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The scorpion's suicide: Claggart's death in Billy Budd.

Article Excerpt
There are people dedicated to evil in the world," writes Arthur Miller in the Introduction to his Collected Plays. "'Evil is not a mistake but a fact in itself.... I think now that one of the hidden weaknesses of our whole approach to dramatic psychology is our inability to face this fact--to conceive, in effect, of Iago." (1) A notable exception to Miller's strictures is Herman Melville, who in Billy Budd created a character as much impelled by "motiveless malignity" as Iago--John Claggart, the master-at-arms of the warship Bellipotent. Of the three principle characters in Billy Budd, Claggart ought to be--and to some extent is--the most enigmatic, his personal dynamic shrouded in mystery, what Melville called "the mystery of iniquity." Melville finesses the issue of Claggart's malignity by authorially declaring it the tale's donnee. "What was the matter with the master-at-arms?" (2) the narrator asks at the beginning of the crucial section 11, addressing the cause of Claggart's irrational, obsessive malice toward the handsome, naive, wholly good-natured young foretopman, Billy. The answer is simple: Claggart is evil.

Melville adduces a definition of "Natural Depravity" offered (supposedly) by Plato : "a depravity according to nature"(75). (3) The circularity of this definition suggests that the term serves Melville as what is sometimes called a "primitive locution," one of those terms that must be considered axiomatic in order to conduct moral discourse. He distinguishes this negative quality from Calvin's theological concept of natural depravity which marks the whole of the fallen human condition, emphasizing that the term, as he uses it, describes only the rare individual who relishes evil for its own sake, who subscribes to Satan's credo: Evil, be thou my good. "These men are madmen, and of the most dangerous sort ..." (76), and such a man is Claggart.

Melville realized that such "dark sayings," savoring somewhat of Holy Writ, would ill commend his work to readers of his own day, already too "enlightened"...