Quote 1
Habitually
living with the elements and knowing little more of the land than
as a beach, or rather, that portion . . . set apart for dance-houses,
doxies, and tapsters, in short what sailors call a “fiddler’s green,”
his simple nature remained unsophisticated by those moral obliquities
which are not in every case incompatible with that manufacturable
thing known as respectability. But are sailors, frequenters of fiddlers’
greens, without vices? No; but less often than with landsmen do
their vices, so called, partake of crookedness of heart, seeming
less to proceed from viciousness than exuberance of vitality after
long constraint; frank manifestations in accordance with natural
law. By his original constitution aided by the co-operating influences
of his lot, Billy in many respects was little more than a sort of upright
barbarian, much such perhaps as Adam presumably might have been
ere the urbane Serpent wriggled himself into his company.
In this quotation from Chapter 2,
the narrator suggests that sailors are less likely to be wicked
than men on land, since they are not exposed to difficult moral
situations. Although sailors may drink and consort with prostitutes
when on shore, thus gaining a sullied reputation, supposedly respectable
people actually encounter more serious moral problems. Unlike people
who spend most of their time on land, sailors do not commit vice
out of “crookedness of heart” or “viciousness”—in other words, evil.
Rather, they act sinfully because they have been confined at sea
for a long time and have “natural” inclinations and an abundance
of energy. Thus, although Billy has spent most of his time either
on a ship or in areas of towns devoted to vice, he has nevertheless
preserved his near-total ignorance of evil. Billy, if not the full-fledged
physical and moral Handsome Sailor ideal, is so innocent that he
stands out as an “upright barbarian” nonetheless. The last line
subtly foreshadows the arrival of Claggart, who does tempt Billy
to evil like the serpent. Significantly, the narrator describes
the serpent as “urbane”—urbanity signifying sophistication and being
the opposite of innocence. Thus, Melville equates evil with experience
in society.
