The reader worries along with the surgeon as he carries out the captain’s orders to alert the ship’s officers. Again, Melville resorts to rhetorical questions to heighten drama and to draw attention to the question of the captain’s sanity: Has the captain lost his customary aplomb for dealing with tense situations? Is he mentally stable after witnessing so harrowing a scene in his chambers? Is there a better way of judging the tragic act that has caused an underling to take the life of an officer?
Melville skillfully and dramatically contrasts differing points of view in the impromptu courtroom:
* Billy, vulnerable and wholly mystified by courtroom subtleties, depends on the captain to render justice.
* The captain of the marines, a soldier rather out of place among sailors, presses Vere for other testimony that might shed light on Claggart’s accusation.
* The first lieutenant, resuming control of the proceedings, passes over the soldier’s request, thereby abandoning study of mitigating circumstances so that he can return the testimony to the act itself.
* Captain Vere, acting as both witness and judge in the name of the king, presses the court for a death sentence in compliance with the Mutiny Act.
Had the soldier persisted with his request, Billy might have produced corroborating testimony from a number of people, namely the Dansker, the afterguardsman, and Squeak. Had the lieutenant ignored Vere’s push for a speedy end to the trial, more data might have placed Billy in better light. Other solutions are possible, but they are mere conjecture, and therefore irrelevant.
At this point, the author delineates Captain Vere’s dilemma: whether to demonstrate his personal esteem and compassion for Billy, or whether to heed his single-minded devotion to duty. Vere delivers a long speech which takes the form of both sides of a dialectic, or debate. At the conclusion, he diminishes himself somewhat by his choice: he prefers to act as agent for martial law than to rally the human side of his nature. Turning away from the “feminine in man,” he condemns rather than consider a lesser penalty.
Repeatedly, Melville reminds the reader that the zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, is of paramount influence. It must be remembered that mutinies have badly shaken the military during this period. Also, the Bellipotent, like a tiny microcosm, is separate from the main body of the fleet after sighting but falling to overtake a French warship. Such a separation elevates Captain Vere’s power and responsibility as administrator to god-like status. The onus of his role as captain impels him to action. Thus, the pressures of the wartime situation mitigate somewhat the three panelists’—and the readers’—harsh judgment of Captain Vere’s stern discipline.
