The slave narrative's use of agape and Herman Melville's 'Billy Budd'

Like John Locke and Tom Paine, who argue that slavery is an unnatural condition to all men, and who posit that, let on their own, all men would join together into communities for their mutual benefit; Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville reject the arbitrary subjugation of one man by another. In Douglass' three narratives, the writer's life, before he discovers a community for himself among the lowly black slaves, lacks moral value. This is so because, by slavery's institutional protocols, he lacks any moral value by which to shape his life. Therefore, Douglass cannot master himself because, as a slave, others must master him. Similarly, Melville creates a "Baby" Budd that does not take responsibility for himself, although he is the exemplar of manhood, the Handsome Sailor. The protocols of mastery, by which another man receives no consideration for his natural independence, thereby, sustain the two protagonists' failings. It is only when they contrive to join society as equal members of community in rites that recall the primitive Christian ceremony of agape that they become fully men. They do so, however, in imperfect societies. Therefore Billy and Fred enter into brotherhood in societies that persist in error. Consequently, decency and indecency challenge decorum. Nevertheless, this ambivalence does not prevent agape from uniting men.