Melville's 'Paradise' and 'The Portent': Critical Analysis

The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids (1855). This work, one of several short pieces by Melville divided into contrasting halves, opens by first describing the leisurely, abundant banquet and pleasant conversation enjoyed by a group of prosperous middle-aged bachelors, most of whom are lawyers (or their friends) associated with the pleasant London environs of the ancient Inns of Court, the center of the English legal establishment. In the second half of the work, the same narrator who participated in the banquet describes his harsh, midwinter journey in America to a hellish paper factory staffed mainly by poor, unmarried women. Both his journey and the machines that dominate the factory are described in terms that suggest the mechanics of sexual reproduction—a fact that has led many readers to see this part of the work as a commentary on both the economic and sexual exploitation of the poor, anonymous females the story depicts.

As Lea Newman notes in her fine overview of commentary on this work, most reactions to the tale have tended to present it, variously, as a satire of the smug self-complacency of the comfortable middle-class bachelors, as an indictment of the horrors of industrial capitalism and the poverty it fosters and depends on, and/or as a grim reflection on the biological slavery to which women are confined because it is they who must bear children (297). The landscape surrounding the factory resembles, in both names and appearance, aspects of the female body. The machinery inside the cavernous building—with its two vats full of pulpy white liquid and the hot, steamy mill that produces paper in exactly nine minutes—obviously reminds one of the facts of sexual life, especially as they affect women.

The attitude of the narrator toward the locales and events he describes has been differently interpreted; some analysts find the narrator insufficiently critical of either of the environments he depicts, while others find his views, especially toward the hellish living and working conditions of the young women, clearly satirical. Certainly Melville himself seems to satirize the inhuman, inhumane industrial existence described in the second half of the tale; it represents a common 19th-century nightmare (and an increasingly common reality during that period) of nature mechanized and distorted, of machines devoted to moneymaking destroying the finer possibilities of life. Whether or not Melville's satire is itself too mechanical and heavy-handed to be effective has been a subject of debate. Some readers have condemned the first half of the work as tedious and the second half as too obviously allegorical, but others have praised the tale for its symbolism, its final horror, and its use of effective contrasts.

For Discussion or Writing.
1. Compare and contrast this work (especially its second half) with Dante's Divine Comedy, especially in terms of imagery, setting, characterization, tone, and theme. How is the journey taken by Melville's narrator similar to the one undertaken by the speaker of Dante's poem? How are their guides similar or different? How do the ultimate outcomes of their journeys resemble or contrast with one another?

2. How do the two pieces of Melville's work relate to one another? How (if at all) does each half of the work deepen the meaning of the other half? How does the first part seem ironic in view of the second part? How implicitly critical is the narrator of the life of the bachelors? Do the bachelors deserve any blame for the conditions of the maids?

The Portent (1859) (1866). This work, the opening poem in Melville's collection of Civil War verse titled Battle-Pieces, describes the swaying body of John Brown, the famous abolitionist. Brown was hanged in 1859 for taking part in an armed rebellion in Virginia—a rebellion designed to foment an uprising by blacks against their enslavement. The poem, which is printed in italics to set it off from the rest of the collection, suggests that Brown's conduct and execution were harbingers of the Civil War, which would begin a year later.

Embedded in the title of this poem is a pun on the etymology of the word portent, which derives from Latin words meaning "to stretch forth." Brown's body is stretched vertically by the hangman's rope, but the significance of his death also stretches forth in time, into the future, as a "portent" (a word implying something momentous, calamitous, or ominous) of the Civil War. The poem itself (see Tales 337) begins with the crucial verb "Hanging" (which can also be read here as a noun)—a word that is tersely emphasized because the accent falls on the first syllable (rather than, as is common in much English poetry, on the second). Melville immediately creates an air of mystery and of literal suspense; not until the sixth line do we discover explicitly that the poem is about John Brown.

Then we must guess the poem's subject, led on by the plain, simple diction, the vivid images, the musical alliteration and rhythm as in "Slowly swaying" (l. 2), and the symbolism of colors, as in the dark "shadow," symbolizing death (l. 3), which is juxtaposed with the pleasant "green," symbolizing life (l. 3), of the "Shenandoah" river and/or valley (l. 4), where Brown rebelled and was executed and that was later the site of victories and defeats by both sides in the Civil War. "Shenandoah" is an Indian word meaning "beautiful daughter of the stars"—a meaning appropriate in view of the natural beauty of the river but ironic in light of the bloody battles that would later take place there. The exclamation "Shenandoah!" (its multisyllabic length contrasting effectively with the poem's earlier emphasis mostly on monosyllabic words) can imply various meanings simultaneously, including sadness, irony, a warning of what is to come, and regret at the apparent inevitability of these grim events.

The "cap" or hood placed over Brown's head (l. 8) hides his "anguish" (l. 9)—a word derived from Latin roots appropriately suggesting tightness, narrowness, and difficulty but also implying physical (and perhaps also mental) pain. Brown's personal "anguish," however, is as nothing compared to the national anguish his death forebodes. His is the face of the valley's (and country's) future—a fact suggested when Brown is called "Weird" (l. 13), from the Old English word "wyrd" (or "fate"), a term implying something unnatural, unearthly, uncanny, strange, or bizarre (as in the "weird sisters" or witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth). The poem itself seems odd and strange, with its cryptic syntax, abrupt exclamations, and peculiar parenthetical interruptions, and it ends, fittingly enough, by emphasizing the ominous word "war" (l. 14), which is linked to a "meteor" (l. 14), traditionally an omen of an important event. Like a meteor (Melville seems to imply), war can descend unexpectedly and cause enormous destruction.

For Discussion or Writing.
1. Compare and contrast the presentation of Brown in this work with his appearance in Walt Whitman's poem "Year of Meteors [1859–60]." How do these depictions of Brown resemble (or differ from) one another in diction, form, rhythm, imagery, theme, and purpose?

2. Consider the ways in which John Brown's hanging might be compared and contrasted with the hanging of Billy Budd. How might Billy Budd's hanging also be considered portentous?

3. Identify features of the poem that might be interpreted as establishing John Brown as a Christlike martyr. How do you think the American public would have responded to this representation of John so soon after the conclusion of the Civil War?

Melville's "A Utilitarian View of the Monitor's Fight"

Historical Context and the Mechanization of Warfare. Herman Melville's 1866 poem, included in his Civil War collection titled Battle-Pieces, presents a pragmatic perspective on the famous battle of May 9, 1862, between the Confederate ironclad ship Merrimac and the Union Monitor. The speaker of the poem reflects on the rise of mechanized, industrialized warfare, which replaced the pomp, romance, and glory historically associated with older forms of combat. Through the lens of a utilitarian—a practical observer concerned with material utility over romantic idealism—the text captures a pivotal transition in 19th-century military strategy and naval technology.

Poetic Technique and Stylistic Innovation. Diction and Stylistic Subversion. Appropriately for a work grounded in an unromantic view of reality, the opening word of the poem is "Plain," setting the tone for the basic intent, meaning, and phrasing of the text (line 1). Despite this plainness, Melville employs sophisticated artistic contrasts, such as pairing the heavy vowels of "ponderous" with the lighter, quicker sounds of "nimble". He initially personifies "War" in line 3 using an archaic literary style, only to abandon this personification so that war becomes an abstract concept rather than a poetic figure. Additionally, the poem ridicules ornate diction through alliteration, mocking "painted pomp" (line 4) as an outdated aesthetic.

Structural Paradox and Rhyme Scheme. The text largely rejects the heavy reliance on rhyme characteristic of English poetry prior to Melville's era, dismissing rhyme as "barbaric" (line 6) in its old-fashioned nature. Paradoxically, the poem still utilizes rhyme by pairing "nimble" and "cymbal," demonstrating how contrasting elements converge to produce a shared auditory effect. Through these deliberate stylistic choices, Melville constructs a narrative structure that transcends simple surface-level plainness.

Socioeconomic Factors and Technological Determinism. Economic Motives and Mechanized Combat. When the speaker hails a "victory without the gaud / Of glory" (lines 7–8), the word "gaud" denotes vulgar finery while serving as a pun on "God," implying that modern mechanical conflicts rely on superior equipment rather than divine intervention. In an industrial system, combat is inextricably linked with "trades and artisans" (line 12), revealing that both military motives and means are fundamentally rooted in economics. Victory no longer stems from personal bravery, but from technological specifications:

· 1st component: "crank" (line 17)

· 2nd component: "pivot" (line 18)

· 3rd component: "screw" (line 18)

· 4th component: "calculations of caloric" (line 18), referencing the caloric engines designed by John Ericsson

The Future of Industrial Conflict. The poem concludes with a double prophecy stating that "War shall yet be" (lines 25, 27), emphasizing that while armed conflict is perpetual, its execution has permanently transformed into an ever more efficient, impersonal, and destructive process. Military personnel are reduced to "operatives" (line 28), reflecting a shift toward mechanized labor. Terms like "War-paint" and traditional wooden warships are relegated to a dying past, marking the end of romanticized martial traditions.

Comparative and Analytical Frameworks. Questions for Discussion and Pedagogical Inquiry. The thematic shifts in Melville's poetry provide material for analytical study and comparative literary research:

1st point: Comparative Analysis with WWII Literature — Analyze Randall Jarrell's World War II poem "The Death of the Ball-Turret Gunner" alongside Melville's text, comparing their diction, themes, tone, point of view, and overall poetic effect.

2nd point: The Utilitarian Perspective — Evaluate why Melville chose to filter historical naval events through a utilitarian lens, examining how this framing influences the poem's tone and affects the resonance of lines 20 and 21 regarding the ringing that sounds around the world.

Billy Budd: Melville's Testament of Ambiguity & Interpretation

Overview and Plot Summary. Billy Budd is a young, strong, handsome, good-natured, and exceptionally innocent sailor who is forcibly (but willingly) taken from his service on board a British merchant ship and compelled to serve on a British warship during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Although instantly popular with almost all the crew and officers on his new vessel, he soon arouses the envious hatred of the inexplicably malignant master-at-arms, John Claggart, who eventually accuses Billy, as both men stand before Captain Vere, of plotting a mutiny during this dangerous time of war. Stunned and speechless, Billy impulsively strikes Claggart in the forehead, killing him in one blow; Vere, now stunned himself, quickly organizes an impromptu court and convinces its reluctant officers that Billy must be executed immediately in order to preserve discipline on board the ship, even though all the officers (including Vere himself) believe that Billy never intended to kill Claggart. Billy accepts his fate, even blessing Vere as he is hanged; Vere is soon killed in battle and dies with Billy's name on his lips; while Claggart is described in a newspaper account as an admirable man and Billy is venerated in poetry and legend by his fellow sailors.

Publication and Early Critical Reception. This powerful work, although unfinished at Melville's death, was eventually published in the 1920s and was instantly hailed as a masterpiece, second only to Moby-Dick itself as an example of its author's genius. Early critics viewed the novel as Melville's "testament of acceptance"—acceptance, that is, of the moral complexities of life, of the inevitable injustice of earthly existence, and perhaps also of a higher religious truth in which earthly injustice seems ultimately less important than spiritual redemption and other-worldly love. Vere, according to this view, is a kind of father figure who must sacrifice, on the altar of military duty, a boy he considers a sort of son—a boy he knows to be fundamentally innocent even though he has committed the capital crime of killing a superior officer. The fact that Billy goes to his death without complaint (indeed, the fact that he blesses Vere moments before he is hanged) has indicated to many readers that Vere is a sympathetic, even tragic, figure who does what he thinks is right and proper under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. According to this view, Vere suffers even more than Billy as a result of Billy's death; reluctantly, painfully, but with a sincere commitment to strict military discipline, Vere orders Billy's execution because there is no other choice.

Reinterpretation and Critique of Captain Vere. That, at least, is how the story was widely read at first. Eventually, however, more and more analysts began to doubt this account and to question both the supposed necessity of Billy's death and the supposed morality of Captain Vere. Increasingly, Vere was seen by many readers as an oppressive, manipulative, dishonest, and possibly even insane figure who was willing to sacrifice an essentially innocent man without giving him a fair or proper trial. Vere was now often condemned as the representative of an inhumane system, an abusive power structure that was indifferent to true justice and committed only to preserving its own authority. Or he was seen as a renegade authoritarian—someone who was willing to violate proper military procedure in the name of mere expediency and his own personal power.

According to this interpretation, Billy Budd is a tissue of ironies, and, after finishing it, the careful reader will perceive Vere as in some ways an even greater villain (or psychopath) than Claggart. Vere corrupts the process of justice; he holds a sham trial that could easily have been postponed in order to allow for a more deliberative and judicially legitimate hearing; he overrides the objections of his junior officers, who realize that he is proceeding improperly. In short, Vere (according to this analysis) unconscionably denies Billy the right to a fair trial, killing the boy merely to make a quick example of his own tyrannical authority.

Interpretive Debates and Ambiguity. Critical Polarization. The interpretive debates provoked by Billy Budd have been some of the most intense, most persistent, and in some ways most maddening in the history of literary criticism. Strong arguments can be (and have been) made on both sides; much of the same evidence can be used to support either position; and although neither camp has shown much willingness to concede defeat, honest readers will have to admit that sometimes they must doubt their own initial interpretations. There seems no way of finally settling the issue; disagreement about the fundamental import of the book is likely to last as long as the book is read.

Ambiguity as Artistic Design. Perhaps this deep-seated ambiguity is the strongest possible testimony to the complexity of the work and to Melville's skill as a writer. According to this argument, Melville deliberately crafted a work designed to defeat simplistic interpretation—a work he knew could be read in contradictory ways and therefore a work that is as fascinatingly complicated as life itself. Billy Budd, in other words, shows Melville at the top of his form as a writer intent on puzzling readers and provoking thought rather than offering simplistic, one-sided views of the dilemmas he explores. Certainly much evidence in the book can be used to support this view. On the other hand (and from another perspective), the seemingly fundamental ambiguity of the work may be due less to Melville's conscious intent than to the nature of language itself. Billy Budd, in other words, may not be much different from almost any text, since all language is (by its very nature) open to competing (and often contradictory) interpretations. According to this deconstructionist view, Billy Budd exemplifies the difficulty of arriving at any final, definitive interpretation of practically any piece of writing, especially a work of literature.

Unfinished Text and Textual Instability. Finally, another way of dealing with the puzzling difficulties of Melville's text is to argue that the text itself is unfinished and incomplete—that Melville never lived to impose a clear and consistent order on the work. Plenty of evidence survives to suggest that the novel was in a state of constant revision and that every time Melville tinkered with it, he made it more and more complex. From this perspective, the novel is open to such contrasting interpretations because Melville died before he could impose a final, coherent form on the book. If some parts seem to contradict other parts, that is because the novel is incomplete and (in that sense) fundamentally flawed. Billy Budd (or so this argument goes) might someday have become a polished masterpiece, but Melville did not live long enough to make it one. Little wonder, then, that the book fails to yield a persuasively consistent meaning.

Textual History and Composition. Certainly the surviving text of Billy Budd is confusing. When Melville died, he left a box full of manuscript sheets full of handwriting that was sometimes illegible; moreover, the sheets were covered with revisions made at many different stages of composition. Early editors of the work often disagreed about such basic matters as how the book should begin (for example, with or without an apparent preface), the name of the British warship, or even the very title of the book. Not until 1962 was a reasonably reliable scholarly text published, but even the publication of this version did not settle fundamental disagreements about the "proper" interpretation of the work. It is tempting, then, to conclude that Billy Budd might make more consistent sense if Melville had simply lived long enough to complete it and perhaps even supervise its publication.

Yet plenty of evidence survives in the text as it presently exists to suggest that much of the ambiguity of the book is deliberate and well crafted, and that Melville intentionally sculpted a novel designed to provoke thought, raise questions, create doubts, and stimulate reflection rather than provide easy answers. Billy Budd is the final product of a master of mysterious effects—an author who saw existence as incredibly complex and who carefully tried to convey that complexity in this final major work of a long and thoughtful life.

Melville's Narrative Technique and Double Meanings. The Rights-of-Man Episode. Typical of the richness of Melville's writing in this book is Billy's impulsive outburst as he is being transferred from the merchant ship the Rights-of-Man to Vere's warship, the Bellipotent. The narrator notes that Billy first waves goodbye to his old shipmates and then exclaims, "And goodbye to you too, old Rights-of-Man" (Tales 454). Billy intends no irony here, but Melville obviously does. Billy is indeed leaving many of his old rights behind him, but the ambiguity seems even richer when we realize that the irony of this particular moment need not support an ironic reading of the novel as a whole.

In other words, it is a fact that Billy's rights will be severely curtailed on the warship, this fact need not imply that the novel raises any fundamental objection to military service or the larger cause the warship defends. The passage can be read as supporting a thoroughly ironic view of subsequent events, but it need not be interpreted in that fashion. In this respect, this one small incident is typical of the novel as a whole: Melville writes in such a way that the same events can be interpreted in different ways by different readers. The narrator, commenting on Billy's exclamation, notes that to "deal in double meanings and insinuations of any sort was quite foreign to his nature" (Tales 454), but this is obviously not true of the narrator himself, who often deals in double meanings, insinuations, ambiguities, and deliberately ambivalent suggestions.

Examples of Ambivalent Phrasing. Examples abound. Thus, when an officer asks Billy to name his father, the sailor innocently responds, "God knows, sir" (Tales 456). In one respect this reply means simply that Billy himself has no idea who his father was; on a different level (of which Billy is probably not conscious), the reply suggests that if God exists, he does indeed know the identity of Billy's father; on another level still, the phrase can also be taken to suggest that God himself may, in some sense, be Billy's father—thus making the reply one of many moments in the novel when Billy seems to be associated, in character and fate, with Christ. Billy's reply thus "works" on at least three different levels, and in that respect it is typical of much else in the book.

Similarly, when Captain Vere is introduced, the narrator tells us that although Vere was, by blood, "allied to the higher nobility, his advancement [in the navy] had not been altogether owing to influences connected with that circumstance" (Tales 463). The equivocal phrasing here is one of Melville's favorite devices: He gives with one hand while withholding with the other. Vere's rise has been due partly to his own merit but partly also to family connections, but reliance on such connections would have been entirely typical of his time and thus may (or may not) fail to reflect poorly on his own character. This passage, and hundreds of others like it, can be read one way or another, and the fact that there are so many such passages in this book seems part of Melville's very obvious and very skillful design. For every passage in the book that seems to reflect well on Vere, there is another than can be read ironically or satirically, and often the same passages can be read in fundamentally different ways.

Trial, Surgeon's Doubts, and Narrative Indirection. This is especially true after the killing of Claggart and during (and after) Billy's trial. The ship's surgeon, for instance, begins to doubt the captain's sanity in the aftermath of Claggart's death, but the narrator will only ambiguously comment as follows: "Whether Captain Vere, as the surgeon professionally and privately surmised, was really the sudden victim of any degree of aberration, every one must determine for himself by such light as this narrative may afford" (Tales 497). The narrator, in short, puts the ball into our court, not even promising that the narrative will afford sufficient light but only that it "may." At one moment Vere, in his concern with secrecy, is compared to an autocratic Russian czar ("Peter the Barbarian"; Tales 498); then in the next moment we are told that Vere would prefer to submit Billy's case to the judgment of his superiors; then in the very next moment we are told that he feels compelled by circumstances to act quickly in "allegiance to military duty" (Tales 498). In passages like this the book sometimes induces a kind of mental and moral vertigo; we can never be quite sure where the narrator stands, how we are meant to respond to Vere, or whether any clear and certain response is even intended.

Vere's own officers sometimes doubt the wisdom of his conduct, but they never challenge him, either during the trial or after the isolated ship returns to the fleet. By the time of that return, of course, Vere himself has been killed, and so perhaps any questioning of his conduct by that point would have seemed ungracious or gratuitous. In any case, there are also passages in the book in which the narrator seems either to endorse Vere's decision or at least to comprehend (and sympathize with) his motives, especially given the dire military circumstances Vere faced.

The Unnamed Author's Reflection. At one point, for instance, the narrator quotes an unnamed author (probably invented by Melville), who supposedly wrote as follows: "Forty years after a battle it is easy for a noncombatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to have to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it. Much so with respect to other emergencies involving considerations both practical and moral, and when it is imperative promptly to act. The greater the fog the more it imperils the steamer, and speed is put on though at the hazard of running somebody down. Little ween the snug card players in the cabin of the responsibilities of the sleepless man on the bridge." (Tales 506). Significantly, however, these are not the narrator's own words; they are offered, with typical Melvillean indirection, simply as the reflections of a "writer whom few know" (Tales 506), and we are left to draw our own conclusions about how much weight to give them or how to interpret their significance.

There are (it is true) times when the narrative clearly seems tipped in Vere's favor—as when the captain claims, and no one challenges him, that according to the Articles of War merely to strike a superior officer, let alone kill him, is "a capital crime" (Tales 504), in which case Billy's punishment by death seems inevitable. But there are other places where the narrative raises, quotes, or implies doubts about the wisdom of Vere's behavior. Indeed, Vere himself seems not entirely at peace with his decisions, but he claims to have no simple alternative. In the end, whether or not Vere is credible and sympathetic is a matter "every one must determine for himself" (Tales 497). What seems far less debatable is the skill with which Melville crafted a novel that, once read, produces an impact so powerful that it remains a permanent part of each reader's literary and moral memory.

For Discussion or Writing.
1. Compare and contrast Billy Budd with Shakespeare's Othello. How does Claggart resemble Iago? How does Billy resemble Desdemona? To what extent (if any) is Vere comparable to Othello? Are there any points in Melville's novel in which he seems to echo the language of Shakespeare's play?

2. What resemblances or differences exist between Melville's novel and Henry James's short work The Turn of the Screw? Discuss the works in terms of tone, characterization, and themes, and especially in terms of the interpretive dilemmas they present. How are both works similarly puzzling?

3. Examine the various adaptations of the work, such as the opera by Benjamin Britten, the film starring Peter Ustinov, or the play by Louis O. Coxe and Robert Chapman. Explain whether and why (or why not) any of these works is effective as an adaptation of Melville's story. What changes did the adapters make to Melville's version of the tale? Are the works successful in their own right, aside from their success as adaptations?

4. Compare and contrast Melville's work with a novel written not long afterward—Kate Chopin's The Awakening. How is Edna a different sort of character from Billy? How is Chopin's style different from Melville's? How, despite these differences, has each work provoked fundamental moral disagreements and interpretive disputes, especially concerning the deaths of Billy and Edna?

5. In what ways does Melville's novel conform to Aristotle's definition of a proper tragedy, especially in terms of his ideas about the proper tragic hero, the most effective kind of tragic incident, and the appropriate tragic effect?