Claggart's deep antagonism

Billy was totally unaware of Claggart's deep antagonism towards him. Even when he observed something strange at times in Claggart's behaviour, he felt soon reassured when Claggart spoke a few pleasing words to him. 

This is what Melville says in this connection:

He (Billy) thought the master-at-arms acted in a manner rather queer at times. That was all. But the occasional frank air and pleasant word a went for what they purported to be, the young Sailor never having heard as yet of the "too fair spokesman."

Had the foretopman been conscious of having done or said anything to provoke the ill will of the official, it would have been different with him, and his sight might have been purged if not sharpened, as it was, innocence was his blinder (BBS 49)

In this chapter we know that because of his ignorance and his innocence rendered him totally incapable of perceiving any evil in the man. We are also told that the after guardsman, after having received a rebuff from Billy, did not much bother him again except for nodding to him as a mark of recognition or speaking to him a pleasant word or two. The after guardsman had surely realized that the very simplicity of the Handsome Sailor had rendered him formidable enough to resist all evil. Furthermore we know the psychoanalysis of Claggart.

Keats, "Ode to Nightingale

Ode to a Nightingale

The world is full of chaos and disorders justice is rarely found. Melville writes in the letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne "But truth is the silliest thing under the sun"(65). How this world goes!

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies.

(Keats, "Ode to Nightingale,"24-6)

John Keats in the above verse depicts the condition of man who is sad, diseased, pale and thin, and whose life is perpetually under groan, pangs and suffering. The same condition is of the modern man where Billy cannot escape. He is amid the suffering, groan and pang. His desires are paralyzed. His grief and despair are the product of world wars. Meantime Melville comes into this world and he depicts the theme of 20^th century tragic vision in his stories and novels. He presents contemporary problems caused by the outbreak of the war. It is his age that provided the subjects maters for his stories and novels. He modified all these subject mattes with his personal experiences. His chief preoccupation has been the portrayal of hardship of the external world and his main character's excessive capacity of endurance and fortitude. Billy is the one who never tried to understand the Dansker's comment about Claggart attitude. He couldn't under4stnad the world is not like him who endure all sorts of accusation.

Renaissance: Impact on English Literature

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