Coda

Abstract

The first and the last chapters of Men Beyond Desire explicitly beg the question of a blow to the head. On some level, the fear of losing one’s one head— yielding to the power of another, essentially—has been the dominant theme of the works we have examined.

The blow to Claggart’s forehead may have caused unconsciousness and serious brain injury, but not instantaneous death. Trauma to the brain underlying the forehead could lead to coma and death, but only after a prolonged period. Even a frontal skull fracture and massive hemorrhage and brain injury would require hours before death came about, and it would not cause bleeding from the nose to the ear. The injury and sudden death of Claggart are plausible, however, if caused by a basilar skull fracture in which head is forced down by a blow from above. Intense force caused by Billy’s “superior height” could have made the bones of Claggart’s cervical spine displace the base of the skull into the skull and brain, with gross disruption of the brain stem, which may be associated with bleeding from the nose and ear, as well as instantaneous death.

—Richard Dean Smith, Melville’s Complaint