Patterns of Resistance and Tragic Conventions

Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, and Bartleby the Scrivener are stories that deal with patterns of resistance, both active and passive. Though the mode and effectuality of resistance are different in each story, the ultimate outcome is always tragic. I would argue, moreover, that each story adheres to the Aristotelian definition of tragedy, in which a hero's "misfortune...is brought upon him not by vice and depravity but by some great error in his part" (Aristotle, 16). This notion of a tragic flaw is manifested in the characters of Billy Budd, Babo, and Bartleby. Before succumbing to his flaw, each of these characters passes through a moment of self-revelation, or epiphany. This moment constitutes another tragic convention, one that is perhaps most recognizable in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Prior to his fateful duel with Laertes, Hamlet has a moment in which he comes to terms with all that life has set in store for him (Act V, scene II, 1751):

Not a whit, we defy augury: there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it not be now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is 't to leave betimes? Let be.

By accepting that he cannot foresee his fate and must instead live in readiness for the unknown that lies ahead, Hamlet achieves a personal epiphany. Indeed, he experiences one of the "occasional flashings-forth of the intuitive Truth " that Melville describes in his essay, "Hawthorne and His Mosses." "Intuitive" moments of epiphany and self-fruition likewise inform own Melville's writing. Rather than conveying explicit and self-contained meanings, these moments evoke fleeting and incomplete sensations of "Truth." In so doing, they conform to Melville's modernist notion that "the stumps of truth" cannot be explained or captured, only perceived.

In Billy Budd, the title character's tragic flaw lies in his inability to distinguish what is perverse and evil. Claggart's "depravity according to nature" (326), lies beyond the scope of Budd's comprehension. This is evident when he responds to Dansker (320).

The old man...laconically said, 'Baby Budd, Jemmy Legs' (meaning the master-at-arms) 'is down on you.'

'Jemmy Legs!' ejaculated Billy, his welkin eyes expanding. 'What for? Why, he calls me "the sweet and pleasant young fellow," they tell me.'

For this implicit weakness, the narrator likens Budd to Achilles, the fatally-flawed tragic hero from Homer's Iliad (321)

When Claggart openly accuses Budd of instigating a mutiny aboard the

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