Society: The Ultimate Doppelganger
SOCIETY: THE ULTIMATE DOPPELGANGERMelville and Conrad strove to make their narratives realistic reflections of the worlds in which they lived by injecting into them various true-to-life circumstances based on personal experience. Both widely-traveled men of the sea, they had occasion to witness numerous situations in which the laws of society collided with the laws of morality, causing each man, in turn, to evaluate and subsequently condemn a system condoned by society.Melville, in Billy Budd, Sailor, and Conrad, in Heart of Darkness, utilizednarrators who--within the artistic context--were able to offer derogatory opinions of perpetrated evils which the authors could not. The imagery is more symbolic than realistic, as the central interest of both authors is not the portrayed reality but the legitimate meaning or inference that exists beneath the surface.The inherent evil of Claggart and the Christ-like qualities of Billy Budd are well-defined in the classic struggle of good and evil in Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor. The underlying issue of note is not the struggle between good and evil, but the social, political, and military temperament of the period. While the novel opens with several chapters of historical
The inferiority of the natives is a central theme throughout the story, and the author's constant dehumanization of black people accurately portrays the colonialist view of the natives, describing them as "mostly black and naked, moving about like ants" (32), while in the shade, "dark things" seem to stir feebly, and are called shadows. Billy Budd's impressment and departure from the symbolic Rights-of-Man reminds the reader of Dante's Divine Comedy wherein we find the warning "All hope abandon, ye who enter here," foreshadowing a future devoid of hope and personal rights. Billy Budd, Sailor is a testimony to Melville's concern for decaying moral standards and governmental controls that condone sacrificial murder in the name of 'law' and 'social order', and where the very image of goodness must be sacrificed to preserve a societal principle. Both Billy Budd, Sailor and Heart of Darkness are laced with a liberal dose of ironic social criticism; inasmuch as the authors disagreed with social conditions, they introduced a variety of socially acceptable evil characters to illustrate their points, while exposing the social philosophies and policies as the true evils. Ultimately, those who appear to be the most civilized in this novel are actually the most savage. Naval discipline was brutal, using impressments--a revolting threat to freedom--as a means to fill the ranks. A clear metaphor of white exploitation of the natives is presented via the two women seated, in front of the sitting room doors of the company headquarters, knitting black wool. Falsely accused of mutiny by Claggart, Budd, in his innocence, is broken and condemned under maritime law. Marlow becomes the primary narrator, and mentions colonization in a negative sense, suggesting that the taking of the earth is not to be examined too closely, as it is atrocious. According to Mottram "Billy Budd, Sailor brings Melville's anguish before the nature of law to a final performance, without resolution" (242). The white worsted around the neck of a young native is presented by Conrad as a symbol of the white yoke of imperialistic colonization around the neck of Africa, harnessed and ready for exploitation. This same "good," Melville and Conrad regretfully came to realize, had very little to do with true goodness at all, but rather was a "good" which only served the egos and policies of politicians, military leaders and the unlimited greed of industrialized nations. The knitting itself is a symbol of white manipulation and weaving of native people into a grand white scheme or design. The physical positions of the bodies relate to the mental and social state of the subjects, and the mere sight of a native who wears breeches is cause for amusement. We are introduced to Marlow by an unnamed guest aboard a yawl at anchor on the Thames.
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Acceptance Essays
