SOURCE: “Billy Budd: A Reconsideration,” in Ball State University Forum, Vol. 27, No. 1, Winter, 1986, pp. 30–41.

In the following essay, Garrison debates the reliability of the narrator in Billy Budd, maintaining that the story is about “the art of perception.”

“Peace, peace, thou ass of a commentator,” Melville wrote (133). His commentators, however, have not been quiet. Billy Budd continues to exert its magnetic power; and criticism, of course, continues to appear. Recently, Professor Robert Merrill has said that new interpretations “must justify themselves by helping to resolve the critical problem which has so divided the critics: how should we interpret the actions of Billy Budd and Captain Vere?” (283). His resolution rejects the question about the reliability of the narrative voice and finds the narrator “clearly sympathetic” with Vere. He concludes that “Vere is to be seen as a noble figure whose decision, however painful, is the unpleasant duty of one...