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Typee
Author Herman Melville
Original title Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Genre(s) Semi-autobiographical novel
Publication date February 26, 1846
ISBN NA

Typee (1846; in full: Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life) is American writer Herman Melville's first book, partly based on his actual experiences as a "beachcomber" on Nuku Hiva (which Melville spelled as Nukuheva) in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands and the title comes from a valley there called Tai Pi Vai. Herman Melville (August 1 1819 &ndash September 28 1891 was an American novelist Short story writer Essayist and poet The United States of America —commonly referred to as the English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States An autobiographical novel is a Novel based on the life of the author Events 747 BC - Epoch (origin of Ptolemy 's Nabonassar Era 364 - Valentinian I is proclaimed For the game see 1846 (board game. Year 1846 ( MDCCCXLVI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display The year 1846 in literature involved some significant new books The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Herman Melville (August 1 1819 &ndash September 28 1891 was an American novelist Short story writer Essayist and poet Beachcombing or Beachcomber is a term with multiple but related meanings which have evolved over time Nuku Hiva is the largest of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. It was Melville's most popular work during his lifetime; for 19th century readers his career seemed to go downhill afterwards, but during the early 20th century it was seen as just the beginning of a career that peaked with Moby-Dick (1851). Moby-Dick is an 1851 Novel by Herman Melville. The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaleship

Contents

Background

At first Typee provoked disbelief among its readers until two years after its publication the events were corroborated by Melville's fellow castaway, Richard T. Greene,[1] who appears in the story as the character Toby. Until the 1930s, it was seen as factually based tinged with romance, when Robert S. Forsythe and Charles R. Anderson exploded the myth[2] showing there were no factual sources available to verify the details of the story. It is now generally accepted that Melville exercised his artistic license so much that Typee is properly considered a work of fiction: the three week stay on which he based his story is extended in the narrative to four months, and he drew extensively on contemporary accounts by Pacific explorers to add cultural detail to what might otherwise have been a straightforward story of escape, capture and re-escape. The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth 's Oceanic divisions

Analysis

Critical opinion on Typee is divided. Scholars have traditionally focused attention on Melville's treatment of race, and the narrator's portrayal of his hosts as noble savages, but there is considerable disagreement as to what extent the values, attitudes and beliefs expressed are Melville's own, and whether Typee reinforces or challenges racist assessments of Pacific culture. The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing Humans into Populations or groups on the basis of various sets In the eighteenth-century cult of " Primitivism " the noble savage, uncorrupted by the influences of civilization was considered more worthy more authentically noble List of racism-related topics|Racism by country Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that The issue of class also plays an important role, albeit largely subliminated, with Tommo (as the natives call the narrator) struggling to assert his identity as a member of the working class in a society where work, in the modern capitalist sense, is unknown. Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions (or stratification) between individuals or groups in Societies or Cultures. Working class is a term used in academic Sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe depending on context and speaker those employed in specific fields or types

But there can be no doubt Melville was sympathetic to the "savages" he encountered, and sharply critical of the missionaries' attempts to "civilize" them:

How often is the term 'savages' incorrectly applied! None really deserving of it were ever yet discovered by voyagers or by travellers. They have discovered heathens and barbarians whom by horrible cruelties they have exasperated into savages. It may be asserted without fear of contradictions that in all the cases of outrages committed by Polynesians, Europeans have at some time or other been the aggressors, and that the cruel and bloodthirsty disposition of some of the islanders is mainly to be ascribed to the influence of such examples. The naked wretch who shivers beneath the bleak skies, and starves among the inhospitable wilds of Tierra-del-Fuego, might indeed be made happier by civilization, for it would alleviate his physical wants. But the voluptuous Indian, with every desire supplied, whom Providence has bountifully provided with all the sources of pure and natural enjoyment, and from whom are removed so many of the ills and pains of life--what has he to desire at the hands of Civilization? She may 'cultivate his mind--may elevate his thoughts,'--these I believe are the established phrases--but will he be the happier? Let the once smiling and populous Hawaiian islands, with their now diseased, starving, and dying natives, answer the question. The missionaries may seek to disguise the matter as they will, but the facts are incontrovertible; and the devoutest Christian who visits that group with an unbiased mind, must go away mournfully asking--'Are these, alas! the fruits of twenty-five years of enlightening?'

In the final analysis, it is certain that Typee delineates a crisis of identity, whether racial or economic: much as he enjoys his sojourn, Tommo is terrified of being permanently absorbed into native society. Much attention has been given to Tommo's fears that he will become a victim of cannibalism, although this fear runs in the face of much evidence (he is not, after all, eaten). Cannibalism (from Spanish es ''caníbal'' in connection with cannibalism among the Antillean Caribs, also called anthropophagy (from Greek ἄνθρωπος Melville does claim, however, to have caught the natives eating an inhabitant of one of the neighboring valleys on the island. The natives who have captured Melville reassure him that he will not be eaten, although he does state that he believes that the only thing preventing him from being eaten is an infection in his leg, for which his friend Toby is allowed to leave in search of a cure, so Melville can be healed and then eaten.

Typee is one of the first and arguably the most intelligent contemporary account of Western and Polynesian cultural interaction in the nineteenth century Pacific, and provided many later writers (such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Louis Becke and Jack London) with the themes and images that came to symbolise the Pacific experience: cannibalism, cultural absorption, colonialism, exoticism, eroticism, natural plenty and beauty, and a perceived simplicity of native lifestyle, desires and motives. Western culture (sometimes equated with Western Civilization) are terms which are used to refer to Cultures of European origin Polynesian culture refers to the aboriginal Culture of the Polynesian -speaking peoples of Polynesia and the The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850–3 December 1894 was a Scottish novelist poet and travel writer, and a representative of Neo-romanticism in George Lewis Becke ( 18 June 1855 – 18 February 1913) was an Australian short-story writer and novelist Jack London (January 12 1876 &ndash November 22 1916 was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The See Colony and Colonization for examples of colonialism which do not refer to Western colonialism

Critical response

The Knickerbocker called Typee "a piece of Münchhausenism". The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, was a Literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833 Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen ( 11 May 1720 &ndash 22 February 1797) (sometimes spelled Munchausen [3]

Publication history

Published in 1846, Typee was Melville's first book, and made him one of the best-known American authors overnight. [4] First published in England, by a publisher who believed it to be factually based. The same version was published in the United States; however, critical references to missionaries and Christianity were removed by Melville from the second US edition at the request of his publisher. Later additions included a "Sequel: The Story of Toby" written by Melville explaining what happened to Toby (although this, also, has never been factually verified).

Before its publication, the publisher asked for Melville to remove one sentence. In a scene where the Dolly is boarded by young women from Nukuheva, Melville originally wrote:

"Our ship was now given up to every species of riot and debauchery. Not the feeblest barrier was interposed between the unholy passions of the crew and their unlimited gratification. "

The second sentence was removed from the final version. [5]

The inaugural book of the critically acclaimed Library of America series was a volume containing Typee, Omoo, and Mardi, published on May 6, 1982. The Library of America (LoA is a Nonprofit Publisher of classic American literature. Omoo A Narrative of the South Seas is Herman Melville 's sequel to Typee, and as such was also autobiographical Mardi and a Voyage Thither is the third book by American author Herman Melville, first published in 1849 Events 1527 - Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. Year 1982 ( MCMLXXXII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar)

References

  1. ^ Editor's Introduction by Ernest Rhys, in Typee, A Narrative of the Marquesas Islands, by Herman Melville, Everyman's Library 1907/1949
  2. ^ Forsythe, "Herman Melville in the Marquesas", Philosophical Quarterly, 15/1 (Jan 1936), 1-15. Ernest Percival Rhys ( July 17 1859 – May 25 1946) was a British writer best known for his role as founding editor of the Everyman's Library Everyman's Library is a series of reprinted classic literature currently published by Alfred A Anderson, Melville in the South Seas (1939).
  3. ^ Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville. New York: Harvest Book, 1956: 203.
  4. ^ Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville. New York: Harvest Book, 1956: 4.
  5. ^ Nelson, Randy F. The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc. , 1981: 187. ISBN 086576008X

External links

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