"A Horseman in the Sky"

Christian ethics (see previous posts on “The Bishop and the Candlesticks” and “Bartleby the Scrivener”) is based on the “divine command” theory of ethics, which in turn is usually based on a sacred text, purporting to embody the word of a supreme deity.  Good and bad behavior is determined by an appeal to the authority of a higher power.  These commands, such as “Thou shalt not kill,” don’t usually include any exceptions, qualifiers or guidance on how to choose when one command comes in conflict with another or when special circumstances such as war or self-defense arise.   The appeal to authority removes the burden of having to think through and develop one’s own moral code, but the absence of exceptions often leaves the believer in a moral dilemma with no way out.  As shown in “Bartleby” and “The Bishop and the Candlesticks,” divine commands often set an impossibly high standard.  They might work in fiction, but not necessarily in reality.

There are those who believe that religion is necessary to morality, but the deontological theory of ethics is based on our human ability to think for ourselves.  We don’t need religion to tell us that killing and other harmful acts are wrong.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that such prohibitions are necessary to the viability of human society, not to mention our own self-interest.  In *The Lord of the Flies* by William Golding human nature is represented as selfish and cruel, once the thin layer of socialization has been stripped away; yet the novel appeals to our innate good sense about the need for a moral code.  When Piggy asks, “Which is better—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?” there is little doubt about the right answer.   Certain behaviors are intrinsically wrong, and we have a practical and moral duty to refrain from them.  However, in certain situations it may be our duty to kill, as in war.  Under most wartime conditions, a soldier will kill the enemy without question.  Not only is it a matter of following legal military orders, but it is also a matter of kill or be killed.  But what if that duty conflicts with another one?  What if the “enemy” is a friend or family member, to whom we also have certain obligations of concern? 

Such is precisely the dilemma of Carter Druse in Ambrose Bierce’s 1889 Civil War story “A Horseman in the Sky.”  A native Virginian, Druse chooses to join the Union side.  When he tells his father of his decision, the elder Druse accepts his son’s choice, telling him “Well, go, sir, and whatever may occur do what you conceive to be your duty.” 

Later, Druse is assigned to keep watch on a cliff overlooking his comrades in the valley below as they prepare for a sneak attack on a Confederate camp site.  Should they be detected by the enemy, not only would their plan fail but they would themselves be in a “perilous” position.  Druse falls asleep on his watch, but awakes in time to see a Confederate horseman on the cliff looking down on the five regiments of Federal infantry.  From his hidden location, Druse can easily kill the horseman and save his comrades from detection, but the horseman happens to be his father. 

After a struggle with his conscience, Druse shoots the horse, causing both horse and rider to plunge down the side of the cliff.  Presumably, Druse can satisfy his conscience that he has fulfilled his military duty (and saved his comrades) while also refraining from shooting his own father.  Clearly, though, by shooting the horse, Druse is responsible for his father’s death.  On the other hand, his father had told him to do his duty “whatever may occur.”  The question is, which duty is the higher one in this situation, his familial duty or his military duty?  Which is worse, patricide or treason?

A similar ethical dilemma arises in Susan Glaspell’s short story “Trifles” (see Jan. 19, 2011 post).  Two women struggle between their duty to reveal evidence of a crime and their duty to protect their friend, who has apparently murdered her husband.  Believing there were extenuating circumstances that may have justified the murder, the women end up concealing evidence.   

Whatever we may think of the actions taken by the characters in the two stories, the point is that deontological ethics, like divine command theory, may not help us when we are confronted with two bad choices.

But is the main function of either story to question the efficacy of deontological ethics?  Probably not.  As stated in my blog post on “Trifles,” the main point of the story had to do with the way the male characters dismiss and trivialize the women, thereby overlooking the evidence the women have found. It is not just that the women conceal the evidence, but that the men can’t conceive they might find something significant while sorting through the domestic “trifles” of the suspect.

So, what is the main point of “A Horseman in the Sky”?  Is it an anti-war story, suggesting that war itself is immoral, forcing soldiers to commit horrible acts that they would never commit in civilian life?  Is it about the twisted ironies of life, in which a father’s advice to his son is turned against him?  Or is it about Carter Druse’s character?  After all, he makes his decision to join the Federal Army while his mother lies on her deathbed.  What does that say about his devotion to familial duty? Couldn’t he have waited until after her impending death?  Why does he not struggle with his conscience over abandoning his dying mother?  And, what does it say about his devotion to military duty that he is asleep at his post and only by chance awakes in time to see the Confederate horseman?  Does his struggle with his conscience before shooting the horse suggest a moral advance over his failed duty to his mother?  Or, does his shooting of the horse represent yet another failure to take responsibility for his actions by allowing him to tell himself he didn’t kill his own father?

On a different level, does his decision to join the Federal Army represent an admirable loyalty to the Union (and perhaps an opposition to slavery) or does his disloyalty to his own state (and family)represent yet another failure of character?

Like all good literature, the story is rich with possible interpretations and with implications for our own human reflections on ethics, character, and the ironies of life.

"The Bishop and the Candlesticks" (and more on "Bartleby")

Whatever else it may be “Bartleby the Scrivener” (see previous post) raises the ethical question of our responsibility to our fellow human beings.  Are we our brother’s keeper?  And, if so, what does that mean? How far do we take it?

I suspect most contemporary readers would say that the lawyer goes way beyond the call of duty by allowing Bartleby to get away with refusing to work and taking up residence at his workplace.  At one point, the lawyer even offers to take him into his home, but Bartleby “prefers not to.”

Our culture puts a high value on self-reliance and individual responsibility.   If Bartleby refuses to work for a living and provide for himself, then he deserves the consequences.  Even a reader who believes in charity and humane treatment of the undeserving might lose all sympathy when Bartleby refuses the lawyer’s offer of taking him home.

At one point the lawyer recalls the scripture of John 13:34:  “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another.”  If the story constitutes a test of how well the lawyer treats the “least of these” as if they were Christ himself, does it also suggest that such a high standard of brotherly love is completely unrealistic?  Are Christian ethics, taken literally, completely unrealistic in the human realm?  Just how far are we expected to take them?  Does that make the story a critique of Christianity as an impossibly ideal code that is doomed to failure?  Or is it a critique of society and its failure to organize itself in a way that is compatible with and supportive of such a high standard of behavior?  Or both?

Another story that raises these questions is “The Bishop and the Candlesticks,” found at the beginning of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. 

Jean Valjean has been released from prison (actually as a rower, chained to his seat in a sailing ship).  He had initially been sentenced to five years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, but his repeated attempts to escape had added 14 more years.  Imprisonment has hardened him, and, upon his release, he is treated cruelly by the local townspeople until one of them finally sends him to the door of the bishop.

Unlike Bartleby’s lawyer, the bishop immediately takes the homeless stranger into his home, gives him a hot meal, and prepares him a bed to sleep in.  In the middle of the night Jean Valjean awakes and, after some indecision, steals the bishop’s silver plates and disappears into the night.  The next day he is captured with the “goods” and brought to the bishop, who tells the gendarmes that he had freely given the man the silver.  When the gendarmes leave, the bishop gives Jean Valjean his two silver candlesticks stating, “It is your soul I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition and give it to God.”  As we know (Les Miserables having entered into popular culture), Jean Valjean goes on to use this gift to make a new start, live an honest life, care for a dying prostitute, raise her orphaned child as his own, save his adopted daughter's lover from death, and, having been redeemed by the kindly bishop, die a man of goodness and faith.

Is the bishop a type of Christ who saves Jean Valjean?  Is he a saint?  Or is he a foolish idealist who is fortunate Jean Valjean did not murder him in his sleep before stealing the silver?  (All this rather overlooks the bishop’s lie to the gendarmes.)

Read realistically, the bishop is a less than credible character who is almost laughably virtuous.  Is that to say that his ethics are too good for this world?  That in real life he would have been quickly exploited by evildoers and sent to his death?  That such goodness could not realistically survive?

Similarly, how realistic is it that a convict mistreated as badly as Jean Valjean would truly reform as a result of the bishop’s one act of compassion and faith?

When we say the story is unrealistic, are we saying that the Christian ethic, when taken literally, is an impossible ideal?  Or are we saying that reality inevitably fails to live up to such a high standard of virtue?

But, of course, neither story is meant to be read realistically.  Both make more sense read as Christian allegory, challenging its (Christian) readers to a higher, more virtuous life, however far that may end up being from the ideal.

In the case of “Bartleby,” however, I do think a valid case could be made, based on other works by Melville (the novel Pierre for example) that the story critiques Christianity for its impractical, if not impossible, expectations for human virtue.  At the same time, its focus on Wall Street and American capitalism suggests that it may be the hypocrisy of a so-called Christian nation that is Melville’s other, equally important, target.