Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

HERMAN MELVILLE 163
prives him of the power of speech. Billy Budd's downfall stems from the
person of the master-at-arms, John Claggart. Melville intimates by hints
about Claggart's origins and his civilian career that this is a man who, on
several counts, is seething with resentment against society and life in
general.
Billy Budd gets on well with his shipmates. He is popular and in
addition does his utmost to carry out his duties with painstaking efficiency.
Having, at the very beginning of his service, witnessed the
flogging of a sailor for a minor mistake, Billy seeks to avoid attracting
the attention of his superiors. But he soon notices that minor accidents
keep befalling him. His gear, carefully stowed, is in disorder. The malice
of inanimate objects constantly thwarts his endeavour to be a perfect
seaman. He discusses this with an old sailor who explains that the
master-at-arms is down on him. This Billy cannot believe, since his
shipmates have told him that the master-at-arms always calls him 'the
sweet and pleasant young fellow.' For Billy, Claggart always has a
friendly word and a smile.
Melville several times describes the petty officer's envious look of
hatred when he knows himself unobserved either by his victim or by the
other sailors. Melville also muses on the fact that the envious man's
chosen victim is seldom able to detect the intentions and feelings of his
persecutor from his expression or behaviour. Resentment and envy are
hostile feelings that are easily concealed, and which it is often essential
to disguise if the plot is to succeed.
Billy Budd, Melville's embodiment of everything that is innocent,
good and harmless, cannot comprehend why Claggart, whom he seeks to
please by the exemplary performance of his duties, pursues him with the
bitterest envy simply because Billy is the man he is. Thus, before relating
the tragic events, Melville interpolates an analysis of envy.
After Melville has shown the reader what Billy and a number of his
shipmates refuse to believe, namely, that 'Claggart is down on him,' and
has confirmed this through the mouth of one of the crew, he looks for
possible motives. Several are discussed and rejected before, very cautiously
and gradually, Melville advances envy. At first, all he says is:
... yet the cause [of Billy's persecution by the master-at-arms], necessarily
to be assumed as the sole one assignable, is in its very realism as much