Good and evil exist in all things. In Herman Melville's novel Billy Budd, good is represented by Billy Budd and evil, by John Claggart. Together, they embody Melville's portrayal of opposing forces that run throughout all aspects of human experience. In addition, Melville provides for the possibility of a balance between good and evil through the character of Captain Vere. In Freudian terminology, I might view Claggart as Id, untamed instinct. Billy can then be seen as Ego, existing to contain and direct Id instincts in a productive fashion, Vere could be seen as Superego in his struggles with his conscience to decide between the letter of the law and his own view of Billy. This novel, Melville's final work, stresses his belief that good does not, indeed, can not, exist without evil, nor, since Adam and Eve, has either stood alone.
From the beginning, Billy Budd awed his companions with the strength of his love for life. When he was taken from the ship, The Rights of Man, Captain Graveling became disturbed at the thought of losing such a man, saying "Beg pardon, but you don't understand, Lieutenant. See here now. Before I shipped that young fellow, my forecastle was a rat-pit of quarrels. It was black times, I tell you aboard the Rights here. I was worried to that degree my pipe had no comfort for me. But Billy came, and it was like a Catholic priest striking peace in an Irish shindy...a virtue went out of him, sugaring the sour ones." Clearly from the start, we are made aware of Billy's goodness, his ability to bring peace to the roughest of men. He is likened to a Priest, and portrayed as exuding a sweetness which seems contagious. The crew saw him as the "sweet and pleasant fellow," and a "peacemaker." Billy although sweet and innocent, is still not perfect. Indeed, he has a minor flaw, rendering him somehow more human. At times, when under emotional strain,and he cannot express himself, he stutters. On his new ship, Billy faces John Claggart, the master-at-arms. Claggart had the job "of preserving order on the populous lower gun decks." Claggart tends to take his job too zealously, flogging young sailors on any excuse when in fact, they have done nothing wrong. Melville immediately paints a heinous picture of this man, as someone with an overarching need to be in control, to the point where he uses punishment where none is necessary, to further his sense of superiority over others. The fact that he must do this to cover up his inner feelings of inferiority, goes unnoticed by Claggart and most everyone else.
Even in his descriptions, Melville gives Claggart and Billy distinctive looks which emphasize their characters. Melville sets Claggart apart from the rest of the crew by virtue of his education and his appearance. From the start, he is labeled as abnormal: "This complexion, singularly contrasting with the red or deeply bronzed visages of the sailors, and in part of his official seclusion from the sunlight, though it was not exactly displeasing, nevertheless seemed to hint something defective or abnormal in the constitution and blood." Billy, on the other hand, is physically described as being exceptionally handsome, tanned and fit, muscular blond and blue-eyed. Already, Melville makes us aware of the contrast between these two men.
Throughout the novel, Claggart shows his pure hatred and envy of Billy through several actions. Claggart is determined to prove that Billy is not all that he seems to be. In the beginning of the novel, Billy accidently spills some soup on the recently washed decks just as Claggart walks by. "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! And handsome is as handsome did it too!' And with that passed on. Not noted by Billy, as not coming within his view, was the involuntary smile, or rather grimace, that accompanied Claggart's equivocal words." Claggart believed that the soup spilling occurred because of Billy's hatred of him. In reality, it is Claggart who uses the soup spilling as an excuse to hate Billy. Another example of Claggart's hatred of Billy is expressed when Claggart reports to Captain Vere that Billy is planning a mutiny. Vere and Claggart confront Billy with this accusation and Billy is horrified at the false allegation. He cannot believe that Claggart would become such a devil and lie so cruelly. Billy had been the recipient of Claggart's deliberate cruelty too many times. Presumably Billy was unable to express his unaccustomed rage in words due to his stutter when he was upset. Therefore, he reacted in an instinctive but ultimately permanent manner. Thus, his only response to the false accusation was a physical blow: "Quick as lightning Billy fly his arm. I dare say he never meant to do quite as much as he did, but anyhow he gave the burly fool a terrible drubbing." The punch killed Claggart and it was Billy who threw the punch. The killing of Claggart can be seen as divine justice, but on the ship Indomitable, the superior officer has been murdered under war time conditions. Claggart was "struck dead by an angel of god. Yet the angel must hang." Billy is innocent in what he is, but not in what he does to Claggart. Because Billy is good, he could not have imagined using his physical strength to hurt Claggart. In fact, it seemed so out of character, yet he was pushed beyond endurance. Because Billy was unable to contain himself, he commits his ultimate and only crime.
Thus, like opposite sides of the same coin, Billy from his essential, but humanly flawed goodness and Claggart as the personification of pointless cruelty both meet their fates. Ironically, society tolerates needless cruelty as long as it is stopped short of death, but struggles with accidental death defined by a man who was later to be revered by the people with whom he worked. Perhaps for Melville, who draws heavily on religious symbolism, the sacrifice of Billy, like that of Christ, served to prove once again that man cannot tolerate difference in the form of pure goodness.
