비어의 비밀과 죽음의 선물: 『빌리 버드』에 나타난 법과 정의의 아포리아
Vere’s Secret and Gift of Death: the Aporia of Law and Justice in Billy Budd, Sailor
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In Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, Vere, the captain of the Bellipotent in the English fleet, undergoes an ordeal while judging a murder case on board the ship. This paper explores how Vere experiences aporia in the application and enforcement of law in the case of Billy, a murderer who is innocent according to natural justice. Though the captain reads the case politically and adheres to military discipline, he also is in distress due to the victim of the very law. The situation in the Bellipotent suggests that the subject of a decision should go through an ‘undecidability’ between law which belongs to generality and Billy’s case which belongs to particularity. The predicament Vere endures in reaching the decision to hang Billy implies a prerequisite of responsibility for the other who is always in a unique and specific situation. Employing a limited point of view and an allusion to Abraham, the narrator verifies ‘secret’ and ‘the gift of death’ in Vere’s judgment. These two themes say that a decision should consider generalities and particularities at the same time. The narrator searches for the possibility of encompassing both sides, and therefore the possibility of embracing the marginalized others in Vere’s decision. Vere’s image depicted in relation to the precondition of decision makes it possible to envision how to pursue justice and put ethics into practice.
Abstract
In Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, Vere, the captain of the Bellipotent in the English fleet, undergoes an ordeal while judging a murder case on board the ship. This paper explores how Vere experiences aporia in the application and enforcement of law in the case of Billy, a murderer who is innocent according to natural justice. Though the captain reads the case politically and adheres to military discipline, he also is in distress due to the victim of the very law. The situation in the Bellipotent suggests that the subject of a decision should go through an ‘undecidability’ between law which belongs to generality and Billy’s case which belongs to particularity. The predicament Vere endures in reaching the decision to hang Billy implies a prerequisite of responsibility for the other who is always in a unique and specific situation. Employing a limited point of view and an allusion to Abraham, the narrator verifies ‘secret’ and ‘the gift of death’ in Vere’s judgment. These two themes say that a decision should consider generalities and particularities at the same time. The narrator searches for the possibility of encompassing both sides, and therefore the possibility of embracing the marginalized others in Vere’s decision. Vere’s image depicted in relation to the precondition of decision makes it possible to envision how to pursue justice and put ethics into practice.
참고문헌 (18)
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