In Johnson’s essay, “From Melville’s Fist: The Execution of Billy Budd”, on page 2319 right off the bat with her description of the three men, the reader can get a sense of how these men are all going to perceive this story. Sort of like how Saussure says that everyone can be viewing the same thing but perceiving it as different. Billy Budd being described as “handsome”, “innocent”, and ignorant can tell us that he probably will be an unreliable source of telling us what really happened. Next in description is the “respectable”, and “bookish” Captain who we can tell is going to be maybe someone of a higher ranking in society with more power and reliability. The descriptions between the two, you would trust the Captains viewpoint over the arrogant Billy Budd. Johnson does begin to explain that Melville goes into great depth on both the characters “physical and moral characteristics” giving the readers more insight on them. This helps to also have the reader’s clue into how they are going to perceive the characters. One of the big aspects of this reading is that these men seem to do the opposite of the things people would think they would do. For example, on page 2321, Johnson writes, “Interestingly enough, Melville himself both invites an allegorical reading and subverts the very terms of its consistency when he writes of murder: “Innocence and guilt personified in Claggart and Budd in effect changed places” (p.380” Allowing for the existence of personification but reversing the relation between personifier and personified, positioning an opposition between good and evilonly to make each term take on the properties of the opposite”. This gives basis for what Saussure is trying to explain when it comes to the signifier and the signified. Take for an example, your most trusted best friend and your biggest enemy both catch your boyfriend cheating on you. Your best friend who saw the same exact situation as your enemy, will tell a completely different story when they repeat it. So, when Mellville introduces and describes these characters in the beginning of the story, he is simply trying to make you establish a judgment of what you think these characters are going to do later in the story, especially if you don’t know the ending. To sum up this whole idea I am trying to instill between Saussure’s theory and Johnson’s essay, is that we all see the same thing, we just might not interpret it the same.

Roman Jakobson disagreed with the Saussure’s notion of a static and arbitrary sign that hacks relevance only synchronically. For Jakobson signs need not to be placed in a polarity of synchrony/ diachrony (p1146). Rather, he envisioned an intermediary synchrony. One that was capable of changing from one form to another. In Jakobson’s seminal chapter seminal chapter from linguistics and poetry, he adds verbal functions, which permits one to note that of all the functions interacting collectively, one of them must always dominate the others. He suggested that the poetic function could deepen the fundamental dichotomy of signs and subjects. He set out to show how the poetic function could operate in a nonparticipating context, one that could have considerable significance in the daily lives of ordinary folk who might not even be aware of a poetic function unveiling itself right in front of them. “Two aspects of language and two types of aphasic disturbances.” Jakobson connected the field of the psychomotor disunity of aphasics (those who had extreme difficulty with speaking due to an inability to distinguish one word or object from another) to the realm of the poetic oscillating between metaphor and metonymy. Basically Jakobson is trying to say everything about our daily language in life is poetry. Verbal communication is a form of language and language has to be investigated in all forms (p1147).
The way of speech, in which the addresser sends a message to the addressee. Example, when you’re giving a speech you’re giving out messages in your words for the audience to learn and receive. (P1147).
When you’re listening to the speaker and engaging into the topic you start to form an impression of emotions” (p1148) and in some way this is poetry in itself. The poetry is how you grasp the attention of the reader receiving the message. On page 1151 he quotes “why do you always say Joan and Margery instead of Margery and Joan? It’s not that one is better than the other, saying Joan and Margery sounds smoother.” The poetry in this form of language is the grasping the readers attention. The addressee sends a message to the addressee.

In Melville’s Fist, Barbara Johnson deconstructs and refocuses the conversation and criticism surrounding Herman Melville’s Novella “Billy Bud”. Johnson observes the state of criticism surrounding the piece and how critics often fall into two different camps: those who see it as a “testament of acceptance” and those who consider it a “testament of resistance” or “ironic social criticism” (2319). She goes on to explain the critical obsession with the good/evil dichotomy between the two characters Billy and Claggart and how when they veer from their roles and their actions reverse the expectations. Johnson says “discrepancy between character and action that gives rise to the critical disagreement over the story” (2321) It is the discrepancy between the characters’ established nature and their actions that catapult the conflict and plot of the story. Melville positions this story of polar opposites clashing and reversing roles as the playground for a commentary on judgment and criticism.

Throughout, Johnson uses Saussure’s theory of signifiers/signified to clarify the difference between the two twos of readers that Billy and Claggart are. Saussure proposes “Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is the most important of all these systems.” (825) Language, the exchange of signs and how each read them causes conflict. This theory is used as Johnson explains the difference between the two readers. The central struggle between Billy and Claggart is the differences in how they communicate, read situations, and how they process and demonstrate signs. Johnsons says “it might be helpful to view the opposition between Billy and Claggart as an opposition not between innocence and guilt but between two conceptions of language, or between two types of reading” (2322). There is a disconnect between Billys motivated signs and how Claggart reads them. Billy reads everything at face value and “never questions the meaning of appearances” which makes it impossible for him to effectively read signs. According to Johnson “, Billy is symbolically as well as factually illiterate.” Billy is what Johnson explains as a “literal reader”. Billy also puts a lot of value on signifying goodness. Claggart on the other hand is an “ironic reader” who often assumes signs to be “reverses the value signs of appearances and takes a daisy for a mantrap” which causes problems between Billy and Claggart because Claggart reads the signs from Billy as dubious.

On the reading “On truth and lies in a nonmoral sense” I sort of see some good points on some of his views, even though some things do not make since. Nietzsche thinks concepts are formed from a plurality of a particular experience from which we abstract similarities and omit difference to produce a unifying concept. Nietzsche says that it amazes us when we discover that even the most certain and rigid concepts, such as mathematics is merely the residue of metaphor origination in particular sense experiences. What I realize is that he incorrectly opposed idealism as a subjectively derived truth, rather than an objectively derived truth universal for all people. Rather he regarded as derived from individual perspectives of those living within a world of constant change or everyday change. What then is truth? a movable host of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphism’s, in short, a sun of human relations, which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and established (p768). Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions- they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained on sensuous force (p768). Apparently he hadn’t noticed the objectively derived, universally true existence of gravity and the sensuous force that is experience as a consequence of denying the truth of its existence.  What led me to see his views more what is biography before  his book, which Nietzsche argues that suffering is necessary for artistic expression (p761). At first, I thought he meant suffering was good for us but as I kept re-reading I tried to change my perception of his way of thinking and try and understand. He does not think suffering is good for us. He thinks that suffering is necessary to human greatness, to great creative achievements. If you want to achieve great things one must be able to tolerate and perhaps even welcome suffering, but that doesn’t mean it does a person good to suffer. Tragedy can exist only so long as we recognize and accept, and affirm the irresolvable contradiction between our hopes and how the world is (p761). He also states that that “to have the strength to love life even though suffering is inevitable (p762).

In Barbara Johnson’s essay “Melville’s Fist,” she analyzes and contrasts Billy and Claggart’s abilities as readers. She then proceeds to use Saussure’s theory of signifier and signified in order to help clarify this difference between the two. When it comes to Billy and Claggarts reading capabilities, they are complete opposites of each other in terms of how they interpret and relate to the external factors in the world. When describing both Billy and Claggarts as readers, they can best be described as simple (Billy) and complex (Claggart). When it comes to Billy, he believes that the world can either be black or white with no possibility of there ever being an in-between. When he reads, he always takes what he reads for face value with no deeper interpretation or level of understanding. His failure to dive deeper and analyze what he reads follow him into how he solves problems, deals with criticism and how he reacts to being questions. When it comes to Claggart, he is total opposite. He reads to better understand. He reads to find deeper meaning and does not just take it for face value. He, as a result, develops a “question everything” mentality. When it comes to Billy and Claggarts relationship to each other, Claggarts does not trust Billy and questions his intentions. Billy’s inability to express himself leads him to attack Claggart which only contributes to Claggarts feelings. Johnson uses Saussure’s theory on signifier and signified to clarify these differences between the two. In it, Saussure examines the relationship between sound-image and the concept. Through Billy, it represents a person who is unable to differentiate signifier and signified and only looks at it as something that cannot be distinguished while Claggart is able to differentiate between the both the signified and signifier and is able to understand signed system. Claggart also express a post structuralist view. As a post structuralist, it supports going against the grain of the world and pushes for the person to continuously ask questions.

Growing up we are taught certain things, such as learning to look both ways before crossing the street. Yet there are also things we must learn alone through our own common sense. One of the beliefs that is part of everyone’s common sense is the idea that a judge is above politics, as they are the ones who decide on whether someone is guilty or innocent. Barbara Johnson challenges this idea in her essay “From Melville’s Fist: The execution of Billy Budd” and suggests that in reality judges are not “above politics” but still under control by them.

Throughout her essay Johnson deconstructs the novella “Billy Budd” by Herman Melville where she looks into the different interpretations of the novella and the characters. One of the characters she looks into is Captain Vere who seems to symbolize a judge like figure. Vere is the man who is left to decide whether or not Billy is guilty or innocent. Although many would assume for him to be able to choose on his own, Vere must consider many other aspects before making a decision.

In law there is always going to be someone guilty and someone innocent, as there is no other way around it. This already makes judges need to confine to politics as they technically need to choose one or the other for the person in question. Additionally, when deciding upon the criminal or victim judges must consider how they will be judged as their decision is still up for judgement afterwards. For instance, in today’s world the idea that everyone must be fairly represented no matter your identity has grown in awareness. Judges today will need to consider how their judgement will be criticized if they do the opposite of that, as they know that the public may rise up against it. Judges will never be above politics because the way politics works influences the judges, and even society.

Johnson’s explanation of this goes hand in hand with Nietzche’s belief that society does not allow one to create their own ideas as we are all influenced by everything around us in the end. Judges will end up being influenced by society or the politics around them, ultimately leaving them to never be above politics. Depending on where you are in the world the government may allow certain things while others do not. Regardless, there will always be someone above the judge whether that be politics, society, or the general public.

Barbara Johnson’s analysis, “From Melville’s Fist: The Execution of Billy Budd,” delves into the story of three major characters: Billy Budd, John Claggart, and Captain Vere. Each of these personalities represents something unique and possesses distinct characteristics, all of which contribute to their demise and troubles. First, we can look at Budd. “the innocent, ignorant foretopman, handsome Billy Budd” (2319). Budd is regarded as a good and innocent person. On the other side, Claggart is the polar opposite of him. Claggart is referred to as the devious, urban master-at-arms” (2319), and he is portrayed as nasty, cruel, and, in many ways, satan since he is always attempting to harm people around him. Billy’s good nature turns out to be his demise, which is ironic. As the evil becomes the innocent, the good becomes guilty. A fairly devastating conclusion to what can be viewed as both an ironic narrative and a natural tragedy. Captain Vere, in the end, sentences Billy Budd to death as he is battling his own sense of self vs. society. Johnson says that the signified is resembled by the inner self, whereas the signifier is resembled by the signifier outer self, based on Saussure’s concepts. Johnson employs Saussure’s theory of signifier/signified to explain the difference between Billy and Claggart as readers in terms of the traits and ideas that they share. Billy Budd is prone to gaps between purpose and action between signifier and signified, thus the comparison of being and doing comes into play here. Billy is a transparent sign with a required link between the signifier and the signified. Billy represents the difficulty of a “transparent” manner of meaning. Billy believes everything he reads and does all he says merely to preserve himself. “As a reader, then, Billy is symbolically as well as factually illiterate. His literal-mindedness is represented by his illiteracy because, in assuming that language can be taken at face value, he excludes the very functioning of difference that makes the act of reading both indispensable and undecidable” (2323). Therefore, Billy’s inability to see things at nothing else but face value put him in jeopardy of being good but guilty. On the other hand, Claggart “is the very image of difference and duplicity, both in his appearance and in his character” (2323). Claggart is the polar opposite of Billy in that he epitomizes wickedness yet, due to his untimely death, he depicts innocence. Claggart always assumes a gap between the signified and the signifier as he assumes the opposite. In essence, Johnson employs Saussure’s theory to demonstrate a distinction between Claggart and Billy. Johnson used the terms signified and signifier to show which character is capable of distinguishing between the two and which is not and how such distinctions create characterization.

Ray Nipper 

Blog post #3 

Barbara Johnson’s “Melville’s fist” seems to be about the gap between being and doing.  She chooses a novel essentially as a canvas for her argument. The characters Billy Budd and John Claggart  seemed to get into a quarrel in the story. In the novel Billy seems to be falsely accused by John of mutiny. They’re men at sea and John seems to find Billy untrustworthy. He even tells the captain to essentially keep an eye on him. Apparently it’s mentioned that Billy is good looking. It seems that bothers John. Billy sadly ends up shooting John after he makes these false accusations towards him. Johnson seems to argue that plots essentially are rebuttals to figures of authority. She says this because Billy gets swept into the story or plot by John’s accusations. John honestly just seems to have it out for Billy. It honestly seems like he thinks Billy is up to no good. He so much as even sends a guard to try to sell Billy on betraying the rest of the crew. Even though Billy rejects the false offer it doesn’t seem to slow John’s suspicion. Johnson relies heavily on what we would call “interpretations.” She believes that the story is not a fight between two characters but a fight between two readings. She claims Billy takes everything at face value and upfront while John seems more untrusting and to me a bit paranoid. Captain Vere though seems to be the one who has to judge Billy in the end. It seems the captain could care less about what may have motivated Billy to pull the trigger. It seems he’s only concerned about the fact that it happened and what that means in terms of the law. I’m actually not sure how johnson ties this into politics itself. What’s political about a murder at sea? Is it the motivation or is it what the captain is unaware of? She mentions that vere essentially has to go off the history of the two characters but that information is unbeknownst.I’m assuming that Johnson is trying to imply that the captain is judging from a place of ignorance. As if the judge must somehow know every detail of their lives in order to speak on the situation. It’s like Johnson seems bothered by the fact that no judge or captain is perfect.  She says judging is always a partial reading. Well that’s really too bad. All a judge can do is reach a conclusion with the information they’ve been provided. How is that political? Johnson says that this story reminds us that there’s a bridge between knowing and doing. It’s really too bad If Johnson doesn’t like the fact that judgements happen. It’s really too bad if she doesn’t like the fact that judges can have biases or not know every single detail of one’s life.

     Johnson’s example of Vere shows us that judges are not above politics but instead intertwined; their commitments are constituents of law regulation. The author writes, “While both Billy and Claggart are said to owe their character to “Nature,” Vere sees his actions and being as meaningful only within the context of contractual allegiance…[law] operating through him” (Johnson 2271). Although Vere differentiates Billy or Claggart’s doings or Billy’s intention for that matter, he must still position his verdict as a deduction from precompiled adversaries.

     But it isn’t that simple; Melville’s characters are contrasted “within” themselves, but “between” one another in conflicting ways; inverted parallelism or chiasmus pushes the reader to remold association between things or ideas while maintaining balance. It is one of the central components to which critics dispute the judgment of Vere’s judging and what makes finale commentary challenging for the reader.

     However, Johnson states that When a contrast “within” vague conditions is converted into a contrast “between” them, the result is a conclusive determination (Johnson 2274). Still, Melville demonstrates the dilemma of representation in politics, which stems from our position as constructed in association with dependence, even for a judge, like Vere. Johnson makes the following case ” the maintenance of political authority requires that the law function as a set of rules for the regular, predictable misreading of the “difference within” as a “difference between” (Johnson 2275).

     But if “repression of ambiguity” is present it thus becomes contradictory, making law established on a “difference within.” And because the mere decision of Vere’s speech is a dependent act that results in slaughter, that judgment is thus open for critique, as readers have done. It is a propelling motion with no ethical conscience, just dependent variables bound by perception and regulation. A continuous ambiguous space. 

As Johnson reads the plot of BB against the grain: that is, as if Claggart were right and Billy were guilty of this willfully mutiny. In my opinion the point of this is to get the readers mind running. Basically having us make assumptions on who did what based off of what occurred at the scene and prior to that. From what I’ve read claggart happens to be playful and he hides his messages behind his playfulness. On the other hand billy stutters,  he has anxiety and it happens to be comical to others and he gets into “petty trouble”. As I continued to read things are said about BB that makes is possible to assume that he did kill Claggart. It was also stated that “Billy Bud kills because he cannot speak”, there’s a few issues billy dealt with such as his anxiety and stuttering issue that was provoke and could’ve led to him killing Claggart. Those few things said above about billy bud makes it equally defensible for him to mutinly kill Claggart. Along with it being said that nothing is truly known about Claggart’s origins, to me it’s a bit confusing and somewhat a battle because all the blame is on Billy bud yet nothing of claggart is known.