Herman Melville and the Problem of Evil



Melville and the Problem of Evil 105
of a chronic stammer, feels himself bursting with anger and
suddenly and instinctively lashes out with a terrific blow at
his accuser, which kills him. The action to be taken by Cap-
tain Vere, who is presented as a wise, humane man, is diffi-
cult but inevitable. The killing of an officer can be punished
only by the death penalty, especially in a time of mutiny
throughout the fleet, when discipline must be maintained.
But the captain has a long talk with Billy in which he ex-
plains his decision, and when the sailor is hanged, his last
words, spoken to his comrades, are, “God bless Captain
Vere!”

I cannot do justice here to the control, the ease, the fin-
ished artistry of this story. It belongs certainly with Mel-
ville’s best work. What the story has to say, though, is rele-
vant to our discussion. The wronged sailor—and the story
makes it clearer than I have here that Billy
is wronged—
does not fight back like Ahab, does not give up in despair like
Pierre. Victimized by incarnate evil, he accepts his fate with
courage, understands that Captain Vere is not persecuting
him, resigns himself to a world in which good and evil are
inextricably mixed, yet by his bravery wins new values out
of defeat.

Billy Budd is Melville’s last testament, a testament of ac-
ceptance. But it is not a conversion to an easy optimism.
The evil is still there and cannot be shunned; but Melville
can now perceive that one may face the evil calmly and reso-
lutely without beating his head and lacerating his hands
against an irresistible force and that in the process one can
win a new kind of nobility.

I hope that this brief and superficial survey has made clear
at least the nature of Melville’s tragic vision. He had two
requisites of the writer of true tragedy—concern with the
problem of evil, with man’s plight on earth, and a great-



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