Reading Day 3
ReadingBR #essay, #prejudice, #reading, #analysis
In the first section of Barbara Johnson’s Melville’s Fist she analyses the different binary interpretations of Melville’s Billy Bud story, giving examples of different possible readings. These positions are represented in the main characters of the story, whose fates all proceed in opposite directions to those the reader would expect; an illogical arc which Johnson argues provides the base for the widespread critical disagreement of the piece. The two main characters, Billy Bud and Cloggart, relate to two different conceptions of language, or ways of reading. Billy represents a case where the intentional meaning corresponds with the actual meaning; the signified and the signifier are identical. On the other hand, Cloggart’s character stands for double meaning, the ironic way of reading with a difference between signifier and signified. These interpretative reading strategies swap sides through the act of transferential rage; the chiasmus of the plot, when Billy kills Cloggart. In this act language itself materialises, as Billy’s speech impediment, his inability to verbalise himself, takes form in this act of violence, resulting in Cloggart’s death and consequently his own too. This symbolic gesture of language itself, as being the indicator of the crisis of the plot, shows that Melville’s original intention was to question the limits of reading in general. To complete the equation, the story ends with Billy’s court case, conducted by Captain Vere, the leader of Billy’s ship. Through the presentation of this legal case Melville further highlights the limitations of reading, and integrates this very question
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