her-son relationships. However, it is a fact that Melville's most sensitively conceived father figure, Captain Vere was filial Billy's executioner.
So, it is with two biographical-artistic theories that we can examine Billy Budd. One, that Billy himself (and more specifi-cally, the writing of the book) represented for Melville a tran-scendence of good over the adverse conditions of the world. And two, that Melville was atoning for the destructive relationships he had had with his sons making literature out of tragedies that had marked him deeply.
Critic Leon Howard has focussed on what he feels is the key question raised by Billy Budd. "Is (man) a social being...or is he an independent moral individual responsible to his private aware-ness of guilt and innocence?" (Le
...