Captain Vere's 'Justice In Billy Budd, Sailor'

Billy Budd, Sailor
Rhiann Holman

In the book Billy Budd, Sailor, Herman Melville suggests that justice is the best outcome for society rather than individual people. This is seen through the two characters, Captain Vere and Billy Budd.
Melville represents the judicial side of a court case through Captain Vere. Captain Vere asks the three men, “but tell me whether or not, occupying the position we do, private conscience should not yield to the imperial one formulated in the code under which alone we officially proceed?”(111). In this quote, Captain Vere acknowledges both his “private conscience” and the “code” but claims that they will only “officially proceed” under the law. This noteworthy because, although he may try to stick to the law,
This is because, until this point in the story, Vere has remained pretty close to the laws and made sure that he is that best captain he could possibly be. Now, in the quote, we see him demanding not to do his job. The way this is written makes it sound like Vere does want the job to be fulfilled however does not want to do it himself. This reinforce the idea that Captain Vere, although morally does not want to hurt Billy, knows that Billy must die for the good of the boat. Captain Vere is confident in his actions regarding the case; this is seen when the Narrator shares, “Not long before death…[Captain Vere] was heard to murmur words inexplicable to his attendant: ‘Billy Budd, Billy Budd.’ That these were not accents of remorse would seem clear” (129). The fact that Captain Vere is does not have “remorse,” meaning a deep and painful regret for a wrongdoing, is noteworthy because it shows that he does not regret the impact he had on drumhead court’s decision to condemn Billy Budd to death. The fact that Vere was thinking about Billy “not long before” his death could mean that he did not like the situation that Billy was in and didn’t like what happened to Billy. He did love