive basis [of] essential right and wrong”. At the end of the chapter, as a further inducement to our acceptance pass judgement on the actions “under fire” of “the sleepiness man on the bridge”. In the face of such rhetoric one might rather expect to find on author reproached for excessive explicitness than debated as an enigma.

            On the other hand, if it seems impossible for the ironists to be right, it is not wholly their fault that they are wrong. The seal of reconciliation which the condemned Billy is made to place upon his captain’s intransigent sentence is mystical and as hard to accept as the forgiveness of Christ on the cross. On such a scene as their final interview in chapter xxii, the author felt obliged to draw the curtain and to content himself with hinting at the passionate consonance supposed to have welled up in the spirits of these two “phenomenal’ natures. This allusion to them as Abraham and Isaac is a clue to both his sincerity and his difficulty. The originals are accepted  (when they are accepted) by a suspension of disbelief in which poetic faith is immeasurably assisted by religious faith, Melville can only invoke his biblical counter parts by allusion and hope for the best. That he fears the worst, however, is apparent from the nervous manner in which he reminds us of the “rarer qualities” in the natures of his “Abraham” and “Isaac” “so Vere indeed on to be all but incredible to average minds however much cultivated” (Rosenberry  489- 92).

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Billy Budd: The problem of Billy’s innocence and guilt

Billy Budd: The problem of Billy’s innocence and guilt

Continued… from the previous

The court-martial found it difficult to understand why Claggart should have told a malicious lie about Billy when Billy himself admitted that there had been no malice between him and Claggart. Captain Vere, perceiving the court’s perplexity, and milted that Claggart’s behavior in bringing a false charge against Billy seemed to be mysterious, but he described it as a “mystery of iniquity”, using a scriptural phrase. Captain Vere also told the court that this mystery was for psychological theologians to discuss and that a military court had nothing to do with it. Captain Vere further said that the court martial was concerned only with the deed committed by the prisoner, namely Billy. Finding the court-martial in a state of troubled indecision, captain Vere pointed out that the members of the court-martial in a state of troubled hesitancy, which proceeded from the clash of military duty with moral scruple. He also said that the moral scruple of the court-martial seemed to be strengthened by a feeling of compassion. Captain Vere admitted that, like the members of the court-martial, he too was feeling much compassion for the accused man. But he then went on to say that they weren’t a jury of “casuists” or “moralists” but that they were to decide a case under the martial law. They might be feeling it difficult to sentence a fellow creature to death when that fellow-creature was innocent in the eyes of God; but they owed their allegiance not to nature but to the king. The ocean represented primeval Nature, and they no doubt moved on the ocean and had their being as sailors on the ocean; yet as the king’s officers it was their duty to obey the code imposed upon them by the king and not to obey their natural instincts and impulses. When their country declared war against another country, the king’s officers had no choice but to fight under the orders of the king or the king’s government; similarly, when they, as the king’s officers, had to decide the kind of case which was now before them, they had to enforce martial-law in the king’s name. If the law they had to enforce was too rigorous, they weren’t responsible. Their responsibility consisted in adverting to that law and administering it, no matter how pitilessly that law might operate in particular cases.

Billy Budd: The problem of the existence of good and evil

Billy Budd: The problem of the existence of good and evil

Continued… from the previous

Viewed in symbolic terms, Billy is a personification of simplicity, goodness and innocence. There isn't the least touch of evil or wickedness in the character of Billy; and he is even unaware of the fact that evil exists. There is no malice in him, and he cannot conceive of there being any malice in the heart of anybody else. Being entirely and wholly good himself, he doesn't in the least suspect anybody else of any evil intentions. That is why he remains totally unaware of Claggart’s secret hostility towards him; and, even when the old Dansker tells him that Jemmy Legs is “down on him”, Billy Budd pays no heed to the old Dansker’s warning. Billy accepts Claggart's ironic remark about his handsome action in spilling the soup on its face value. Melville, have has traced the flaw in chapter 10.

The next day an incident served to confirm Billy Budd in his incredulity as to the Dansker’s strange summing up of the case submitted. The ship at noon going large before the wind was rolling on her course, and he below at dinner and engaged in some sportful talk with the members of his mess chanced in a sudden lurch to spill the entire contents of his souppan upon the new scrubbed deck. Claggart, the Master – at – Arms, official rattan in hand, happened to be passing along the battery in a bay of which the mess was lodged, and the greasy liquid streamed just across his path. Stepping over it, he was proceeding on his way without comment since the matter was nothing to take notice of under the circumstances, when he happened to observe who it was that had done the spilling. His countenance changed. Pausing, he was about to ejaculate something hasty at the sailor, but checked himself, and, pointing down to the streaming soup, playfully tapped him from behind with his rattan, saying in a low musical voice peculiar to him at times: “Handsomely done, my lad! "Handsome is as handsome did it too!" And with that passed on. Not noted by Billy, as not cowing within his view, was the involuntary smile, or rather grimace, that accompanied Claggart’s equivocal words" (34).

In fact, this remark by Claggart is received by Billy as a compliment which, in his opinion, gives the lie to the old Dansker’s view that Claggart is inwardly antagonistic towards Billy. Billy’s simplicity, innocence and goodness can thus notified as the hamartia which can be compared to those of Adam before the Fall. These qualities of Billy make of him and entirely exceptional kind of man. Being a common man, Billy suffers from a defect also. This is a vocal defect. This is a defect, which in a moment of crisis or at a time of emotional stress renders Billy incapable of speaking properly. On such occasions Billy can only stammer or stutter, and sometimes he can only produce a gurgling sound from his throat and is unable to speak coherently at all. It is precisely this defect, which may be indicated as the hamartia that becomes responsible for Billy’s inability to defend himself when accused falsely of mutinous intentions by Claggart, and which leads Billy impulsively to give Claggart a severe blow that proves fatal. It has particularly to be noted that Billy had no prier intention to kill Claggart or even to do the least harm, bodily or otherwise, to that man. Billy’s action in hitting Claggart is totally unpremeditated.

            Claggart, in symbolic terms, is a personification of evil. Melville has taken special care in drawing the character of Claggart and in psycho- analyzing Claggart’s mind. In another words, Melville has created Claggart as a villain who weaves the plot of conspiracy. Using a phrase taken from Plato’s writings, Melville attributes to Claggart a “natural depravity” which means “depravity according to nature” or “inborn depravity.” Claggart is evil by nature. Evil is innate in him. And it isn't an ordinary kind of evil, the evil and him becomes a mania with him. Now, a man who is by nature evil would become antagonistic to others with out any thyme or reason. The very innocence and goodness of others may provoke such a men so much that he wouldn’t rest till he has done some serious damage to others. The Evil in Claggart is animated and stirred into action by the very innocence and harmlessness of Billy. There is no rational explanation for the existence of this evil in Claggart. This evil had not been generated in him by vicious training or by corrupting books or by loose living. It was simply born with him. Melville descries this kind of evil as a “mystery of iniquity”. Billy’s simplicity, goodness, and innocence arouse a feeling of envy in Claggart. He would like to acquire Billy’s qualities but realizing that he cannot do so, he is filled with despair. The feelings of envy and despair then make him antagonistic to Billy. Envy and antipathy begin to co-exist in Claggart. When he looks at Billy, his face is manned by an expression of malice just as in the Bible we read of Saul’s face assuming an expression of sadness when Saul gazed on the comely young David. "Driven by such passions, Claggart adopts the desperate course of fabricating a report against Billy and lodging a formal complaint with captain Vere to the effect that Billy is a potential mischief-maker" (Arvin 160).

Billy Budd: The problem of Billy’s innocence and guilt

Billy Budd: The problem of Billy’s innocence and guilt                                       

            Captain Vere’s dilemma was that, an one hand, he was convinced of Billy’s essential innocence and that, on the other hand, he felt bound to establish Billy’s guilt and have him sentenced to death. Billy was innocence because it was Claggart’s false charge against him which provoked Billy to deal a blow to his accused and kill him, though unintentionally. Billy’s action was not premeditated; and he had absolutely no intention. or wish to kill Claggart. The falsity of the charge and the wickedness of Claggart in making that charge against Billy were in captain Vere’s eyes sufficient justification for Billy’s action. It was this feeling which made captain Vere say to the ship’s Surgeon with reference to Claggart’s death at Billy’s hands: “It is the divine judgment on ananias!” And it was this feeling which made him say further: “struck dead by an angel of  God!” But Billy was guilty in the eyes of the military law. Towards the end of the trial, Captain Vere thus summed up the case against Billy: In war time at see a man-of-war’s man strikes his superior in grade, and the blow kills. Apart from its effect the blow itself is, according to the Articles of war, a capital crime”. At this moment also Captain Vere admitted the Billy was innocent in the eyes of God saying that, on the judgment Day. Billy would be acquitted by God but the court-martial had to decide the case under the law of the Mutiny Act. Billy’s intent or non-intent was not relevant to the offence, which he had committed, captain Vere went or to say. (Sten 45)

            Captain Vere’s dilemma thus was whether to have Billy acquitted or convicted and sentenced to death. Actually it was no dilemma at all because captain Vere made up his mind in the matter almost at the very moment Claggart was struck dead. When a little after Claggart’s death, captain Vere said that Claggart had been struck dead by an angel of God, he in the save breath added: “Yet the angel must hang.” Thus there was no conflict in Captain Vere’s mind at all. He took an almost instantaneous decision; he took a decision on the spot without experiencing any uncertainty or hesitancy. Nor did he show and sign of warning or vacillation during the trial. Al his statements before the court-martial were categorical and unambiguous. (47)

At the outset of the trial it seemed that caption Vere would come to Billy’s rescue and would try to mitigate his guilt. When, for instance, Billy said that the master-at-arms hadn't told the truth and that he (Billy) was loyal to the king, captain Vere turned towards Billy and said: “I believe you, my man”. Again, when Billy was asked why Claggart should have told a lie about him if there had been no malice between Claggart and him, captain Vere intervened to say that this question wasn’t one, which should be addressed to Billy because only Claggart could have answered this question. But, in what followed, Captain Vere’s attitude showed that he had absolutely no intention to try to save Billy from the consequences of his action. In intervening on Billy’s behalf twice, as indicated above, captain Vere only spoke what was true; and during the rest of the proceedings he also spoke what he believed to be true.

           

Continued…

Are most Nepali marries still arranged?

Are most Nepali marries still arranged?

or

What are your views on the subject of arranged marriage?

Nepal has still a large scope of arranged marriage whether it is bad or good culture. Most of Nepali marriages are taken as the arranged pattern. For this system westerners who mostly follow love marriage may feel odd and surprised. Arranged marriage is suitable and common phenomena in Nepali context.

No doubt, in the name of arranged marriage there would be couple (boy and girl) are not given chance to meet and spend time together beforehand. Sometimes the married life can't be happy and satisfactory because there is no chance to share and understand each other's interests, likes and dislikes. A changing picture can be seen that there is a system of giving chance to have short discussion and self-decision to the candidates. Again, in term of after married life durability there are less rates of divorced couples in Nepal like countries. This problem seems very higher disagree in western countries where love marriage is mostly selected.

Arranged marriage is always not good because all arranged marriages are not systematically arranged. The marriage which we see in exercise in Indian culture has more advantages and least disadvantages. My opinion about arranged marriage is fully positive because our family and neighbours seem happy and satisfied under arranged marriage system. There is trust and more responsibility between couple and future care for upcoming children. As there is total freedom in love marriage, sometimes such love marriages may have problem of divorce and mistrust. Again, all the arranged marriages are always not fitted and apt. The marriage where participants are educated, candidates are awarded and marriage bond is understandably matched this can be an ideal example of arranged marriage. I also like to support such marriage system.

There can be a question: How can a woman always be puppet in the hand of husband in arranged marriage? How can woman get freedom and choice in arranged marriage?, etc. But the arranged marriage becomes the best when all people are too much careful about class, standard, culture, education and others. Lastly, I can say that over freedom in love marriage is poisonous and over restriction in arranged marriage can't be nectar (honey ) either.