Captain Vere In Herman Melville's Billy Budd

Laurence Sterne, an eighteenth-century British novelist, once wrote, “No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time.” Such a person can be found in Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. Captain the Honorable Edward Fairfax Vere is that man. In Melville’s Billy Budd, Captain Vere’s mind is pulled in two conflicting directions: following the rules or acting on his affections for Billy Budd. It becomes obvious throughout the book that Vere has a knack for law and order, he wants everything to be done by the book; being a military man, this seems natural. It is also apparent that Captain Vere has a liking for Billy Budd. He admires the handsome sailor and his innocence. Over the course of the book, Vere becomes a sort of father figure to Billy Budd.
This forces the Captain to make a choice: obey the law or consider his affection towards Billy and his motives. In the end, Vere decides that the law is more important and Billy must be punished according to that law; though Melville lets us know that his decision was not made lightly when he wrote “…the condemned one suffered less than he who mainly had effected the condemnation…”

Through showing this inner conflict within Captain Vere, Melville demonstrates one the major themes of this work. Throughout Billy Budd, we see the struggle of whether to obey the law. This is hinted upon early in the book when the narrator tells us of the “Great Mutiny” which had recently passed. This conflict was of seamen who revolted against their seniors. We see this again when Billy Budd is visited by an afterguard who asks for Billy to join an uprising. Billy is quick to decline, knowing that it is much better to obey the law than to appose