Depravity is the general badness of character, wickedness of the mind and heart, and also has an absence of religious principles. A depraved individual is one who will do corrupt acts and practices to the good that surrounds them. John Claggart is a character in Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, which is consumed with depravity. He is the evil of the story. The following paragraphs will present Claggart’s depravity. The evil nature of Claggart is depicted in the way he looks. The following paragraph is a detailed description of John Claggart the master-at-arms: “Claggart was a man about five-and-thirty, …a vague field for unfavorable surmise” (Melville 2445-2446). He is a handsome man just as Billy is, but his chin has a strangeness about it that Melville uses images of Tecumseh, and Oates to reference it to. Melville’s comparison of Claggart to these two men, who have questionable backgrounds, puts a negative shadow on Claggart’s nature, to separate the evil “handsome” sailor from the good “handsome” sailor. The skin color of Claggart is described as almost without color; the narrator states that he appears to have “something defective or abnormal” (Melville 2445) in his blood. This could be a way of presenting Claggart’s depravity by showing that he has so much evil inside him that it has consumed him and is now without skin color. Billy does not know evil so he appears tanned and healthy looking. Claggart tries to appear of high social class but the other sailors notice there “lurked a bit of accent in his speech” (Melville 2445). Claggart is trying to appear as someone he is not – well educated, high class, high morals – the appearance of a “safe man” as the lawyer is described in Bartleby, The Scrivener; “ All who know me, consider me an eminently safe man” (Melville 2330). Claggart is thought to be a swindler who is hiding from the King’s court of law, by the sailors, and that little was know about his past on land. His age also contributes to these rumors – as to why he would enter the navy so late in life. The details that Melville give here us about Claggart helps setup is depraved nature that is out to get Billy Budd who is all that is good/innocent in the world. Claggart uses the scene where Billy spills the soup as the master-at-arms walks by in the paragraph, “The next day an incident … who says that Jemmy Legs is down on me!” (Melville 2450), as an excuse to hate Billy. When Claggart notices it is Billy who has spilled the soup – his expression changed from nasty to playful. Claggart almost loses his temper at Billy and would have been seen by everyone on the ship, even though this is their first real encounter.
As Claggart leaves he has a grim looking smile on his face, which is his wickedness trying to come out that he is suppressing. In the Scarlet Letter, Chillingsworth was suppressing his hatred for Dimisdale in the same way when “looking after the minister with a grave smile” (Hawthorne 1407). Both men are clearly evil and just waiting patiently for their chance to bring the object of their hatred down. Melville again associates Claggart with a tyrant when he says the men laughed “with counterfeited glee” (Melville 2450). This statement is just adding more to the painting of Claggart as an evil person. Billy joins in the laughter of the men because he does not recognize the evil that is right in his face smiling down at him. His innocence is blinding him to the real nature of the world. Just as Montresor did to Fortuanto in Poe’s The Cask of the Amontillado, Fortuanto never recognized the evil that was sharing a drink of wine with him. Claggart’s depravity is trying to take over here, but he suppresses it as he has bigger plans in mind to rid himself of this “good handsome sailor”. In the following paragraph, “Now something such as one was Claggart … but born with him and innate, in short “a depravity according to nature” (Melville 2453); Claggart is naturally evil. Melville is presenting him as a man who was born this way; Claggart’s nature has not come about by any harshness or from reading books. He also makes reference in this paragraph to “licentious living” (Melville 2453) – sexually immoral living; which Melville states is not the reason for Claggart’s depravity. It is just born in him. Where as Richter states in his essay homosexual tension as a reason for Claggart’s behavior, “Perhaps these considerations will help explain Claggart’s homosexual longings for Billy, without making them the “key” to the entire novellas” (Richter 23). Melville’s paragraph here is to present Claggart as a naturally evil person who does not have to have a reason to hate Billy. Most of Claggart’s depravity is from envy, which is discussed in the following chapter, “Now envy and antipathy … but he despaired of it” (Melville 2453-2454). Melville here refers to Claggart’s envy and antipathy to the Siamese twins Chang and Eng, his jealously and strong loathing go hand in hand, he can’t separate them. Envy here is the monster for Claggart he is consumed with it. He is envious of Billy’s good looks, his relationship with the other sailors and his innocence. Melville states that no one admits to being envious especially not anyone with any intelligence such as Claggart. It is Claggart’s heart not the brain trying to deal with the envy he feels towards Billy and no amount of intelligence is going to help. Melville clearly states that there is no “vulgar form of passion” (Melville 2453). The homosexual aspect of the story should not even be considered with Melville making this statement in the story. The story is about good and evil. Claggart is also compared to Saul, who becomes jealous of David and tries to kill him, and Billy is David. Melville is setting up what is about to happen, expect he states that Claggart’s envy is even more profound that Saul’s. The one thing that Claggart is most envious of is the fact that Billy has never been “willed malice or experienced the reactionary bite of the serpent” (Melville 2453). He is one with nature where as Claggart is depraved of nature – total opposites. The readers are not given any background on Claggart, but it is obvious he has been bitten by the serpent many times in his life. Billy’s being one with nature just makes his good looks even more noticeable to Claggart and even more the “handsome sailor” that he so hates. Melville states here that Claggart is the only one that is “intellectually capable” (Melville 2454) of seeing the rare total innocence in Billy Budd, and this only makes Claggart even more intent on his secret plans to do away with this innocence. The last sentence of the paragraph is the definition of Romanticism, which Melville was. Aesthetic way, courageous free-and easy temper, and fain are all terms that could be used to describe romanticism. Billy Budd was a romantic like Melville. John Claggart is the anti-romantic, and a “cynic”. This envy is also seen in Susanna Rowson’s, Charlotte, her character Madame LaRue. “Here let me stop you … she can no longer hope to enjoy” (Rowson 895), tells of Madame LaRue’s envy of Charlotte. John Claggart and Madame LaRue are one in the same as the both contain “diabolical spirits”, both are so jealous they end up destroying themselves. John Claggart’s depravity is evident in his appearance, his suppression of hatred, and his envy toward Billy Budd. His depravity is natural to him, he know no other way to deal with his own short comings except through wicked and evil acts toward goodness.
Works Cited
Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature – Sixth Edition, Volumes A-B. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003.
Richter, David H. Forms of the Novella. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981: 16-31.
