The Maturation of Willie Keith

The Caine Mutiny is primarily the story of Willie Keith's maturation, which is catalyzed by his military career. In the beginning of the novel, Willie is a spoiled rich boy. By the end, he is a confident, persevering leader. Willie is helped along the way to manhood by several factors. The first is a letter sent to him by his dying father. The letter cements Willie's determination to succeed in the Navy. The Navy provides all of the hardship needed to harden Willie. Captain De Vriess immediately recognizes the potential in Willie, and helps him along by being strict with Willie. This prepares Willie for Queeg's brutality, which makes Willie able to withstand any amount of torture, mental or physical. Willie makes a major step in his development when the court martial forces him to recognize his own subjectivity. Because of the court martial, Willie ceases to feel that he is always right. After the kamikaze attack, Willie realizes that he has made the final step into manhood. The event forces him to look the horror of war in the face. Willie knows that he will never again feel the youthful excitement for conflict that he felt at Ulithi Atoll.

The development of Willie's relationship with May Wynn is a good barometer of his rising level of maturity. Initially, May falls for the youthful energy of Willie, but as Willie grows, so does her love for him. When Willie sees May on his first day of his leave, she wants him to either grow up and marry her or to never see her again. Later, May sees that Willie has discovered the right path, but is following it for the wrong reasons; he wants to marry her because he feels guilty. When Willie returns after the war, May understands that Willie has become a man and wants to marry her for all of the right reasons.

The Conflict Between Regular and Reserve Navies

In The Caine Mutiny, a stark contrast exists between the regular Navy and the men enlisted for the war effort. Though the physical standards for enlistment are lowered, the enlisted men are often more intelligent, more educated, and more confident in their marketable skills than the regulars. On the other hand, they are not used to military discipline and operating procedures, which often strike them as ridiculous, cumbersome, and oppressive.

The conflict between Thomas Keefer and Captain Queeg is a perfect example of the tensions created by having enlisted men and regulars on the same ship. The highly educated Keefer finds the very stupid Queeg intolerable. Keefer does all that he can to undermine the captain's authority, thinking that authority undeserved. Keefer is actually destroying Naval tradition and trust, not doing the right thing. Though Queeg proves somewhat incompetent at carrying out the non-routine aspects of military life, he was selected by the Navy for command, and should have been treated accordingly. Queeg would have been the perfect peacetime commander. His attention to detail, determination to keep things by the book, and oblivion to boredom was exactly what the Navy looked for in a captain. Unfortunately, wartime conditions made captains of Queeg's type ineffective.

A War of Perspectives

Throughout the Caine's adventures, Herman Wouk inserts updates on the proceedings of the war, both to provide a chronology and to underline Willie's perspective of the war. Willie is one of the millions of participants in World War II. The narrator jokingly points to the fact that Willie had no idea what his role in the war was. He did not have the perspective of the later historians, or even the high commanders who were writing the millions of war stories.

Part of the purpose of the novel is to penetrate the historical and journalistic accounts of the war that proliferated after the Allied victory. In the excessiveness of their numbers, and in their huge scope, many of those reports did not communicate what war was about for the individual. At the library, anyone can read about the attack on the Philippines, but the plight of the individual soldier and sailors are not so easy to come by. That reader will understand that the offensive was difficult and that many losses were sustained, but he or she will not hear about the plight of a fresh ensign being piloted around a typhoon in a tub of a ship with a maniac for a captain. When the war at large makes appearances in The Caine Mutiny, it is to remind readers of the perspective of the book; to remind them that Willie was part of something much larger than him.