Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

10
The Envious Man
in Fiction
THE ONLY LITERARY WORKS with the title Envy seem to be a French
and a Russian novel and a German short story. But Herman Melville's
last work, Billy Budd, deserves that title. It is perhaps the most
profound attempt in fiction to discuss the problem of envy in human
existence.
Herman Melville
Billy Budd, a big, fair, good-looking sailor on board a merchantman, is
impressed into the Royal Navy. His captain complains to the naval officer
of the great loss this means to him. In Budd he is losing one of his best
sailors and one who, by sheer kindness and availability, has made a
peaceful crew of the wild rabble on board. When Budd first arrived, the
captain says, only one person took an immediate dislike to him, a bad
character whose motive he states precisely: envy of the newcomer
because everyone else liked him so much. 1 After picking a quarrel with
Billy Budd, however, the envious character was so promptly and thoroughly
thrashed that from then on he, also, was one of his friends. The
captain fears unrest in his crew if Budd, the peacemaker, leaves it. But
characteristically Budd himself voluntarily submits to conscription
aboard the warship.
Melville depicts Budd not only as an exceptionally handsome and
skilled young seaman; we are also told that he is probably a foundling of
aristocratic birth. But Budd has a slight impediment-excitement de-
l H. Melville, 'Billy Budd,' in The Portable Melville, ed. J. Leyda, New York, 1952,
p.643.
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