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of the Puritan tragic hero: the innocent man encountering evil "for
which the creator alone is responsible"-because he is the all-sufficient
God of Calvinism. Billy Budd is wholly without that share in human
failing which for the Greek hero is a requirement of his tragic con·
summation. This is also mainly true of Pierre, and even of Joe Christ–
mas, who is really the fundamentally innocent man who
all
his life
is viciously prevented from being innocent, and whose only response
to that persistent evil of life is therefore permanent outrage, finally
culminating in the murder of the liberal, Negrophile Miss Burden.
Not only the evil men but also the good are really the adversaries
of the truly innocent; this is .a note already sounded in
BiUy Budd.
In this fateful encounter with evil it is the hero's stern con·
viction of his own innocence which gives poignancy, even violence,
to the contest; and it is often precisely this innocence which prevents
the acceptance, and thereby transcendence, of his fate. This, at any
rate, seems to be the predicament of many of the more frenzied
heroes of American literature, and it accounts for the tremen–
dous impact emanating from such immaculate violence, as well
as for a certain sterility. Violence becomes an end in itself, it ct,tn
point to nothing beyond its own rage. It is outraged and implacable
innocence, converted into cruelty, which creates the perverted Christ
figures of American literature, like the Quaker Nick of the Woods,
who marks his Indian victims with a bloody cross; or the violated
Ahab, who baptizes
in nomine diaboli,
pursuing evil with a self–
destructive, holy madness.
If
the tragic constitutes the highest non-religious dignity to be
conferred on man in his earthly struggles, it paradoxically requires
him to be not entirely innocent in order to earn the distinction. Only
if
resigned to the fact that neither man nor life are perfect,
is
he
able to transcend his fall, for which he accepts .responsibility and
punishment. This is the price he must pay for not being defeated in
defeat. The innocent man, however, has no resources in defeat;· he
does not deserve defeat and feels that he should not be defeated.
This plight
is
one for which his belief provides no explanation. It is
into this dilemma that Christ steps, not primarily as the Son of
God, but as the supreme example of innocence made to suffer, per·
secuted and crucified.
His
suffering
is
God-imposed and therefore
sanctifiedj it needs no explanation. It
is
also
made meaningfulbr
