Towards the end of his career, Herman Melville wrote a novella that remains a perplexing study of sea life. As one of the premiere authors to ever discuss the lonelines of the seven seas, he ended it with a slim story that hides his deepest desires somewhere in the subtext. The central character of Billy Budd spends the story going about his mundane life, and yet there is something to the camaraderie of his peers that is undeniable. Is what he's experiencing something akin to typical male chumminess, or is there something more passionate underneath? For a story that ends on a bit of a slight, it's an amazing testament to his craft that the emotions evoked in the text resonate centuries later, leaving one to fully understand the larger authorial intent.
There is something solitary about being in the navy. A large reason for it is practical. How else does one do their duties but to navigate their duties in confined spaces? The limitations mean that holding onto sanity is crucial though difficult, especially as the closed spaces make everything beneath the surface a maze. At a certain point, there is a need for trusting your comrades on a very personal level, allowing them to see you at a vulnerable state when you're lonely and desperate for an escape that may not seem evident. It makes sense then that it's a place where greater conflicts emerge in the self. These are both caused by the absence of women but also the reality of having limited talking partners. When the world feels absent, the chance to express oneself and their taboos becomes easier to desire.
While there's a lot of subtextual evidence to suggest the novella's queer themes, it can best be seen in how Melville writes his subjects. The sailors have a homoerotic description as if chiseled by the gods. There is this fetishization of the male body that has rarely been seen in 19th century texts. The objectification reflects the romance hidden within the banal story of power control, where going about one's day features pent-up frustration resulting in sometimes harmful behaviors. Is it some greater fantasy being acted out, or is this the only toxic way for masculinity to be expressed at the absence of femininity? Melville doesn't leave room for easy answers and instead revels in the loneliness of his subject, trusting the reader to find some greater truth for why anyone would desire company after the journey they're put through. The final tragedy is within itself reflects something lingering long past the day the ship docks, leaving a lack of fulfillment that exudes the way that male vulnerability has been rejected for centuries even by the time of Melville.
The novella may not quite have the reputation that "Moby Dick" acquired, but it still is deserving of recognition solely for how intimate and personal the experience is. The story is at times closer to romantic poetry than conventional novel, proving the potential of a nautilist novella to be something more expansive. Melville may have ended his career on an odd note because it raised questions about his personal life, but it's only because of how personal and sincere every detail comes across. Everything pops with urgency, finding the interiority almost breaking through the uniforms and becoming known by the larger world. As a queer text in the late 19th century, it makes sense that it would be more restrained, though even then modern readers can pick out the implicitness a lot more than audiences back then. It's a text that asks for a lot of self-reflection afterwards to fully understand. That may be why it remains essential in the larger canon.
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