Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

168 THE ENVIOUS MAN IN FICTION
Claggart found it both inconceivable and intolerable that Billy should
fail entirely to return his hatred, he read deliberate insults into chance
happenings, like the spilling of the soup, so that his envy of Billy could
find nourishment in self-righteous contempt and indignation. 11
The blind spot in Melville scholars towards the
envy-motive in Billy Budd
It is not just the social sciences of this century that exhibit a blind spot so
far as envy is concerned, but also its literary criticism. When a writer of
Herman Melville's standing devotes many pages of his last work to
preparing the reader, in exemplary fashion, for the dominant motive of
the drama's enigmatic central character, when he provides in addition
what amounts to a phenomenology of envy from the standpoint of depth
psychology, and when he chooses this concept, in a special series of
words taken from Milton's Paradise Lost, as a chapter heading, it might
be supposed that Melville scholars, at least when treating of this novel,
would be bound to mention, if only once, Melville's attempt to solve the
riddle of envy and of crime resulting from it. We look in vain for any such
mention. A systematic survey of works on Billy Budd reveals that most of
them totally disregard the problem of envy. This is the more surprising in
that Melville repeatedly referred to the motive in other works, and was
concerned with its metaphysics in discussing John Milton. 12
11 op. cit., pp. 678 f.
12 Cf., for example, 'Jackson, in Redburn, who seemed specially to hate a young
sailor-Redburn himself-on account of his youth, fair cheeks, and good health ...
Radney of The Town-Ho's story in Moby Dick (ch. 54), who also envies a handsome and
popular sailor.' (Herman Melville: Billy Budd, sailor, reading Text and genetic Text,
edited from the Manuscript with Introduction and Notes, by H. Hayford and M. M.
Sealts, 2nd ed., London and Chicago, 1963, p. 32.) Or in H. F. Pommer: 'Redburn
believed that one cause of Jackson's hatred for him was envy of his physical well being:
For I was young and handsome ... whereas he was being consumed by an incurable
malady that was eating up his vitals. A similar case was that of the Belfast sailor who
was continually being abused and snubbed by Jackson, who seemed to hate him
cordially, because of his great strength and fine person, and particularly because of his
red cheeks' (Redburn, pp. 72, 356, 356-7,374,376.) Jealousy not very different from
this was part of Satan's motivation too: Milton, Paradise Lost, IX, 119-30. (Milton and
Melville, Pittsburgh, 1950, pp. 85 f.)