The novella explores the tension between the right thing to do and what the law dictates. Several characters suffer because the law imposes harsh sentences or enables control over people, and Melville ultimately suggests that lawfulness does not equate to morality but often serves those in power.

The theme is most visible in the motif of mutiny. Jurisprudence and its codified rules attempt to impose order on the warships in the text. The laws are not ambivalent. This raises a dilemma for Vere. He is subordinate to the rule of law and to the society that empowered him with his position. When the surgeon wishes to tell Vere his misgivings, he thinks, “[t]o argue his order to him would be insolence. To resist him would be mutiny” (64). Vere would also have acted as a mutineer in the eyes of the law if he spared Billy.

The superiors in the text argue that order is necessary for an effective command, but rigid adherence to order and law also makes it possible for Billy to be condemned to die, despite the fact that everyone hates the thought of his hanging. Vere’s decision about Billy’s fate is the clearest example of the

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