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The difficult Justice of Melville and Kleist EssayAccording to many scholars, billy Budd is the archetypal story of good vs. evil, the injustice of an fragile world, and the impossible decisions good people are forced to make. On a first reading of the story, maestro Vere appears to be a symbol of merciless justice, cold efficiency, and the power of the State a godlike stick out with the power to take life when and where he sees fit. The captain, whose name is loosely translated as Truth, is caught in the middle amidst the both. He is fond of truncheon, because of his friendly open character.He dislikes Claggart because he instinctively feels that he is evil, No to begin with did the Commander observe who it was that deferentially stood awaiting his notice, than a peculiar expression came over him. It was not unlike that which uncontrollably will flit across the countenance of one at unawares encountering a person who, though known to him indeed, has hardly been long e nough known for thorough knowledge, but something in whose aspect notwithstanding now for the first provokes a vaguely repellent distaste(Chapter 19, Melville).Vere appears to have an intuitive knowledge of what is proper(ip) and just, which makes it all the much baffling why he chooses to disregard what he knows is right in party favour of the expedient. Martin Greenberg, in The Difficult Justice of Melville and Kleist, cites two arguments for Veres decision to punish Billy first, is the loss of open will that follows enlistment in the Navy second, the fear of mutiny and chaos is extremely compelling to a high ranking official like a captain (4). Greenberg and Melville understand Veres predicament as a man of the military.Had he been soft, perhaps more lives would have been lost through mutiny, and the cohesion of the princely Navy might have been destroyed. The story is set in 1797, following the American Revolt against the Crown. In such tumultuous times, any form of clemen cyespecially in the armed forceswould be seen as a weakness for the unscrupulous to exploit. The story of false accusations against an innocent has a long history in the literary, Biblical, and historical traditions. Quite often, the person in charge of making such life or ending decisions is either unable or unwilling to do the right thing (i.e. Pontius Pilate). Pontius Pilate and Captain Vere have some(prenominal) sent innocent men to their deaths for fear of social unrest, or an end to the status quo. In the acres of ethics, their action would have been unconscionable, but in politics, leaders must abide by the Macchiavellian dictate to When Vere calls upon Billy to answer his accuser, he believed that he would be quickly exonerated because there is nothing in his nature that would give credence to such an outlandish allegation.Until Billy strikes Claggart dead in a fit of unlogical rage, In Martin Greenbergs analysis of Billy Budd, he remarks on the Biblical imagery immanent in the descriptions of John Claggart and Billy Budd, The two of them are the great forces of light and dark in the miniature origination of the ship, And that world provides, like the great world itself, a Satan, harsher than his harsh name of Claggart, as sinisterly handsome as Billy is angelicallymodeled on Miltons Satan, despairing like him, but ignoble(5). superstar of the ironies in examining this supposed lack of free will, is that it is an ineffable part of the Christian doctrine yet those that are obedient to this higher power often feel compelled to perform actions they never would have dreamt of doing. Melville makes frequent allusions to Abraham and Isaac, with discover to Abrahams near sacrifice of his son on the mountainside.Greenberg remarks upon this likeness at length in his analysis, The two are imagined as embracing like father and son, like Jacob and Isaac, in the privacy of the sailors confinement, where as if it were a sacred precinct, the storyteller doesnt venture to enter. Each experiences a sacrificial apotheosis Billy, sacrificing his life at the behest of the father-god of his world, exclaims God bless Captain Vere just before he drops from the yardarm the Captain, as the one who condemns to death, makes even the harder sacrifice (according to the cashier at the behest of his father-god the King(5).With the death of Claggart, Vere argued for Billys death in a military court. The officers present knew that he was innocent of mutiny and homicide. He did not have the mental capacity to engineer such a coup, nor was he aware of his own strength. all(prenominal) he wanted to do was stop the lies coming out of Claggarts mouth, and he reacted physically since he was unable to do so verbally. Would it not be a crime to kill someone that is mentally handicapped and too strong for his own good?Would it not be better to set him ashore in England or the Americas, then restore order to the At the beginning of Chapter 23, when sentence was to be passed upon the approved, the narrator presented a rather sympathetic portrait of Captain Vere, The austere devotee of military duty, letting himself meld back into what remains primeval in our formalized humanity, may in the end have caught Billy to his heart even as Abraham may have caught young Isaac on the brink of resolutely go him up in obedience to the exacting behest (Melville).Like Christ, Billy had done no wrong, and perhaps this genuinely perfection makes him less sympathetic than Captain Vere to Melville. As fallible human beings, some have more power than they know how to wield, and some decisions come at the price of the soul. It is Greenbergs contention that the supernatural powers of the one true God, a pantheon of gods, heaven, or angels are no match for earthly injustice.The crucifixion of Jesus, the execution of Billy, and the avenging of Claggart substantiates this misanthropical world view. Works Cited Greenberg, Martin. The Difficult Justice of Melvil le Kleist. The New Criterion. (March, 2005) 3-11 Melville, Herman. Billy Budd, Sailor. Retrieved 5 Apr. 2007 from http//xroads. virginia. edu/HYPER/bb/BillyBudd. html