ROGER SHATTUCK
443
The verbs
to exonerate
and
to exculpate
mean to clear someone of a
charge, to determine that there is no offense and therefore no guilt to
absolve. Two further verbs have a more restricted meaning.
To pardon
means to remit the punishment or penalty for an offense - and by impli–
cation to recognize guilt for the offense.
To forgive
grants remission of
guilt for an offense and of the resentment it may entail. The punishment
is not suspended. "Starry" Vere as a man could forgive Billy for his ex–
plosive response to Claggart's lie; Captain Vere could not pardon the
sailor under his command. To pardon designates a legal act; to forgive
designates a moral response. Mter conviction for a tort or wrong-doing,
legally one discharges the penalty unless pardoned. Morally, whether for–
given or not, one is called upon to repent and do penance. Too often
today we entirely overlook the last moral duty.
These distinctions among loosely used terms yield a schematic outline
of five possible outcomes,
legal and moral,
when a person is brought to
trial for an alleged crime:
1. Acquittal: no grounds for guilt or punishment
2. Conviction: sentencing, punishment exacted
3. Conviction and pardon: guilt maintained, punishment remitted
4. Conviction and forgiveness: guilt absolved, punishment
maintained
5. Crime without a criminal: no guilt, no punishment (empathy–
sincerity plea)
If we try to locate
Billy Budd
and
The Stranger
along this sequence de–
rived from the proverb, "To understand is to forgive,"
Billy Budd
fits
neatly enough into the fourth category. Because of attenuating circum–
stances and his "nobility" of character, all parties forgive Billy yet
acknowledge the need for maintaining the severity of the punishment.
The Stranger
poses knottier problems. Outwardly the novel conforms to
the second category. At the end Meursault has been convicted and is
awaiting execution. The inside narrative strives to make a case for inclu–
sion in the first category. But since neither the evidence nor Meursault's
confession will justify acquittal, the first-person narrator patiently builds
up the psychological climate for inclusion in the fifth category. Meursault
appears to be telling the simple truth about himself. The empathy–
sincerity plea begins to blur all distinctions. As readers we are drawn so
vividly into Meursault's affectless consciousness that notions of wrongdo–
ing and guilt fade away as quickly as the smoke from Meursault's
cigarettes. Meanwhile the details of the story keep suggesting that Meur–
sault is merely human, all too human.
