Herman Melvilles The Chola Widow: Facing Rape and Death in the Galapagos Islands: A Short Story from

Bloom's How to Write about Herman Melville

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Lynn Michelsohn Goodreads Author. Lynn Michelsohn Average rating: Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Refresh and try again. Lynn Michelsohn Goodreads Author ,. Lynn Michelsohn Book Title: Billy the Kid in Santa Fe Genre: Oct 20, Lynn Michelsohn is now friends with Kitty Bullard. Feb 23, Lynn Michelsohn made a comment in the group Making Connections — I'm glad you enjoyed my book, and appreciate your lovely review.

Thank you for your time and effort. B Alyssia, Your kind comments really make me smile. Aug 29, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Apr 02, Lynn Michelsohn is now following Stacie Cregg 's reviews. Feb 24, Lynn Michel If you are accepting non-fiction South Carolina Lowcountry folktales, with some local history included , please add my ebook.

Jan 08, Wall Street, which is driven by business 1. Finally decides to be rid of Bartleby 2. Isolates—imagery of walls b. Renders him invisible—screens and language of ghostliness c. Dehumanizes—no history; no full name; no existence outside of office d. Setting of second part: Maids and bachelors b. Imagery of barrenness contrasts with sexual imagery 2. Machines as God-like a. In both stories, reams of paper are produced at the expense of human beings B. Both stories also chart the effects of business on those who could be in a position to change the situation and who bear responsibility C.

Body Paragraphs Once your outline is complete, you can begin drafting your paper. Paragraphs, units of related sentences, are the building blocks of a good paper, and as you draft you should keep in mind both the function and the qualities of good paragraphs. Paragraphs help you chart and control the shape and content of your essay, and they help the reader see your How to Write a Good Essay 21 organization and your logic. You should begin a new paragraph whenever you move from one major point to another.

In longer, more complex essays, you might use a group of related paragraphs to support major points. Remember that in addition to being adequately developed, a good paragraph is both unified and coherent. Unified Paragraphs Each paragraph must be centered on one idea or point, and a unified paragraph carefully focuses on and develops this central idea without including extraneous ideas or tangents. For beginning writers, the best way to ensure that you are constructing unified paragraphs is to include a topic sentence in each paragraph. This topic sentence should convey the main point of the paragraph, and every sentence in the paragraph should relate to that topic sentence.

Any sentence that strays from the central topic does not belong in the paragraph and needs to be revised or deleted. To begin with, Bartleby is, quite literally, poor. He is a law copyist, a worker. During the course of the story, the narrator discovers that Bartleby is also homeless. Stopping by his offices on a Sunday morning, the narrator finds that Bartleby has locked the door from the inside.

His poverty is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Coherence depends on the order of your sentences, but it is not strictly the order of the sentences that is important to paragraph coherence. You also need to craft your prose to help the reader see the relationship among the sentences. Consequently, it lacks coherence and clarity: Bartleby is, quite literally, poor. During the course of the story the narrator discovers that Bartleby is homeless. The scrivener has a poor diet.

The argument is hard to follow because the author fails both to show connections between the sentences and to indicate how they work to support the overall point. A number of techniques are available to aid paragraph coherence. Careful use of transitional words and phrases is essential. If you were writing about The Wizard of Oz, you would not want to keep repeating the phrase the witch or the name Dorothy. Careful substitution of the pronoun she in these instances can aid coherence.

A word of warning, though: When you substitute pronouns for proper names, always be sure that your pronoun reference is clear. In a paragraph that discusses both Dorothy and the witch, substituting she could lead to confusion. Make sure that it is clear to whom the pronoun refers. Generally, the pronoun refers to the last proper noun you have used. Careful repetition of important words or phrases can lend coherence to your paragraph by reminding readers of your key points. Notice how the author works with the same ideas and quotations but shapes them into a much more coherent paragraph whose point is clearer and easier to follow: During the course of the story the narrator discovers that Bartleby is also homeless.

In it, the author draws connections between the two stories as he points to the many ways that the girls in the paper mill are dehumanized. Like Bartleby, the maids are dehumanized, and the narrator provides a great deal of imagery that suggests this dehumanization. Finally, the extended parallels that the narrator draws between the girls and the paper that they produce also suggests just how thoroughly they have been dehumanized.

Like the paper, they are silent and blank, and he repeatedly emphasizes their blankness. In fact, the girls are all so emptied of individuality that they all seem interchangeable. Introductions Introductions present particular challenges for writers. Generally, your introduction should do two things: In other words, while your introduction should contain your thesis, it needs to do a bit more work than that.

It is hard to face that blank page or screen, and as a result, many beginning writers, in desperation to start somewhere, start with overly broad, general statements. While it is often a good strategy to start with more general subject matter and narrow your focus, do not begin with broad sweeping statements such as, Business is everywhere, or Throughout the course of history business has flourished.

Or, you might begin with an introduction of the topic you will discuss. Another common trap to avoid is depending on your title to introduce the author and the text you are writing about. Throughout the course of history, business has flourished. Many people wonder about the values of business, though. Herman Melville was one of those people.

He wondered about what business does to people. These two stories show that he wondered about business. As business and industry thrived in 19th-century America, many activists began to question the values that drove these businesses. Their attitudes were reflected in some of the literature of the time. Many of his writings draw from his experiences and comment on the effects of business and industry on the individual. In both stories, human values are destroyed by the values of business. This is most clearly seen in the effects upon the workers, Bartleby, and the maids who work in the paper mill.

The second introduction works with the same material and thesis, but provides more detail, and is, consequently, much more interesting. While it begins broadly, it does focus on business in 19th-century America. The paragraph below provides another example of an opening strategy. In part, this difficulty results from the way Melville has drawn his title character. The scrivener seems to function as a symbolic character in a rather realistic story, and like any symbol, Bartleby represents many things at once. Conclusions Conclusions present another series of challenges for writers.

No doubt you have heard the old adage about writing papers: It will almost certainly result in boring papers especially boring conclusions. If you have done a good job establishing your points in the body of the paper, the reader already knows and understands your argument.

There is no need to merely reiterate. Do not just summarize your main points in your conclusion. Such a boring and mechanical conclusion does nothing to advance your argument or interest your reader. In conclusion, Melville shows that business can be bad. Finally, Bartleby dies, and Melville makes it clear that the maids will die as a result of their consumption, too. In both stories, humans are destroyed by work.

Besides starting with a mechanical and obvious transitional device, this conclusion does little more than summarize some of the main points of the outline it does not even touch on all of them. It is incomplete and uninteresting. Instead, your conclusion should add something to your paper. A good tactic is to build upon the points you have been arguing. What does he hope to accomplish through his portraits of Bartleby and the girls in the paper mill? Another method of successfully concluding a paper is to speculate on other directions in which to take your topic, and tie it into larger issues.

It might help to envision your paper as just one section of a larger paper.

Having established your points in this paper, how would you build upon this argument? Where would you go next? While the work that Bartleby does is quite different from that of the maids in the paper mill, both stories show the dehumanizing effects of business. In both stories, reams of paper are produced at the expense of human beings. Bartleby dies of starvation, and the maids are chained to a life of servitude that will end in death.

Each text, though, goes beyond an examination of the workers, providing a glimpse of the effects of business on those who might have the power to make a difference. The narrator of Bartleby vacillates between the values How to Write a Good Essay 29 of business and human values. While business values seem to get the better of him when he moves and abandons Bartleby at his offices, perhaps the fact that he visits him in prison shows that he has had a change of heart.

Similarly, the final passage of the text may provide evidence of a change of heart. Clearly, he is moved and appalled by the situation of these girls. It also seems as though he sees his own role in their exploitation. Perhaps Melville, in his commentary on the dehumanizing effects of business, might find some hope in these men. If they do recognize the roles that they play in the dehumanization of the working class, perhaps they will begin to sow the seeds of change. He visits Bartleby in prison. Perhaps here Melville echoes Matthew Citations and Formatting Using Primary Sources As the examples included in this chapter indicate, strong papers on literary texts incorporate quotations from the text in order to support their points.

It is not enough for you to assert your interpretation without providing support or evidence from the text. Remember that the paper presents your argument, so choose quotations that support your assertions. Quotations should always be integrated into your own prose. Do not just drop them into your paper without introduction or comment. Otherwise, it is unlikely that your reader will see their function. You can integrate textual support easily and clearly with identifying tags, short phrases that identify the speaker.

As the poem ends, Melville speaks once again of the swallows: Double-space before you begin the passage, indent it 10 spaces from your left-hand margin, and double-space the passage itself. Because the indentation signals the inclusion of a quotation, do not use quotation marks around the cited passage. Use a colon to introduce the passage: I can get along with him.

If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience.

Soon this generosity passes. Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low Over the field in clouded days, The forest-field of Shiloh— This first image seems peaceful.

Lynn Michelsohn

It is also important to interpret quotations after you introduce them and explain how they help advance your point. You cannot assume that your reader will interpret the quotations the same way that you do. Quote Accurately Always quote accurately. Conversely, if you choose to omit any words from the quotation, use ellipses three spaced periods to indicate missing words or phrases: In the first paragraph of Moby-Dick, Ishmael describes the mood that prompted him to go to sea: This is my substitute for pistol and ball. If you delete a sentence or more, use the ellipses after a period: Everything was mute and calm; everything gray.

The sky seemed a gray surtout.

Shadows present foreshadowing deeper shadows to come. If you omit a line or more of poetry, or more than one paragraph of prose, use a single line of spaced periods to indicate the omission: Foemen at morn, but friends at eve—. What like a bullet can undeceive! But now they lie low, While over them the swallows skim And all is hushed at Shiloh. Punctuate Properly Punctuation of quotations often causes more trouble than it should. Once again, you just need to keep these simple rules in mind.

Periods and commas should be placed inside quotation marks, even if they are not part of the original quotation: Ahab sees himself reflected in the coin: In this case, the period or comma goes after the citation more on these later in this chapter: Other marks of punctuation—colons, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation points—go outside the quotation marks unless they are part of the original quotation: Additionally, its rules for citing both primary and secondary sources are widely available from reputable online sources.

Generally, when you are citing from literary works in papers, you should keep a few guidelines in mind. Parenthetical Citations MLA asks for parenthetical references in your text after quotations. When you are working with prose short stories, novels, or essays include page numbers in the parentheses: When you are quoting poetry, include line numbers: Works Cited Page These parenthetical citations are linked to a separate works cited page at the end of the paper. Documenting Secondary Sources To ensure that your paper is built entirely upon your own ideas and analysis, instructors often ask that you write interpretative papers without any outside research.

If, on the other hand, your paper requires research, you must document any secondary sources you use. Follow the guidelines above for quoting primary sources when you use direct quotations from secondary sources. Parenthetical Citations As with the documentation of primary sources, described above, MLA guidelines require in-text parenthetical references to your secondary sources.

Unlike the research papers you might write for a history class, literary research papers following MLA style do not use footnotes as a means of documenting sources. If you include the name of the author in your prose, then you would include only the page number in your citation. Similarly, and just as important, if you summarize or paraphrase the particular ideas of your source, you must provide documentation: Ahab uses mechanistic imagery in the final hunt for the whale. This imagery demonstrates his hunger for power Marx Works Cited Page Like the primary sources discussed above, the parenthetical references to secondary sources are keyed to a separate works cited page at the end of your paper.

Here is an example of a works cited page that uses the examples cited above. Note that when two or more works by the same author are listed, you should use three hypens followed by a period in the subsequent entries. The Feminization of American Culture. American Romanticism and the Marketplace. U of Chicago P, Literary Studies and Social Formations. Wai-chee Dimock and Michael T. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America.

Plagiarism Failure to document carefully and thoroughly can leave you open to charges of stealing the ideas of others, which is known as plagiarism, and this is a very serious matter. Remember that it is important to include quotation marks when you use language from your source, even if you use just one or two words. Instead, you should write: In this case, you have properly credited Douglas.

Similarly, neither summarizing the ideas of an author nor changing or omitting just a few words means that you can omit a citation. There are no women of any kind to speak of in Redburn and White-Jacket, and the only women in Typee and Omoo are Polynesians who pose few challenges to the protagonists.

The famous Fayaway of Typee is a charming and sympathetic creature. She offers exactly what the American Victorian lady would deny her male counterpart: These women, especially Fayaway, provide sympathy and pleasure. They are unlike the women of Victorian America because they offer unconstrained sexual pleasure without the guilt of Victorian society. Unlike American Victorian women, she offers unmoralized pleasure. Because some of the wording remains the same, though, the second would require the use of quotation marks in addition to a parenthetical citation.

The passage below represents an honestly and adequately documented use of the original passage: Common knowledge generally How to Write a Good Essay 39 includes the birth and death dates of authors or other well-documented facts of their lives. An often-cited guideline is: When in doubt, document your source. Sample Essay Sara White Ms.

The scrivener seems to function as a symbolic character in a rather realistic story, and, like any symbol, Bartleby represents many things at once. In an almost surreal way, Bartleby seems to have no existence outside of his work. As the title implies, his character has been reduced to a single dimension.

He is a worker—Bartleby, the scrivener. And the narrator tells us that, as a worker in the offices of No. This phrase, which Melville italicizes, evokes the famous biblical passage from Matthew This passage from Matthew echoes an Old Testament verse from Deuteronomy that gives explicit teaching about the treatment of the poor: Even though Bartleby at first seems a perfect worker who has no life or existence beyond the office, he soon ceases to work.

When this happens, the narrator begins a long struggle to understand his new relationship with Bartleby. The lawyer develops this imagery, frequently speaking of Bartleby as a kind of ghost. Poor, homeless Bartleby haunts the narrator just as the specter of poverty haunted the well-off who worked on Wall Street. And like the omnipresent poor, Bartleby raises serious ethical questions for the lawyer. He is useful to me. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience.

He offers Bartleby 20 dollars as a kind of severance package; he offers to help him find his family; he offers to help Bartleby find suitable employment; and he even offers to take Bartleby home. But like the problem of poverty, Bartleby refuses to be easily solved. Clearly, and justifiably, frustrated with Bartleby, the narrator now tries to ignore the problem that Bartleby poses. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion.

So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond How to Write a Good Essay that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul to be rid of it.

Neither of these tactics work. After the lawyer has moved his business to another office, the new occupant of No. The interchange between the two lawyers is important: He refuses to do any thing; he says he prefers not to; and he refuses to quit the premises. University of Virginia Library. Boston and New York: A Peep at Polynesian Life, was published when Melville was just 27 and was based on his own experiences living among the Typee people on the Marquesan island of Nukuheva.

Melville proved a master of adventure and suspense. As Tommo lives peaceably among these people, Melville dangles the ever-present threat of cannibalism and violence. On one hand, he was an instant literary success, a minor celebrity. While Melville longed to travel in new literary directions, his reading public wanted and expected more adventure narratives. After his marriage, as a man with a growing family, Melville would feel the pressure of public acclaim even more, for he became acutely aware that he could be assured of an income only if he pleased the reading public.

Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. What I feel most moved to write, that is banned,—it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. Truth is ridiculous to men. On the whole, the book was poorly received and poorly understood. In , he went to sea, and before he returned to Boston in he served on a merchant ship, on whalers, and on a naval ship. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funeral pyres.

Typee begins with anecdotes about cross-cultural encounters, including a story of a tribal queen who, during a military ceremony aboard a Western ship, raised her skirts to show her tattoos to a tattooed sailor. When he enters, the narrator encounters his perplexing former employee: Going up stairs to my old haunt, there was Bartleby silently sitting upon the banister at the landing.

Along with the adventure and the humor, the serious side of Melville remains. Throughout his career, he continued to challenge other beliefs and practices sacrosanct in his culture: As a reader, you may be surprised how strikingly modern Melville seems. Many of the issues and concerns he addresses still have modern relevance. In works such as Benito Cereno and Typee, he asks readers to consider questions of race and to reevaluate racial stereotypes. Remember that, above all, he strived to tell the truth in a world that was often loath to hear the truths he told.

I, too, dislike it: Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine. The topic suggestions below provide broad ideas for essays about themes, characters, literary forms, language, and imagery. In addition, they should guide your thinking about the cultural context of both Melville and his works, suggesting historical and philosophical topics for consideration. Remember that these topics are quite broad; they give you a general framework to guide you as you read, reread, and analyze the text or texts that you will write about.

You will need to narrow the focus of your paper, constructing an analytical thesis and bearing in mind the proposed length of your paper. Themes Readers often begin analysis of a work of literature by asking what the work is about; these questions lead to the theme of the work. In order to write about themes, you need not only determine what the work is about, but also what it says about that particular theme.

What does he say about America, its values, and its position in the world order? Billy Budd, for instance, is set aboard a British man-of-war during the 18th century, but it deals with questions of war, revolt, and human rights and was written in the wake of the American Civil War. Paradise and the fall: Why is this theme so prominent in his work?

Does the nation function as a paradise in any of his work? Where and how does he portray the fall from paradise? How are the two connected? Moby-Dick is similarly unkind to traditional Christianity. How does he characterize the relationship between nature and humanity? Character Characters can provide a way to analyze texts because readers often react to them as they would to real people.

Did you sympathize with a particular character? Evaluate their relationships with other characters as well as the imagery associated with them. If you are planning a paper that analyzes characters in a few works, you should look for patterns. As you draw conclusions about patterns in character development, you can begin to shape a thoughtful thesis for an essay. Does he use them to comment on issues of gender and sexuality, or does their function seem tied to other social issues? Do they all seem to possess the same characteristics and play the same roles in the social milieus that he creates?

Why does Melville use characters without clear parentage or heritage so frequently? Why does he return to them again and again? While Melville was not an orphan, he was just 12 when his once wealthy father, Allan Melvill, died bankrupt in Melville and his older brother, Gansevoort, left school to help provide for their family. You might also think of other characters, such as Babo and Queequeq, who seem to have no clear place in Western society.

Western and non-Western characters: How and why does he portray these characters for his American audience? Typee, MobyDick, and Benito Cereno provide the most obvious starting places for this topic. Clearly, you should consider issues of race and of racial prejudice. Does Melville seem to be free of the racial prejudices of his time, or does he seem to participate in them?

Similarly, Melville was a copious and analytical reader, and if you know something about the books and authors he read, you will have more insight into his work. He grew up in the Dutch Reformed Church, and he knew his Bible well. Similarly, Melville was well read in classic British authors such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Spenser. He also read widely from travel and adventure narratives and knew what others had said about the places that he visited and wrote about.

All of this reading left a clear mark on his own work. Melville served aboard whale ships, merchant ships, and a naval ship. Melville turned to poetry during his later years. Billy Budd, which Melville was still revising when he died, also seems inspired by the tensions and issues of the war. Though it is set aboard a British man-of-war during the 18th century, it addresses questions of revolt and revolution, war, and the fall from innocence, all of which Melville tackled in Battle-Pieces.

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At other times, he engages the philosophies of his time. Much of his work seems to address the thinking and the worldview of transcendentalists such as Emerson. Many of his texts explore the connection between perception and understanding, and he continually emphasizes the relationship between observation and knowledge. What kind of commentary does Melville make about the relationship between perception and understanding? What does he say about what humans know and how humans know? In a May letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville wrote: Your legs seem to send out shoots into the earth.

Your hair feels like leaves upon your head. This is the all feeling. But what plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.

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His travels and his interactions with native people in the South Seas caused Melville to reconsider ideas about civilization and savagery. In order to address this question, you should familiarize yourself with the philosophy of the noble savage. The concept of the uncivilized innocent is often associated with the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and romantic philosophy, though it has it roots in the Enlightenment.

Clearly, Typee provides a starting point for such an exploration. Certainly, Moby-Dick is also relevant, especially given its treatment of Queequeg and its contemplation of notions of civilization and savagery. Colonization and political structure: Having arrived in Nukuheva when the French were colonizing the Marquesas, Melville critiqued colonialism in Typee.

Form and Genre Examining the structure or the form of a text can also provide insight into its meanings, and you can build insightful papers from such an analysis. Consequently, the work is hard to classify. Moby-Dick, now commonly thought of as a powerful novel, shifts narrative point of view, partakes of the elements of drama, and includes lengthy philosophical passages. All of these elements seem to violate accepted novelistic conventions. Consider why Melville played with, stretched, and challenged these forms.

What purposes do his nontraditional structures serve? It is important not to confuse the narrator with the author. Similarly, in works that are told in the third person, you should think about what that third person knows and what he shares. Is the third-person narrator omniscient? Does he limit what the reader sees and knows of the characters? Why would Melville decide to tell a story from the particular narrative point of view that he chooses? He often used color imagery, and the contrast of light and dark, in particular, recurs frequently in his work. Similarly, he often employed animal imagery in his fiction.

As you analyze the imagery of his texts, consider the common or traditional connotations of such language. Does Melville rely on these traditional or common meanings, or does he develop or change them? What are the effects of the changes that he makes? Develop your analysis of imagery and symbolism by drawing connections to the themes or meaning of a work.

Pay particular attention to his use of light and dark. How and why does he employ this imagery? While the book obviously centers on white and whiteness, Melville makes clear the connections between the imagery of whiteness and its dark opposite. How and why does he use animal imagery? Obviously, Moby Dick functions as a symbol in the novel that bears its name, and a thorough analysis of the whale and its function in the novel could support numerous papers. Shark imagery, too, becomes important in Moby-Dick, and Melville returns to this imagery late in his career in Battle-Pieces.

Tattoos and bodily markings: How would you characterize his use of this imagery? In Moby-Dick, Melville continues to explore tattooing and bodily marking through his treatment of Queequeg as well as through the marks on the bodies of Ahab, Ishmael, and Moby Dick. What insight into the meanings of the texts does a comparative analysis of his sources provide?

Considering the whys behind such comparisons and contrasts, though, is extremely important. Teachers dread these papers because they have no apparent purpose or organizing principle. Perhaps you found his treatment of madness intriguing in your reading of Moby-Dick. You could begin to develop a focus for your paper by asking questions about his use of madness in other works. Could similar questions be posed about Ahab and his pursuit of Moby Dick?

Do Vere and Ahab share any qualities? Analyzing elements within a work: You might, then, explore how madness functions within the text. Why is madness so prevalent in the novel, and why might Melville have populated his novel with these characters? In order to construct a productive analysis, you should think of the purpose behind your choice of authors. What do you hope to show through your analysis? Keep in mind the projected length of your essay and focus your topic accordingly. You could write a great deal about the nature of symbolism in Moby-Dick and The Scarlet Letter, for instance, but the subject is far too broad to handle in a short paper.

Bibliography and Online Resources Arvin, Newton. Hawthorne, Melville, and the Novel. Imagining Self in Nineteenth-Century America. U of California P, Allegories of the Body in Melville and Hawthorne. Johns Hopkins UP, A Comprehensive Index and Glossary. His World and His Work. Melville and the Poetics of Individualism. The Formation of a Literary Career. The Great Art of Telling the Truth.

Louisiana State UP, U of Oklahoma P, The Wake of the Gods: A Historical Guide to Herman Melville. Kent State UP, Hayford, Harrison, and Hershel Parker. Shadow over the Promised Land: A Companion to Herman Melville. The Power of Blackness: The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville. Innocence, Tragedy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. The Life and Works of Herman Melville. Downloaded May 17, Hero, Captain, and Stranger: U of North Carolina P, Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. Melville and the Life We Imagine.

Newman, Lea Bertani Vozar. Bodies, Discourse, and Ideology in Antebellum America.

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Johns Hopkins UP, , Melville in the Marketplace. U of Massachusetts P, Strike Through the Mask: Herman Melville and the Scene of Writing. Downloaded on October 25, The Politics and Art of Herman Melville. Literary Culture and U.

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The Sign of the Cannibal: Melville and the Making of a Postcolonial Reader. U of South Carolina P, Race in the Making of American Literature. Belknap P of Harvard UP, And in more recent years, with the increased interest in the portrayal of colonialism and Western imperialism in literature, readers have found a new appreciation for Typee and some of its major themes. He then begins to sketch a portrait of the numerous young women who swim toward the Dolly: These females are passionately fond of dancing, and in the wild graces and spirit of their style excel everything that I have ever seen.

The varied dances of the Marquesan girls are beautiful in the extreme, but there is an abandoned voluptuousness in their character which I dare not attempt to describe. Our ship was now wholly given up to every species of riot and debauchery. The grossest licentiousness and the most shameful inebriety prevailed, with occasional and but short-lived interruptions, through the whole period of her stay.

Thrice happy are they who, inhabiting some yet undiscovered island in the midst of the ocean, have never been brought into contaminating contact with the white man. Soon, despite the beauty of the valley, the kind treatment he receives, and the attentions of Fayaway and Kory-Kory, Tommo begins to speak of himself as a captive, a prisoner. These connections should encourage you to examine this early description of the young women in more detail.

Once again, these descriptions seem marked by their connections to male fantasy, and yet they do more to characterize the women and their culture. How might this fact contribute to the element of male fantasy? Consider, too, what other implications their mythological status might hold for the passage. Does their unreality say anything about the paradise that Nukuheva appears to be? Does it say anything about Western conceptions and understandings of the Marquesas and their inhabitants? Still further, consider the connections between the sylphs and nature.

Similarly, you might think about how the descriptions of the women and their dancing help to develop these implications. In the process of colonizing these territories, Americans imported their values and their religion. This, too, is a comparison that Melville would draw later in Typee. While he seems so eager to challenge traditional Western notions of civilization and savagery, Melville also shows an awareness of his audience and its values. The Reading to Write section also commented on the many connections between Moby-Dick and Typee, and the two books do share many themes.

Clearly, other aspects of their culture, including cannibalism and taboo, could serve as fruitful topics for a theme-based paper. In order to develop a response to this question, you should carefully examine the portraits of the individual islanders as well as his portraits of some of the Westerners. There are many passages in the book that provide explicit social analysis. What does Western civilization bring to islands like Nukuheva? In a number of places, he presents commentary on this issue through his descriptions of events on Tahiti and the Sandwich Hawaiian Islands.

Th ink about why Melville evaluates the process of civilization as he does. In his views, what drives and desires propel the Western urge to civilize? You might also note how explicitly Melville draws attention to the meanings of such words as savage and civilized. Eden and the fall: Can Typee be read as an argument in favor of the idea of the fortunate fall?

You should probably begin thinking about this issue by tracing the many ways that Melville develops the associations between the Typee Valley and Eden. What qualities allow this island world to appear so Edenic? How does Melville develop these associations? Consider, too, what the inhabitants of the Typee Valley share with Adam and Eve. In what ways do they seem prelapsarian? Why does Tommo decide to escape? Is the looming threat of cannibalism his only motivation?

Does this paradise have any other drawbacks? How is the language of enchantment related to the theme of paradise? In chapter 4, Tommo says of the Typees: How does Melville use the threat of cannibalism in Typee? Such a consideration is complicated by the complex relationship between Tommo and his creator. What do the two share? When do they separate? Consider if Melville projects his own attitudes on Tommo here, or if the two are separate.

What are readers to think of Tommo and his reaction? Tommo directs a good deal of attention both to the Typee custom of tattooing and to their tattoos themselves. Why does Tommo respond with horror to the prospect of being tattooed? In what ways is Karky portrayed as an artist? What other patterns of language seem to work against this portrayal of the artist and his work?

Why does he react as he does? His descriptions of the tattoos of Kory-Kory, Marnoo, and Fayaway are particularly relevant. Obviously, a paper that tackles this subject should begin with this lengthy discussion of taboo in chapter Although this passage occurs near the end of Typee, Tommo has encountered the perplexing rules of taboo throughout his stay in the Typee Valley.

Examine these encounters in some detail. Consider how the word and the concept of taboo are used in the valley. Consider who imposes the restrictions of taboo and who is restricted by it. What can you conclude about the Typees, their religion, and their system of government though an analysis of taboo in Typee? Storytelling and the creation of narrative: In his preface to Typee, Melville makes a plea for both the veracity of his text as well as its ability to entertain: Even a cursory familiarity with the history of Typee shows how important the tension between story and truth, fact, or history is.

Examine his references to fairy tales in Typee. Concurrently, examine what he has to say about the published narratives about the South Sea Islands. What kind of power resides in the stories? What kind of power resides in the published narratives? Th is kind of inquiry will overlap with some of the topics in the Form and Genre section of this chapter. Tommo spends a great deal of time discussing gender norms in the Typee Valley. Clearly, Tommo spends a good deal of time speaking about the free, uninhibited sexuality of the Typees.

He seems especially to focus on the natural and unconstrained sexuality of the young women. At the same time, though, Tommo speaks admiringly of many of the young men. Th is is especially so in his descriptions of Marnoo. How might you read his treatment of Typee sexuality as a commentary on Western attitudes toward sexuality and gender roles? How might this commentary help to develop this line of inquiry? Additionally, Tommo frequently comments upon the role of women in this society.

Examine his comments about the restrictions placed upon women by the system of taboo as well as his commentary on women and work on the island. Any of these examinations could help you to develop a thoughtful paper on the topic of gender in Typee. Typee 77 Character Peopled as it is with interesting and exotic characters, Typee presents many opportunities for papers on character.

In Typee, it is important to remember that, as the narrator, Tommo always serves as a mediating consciousness. Be sure to keep these facts in mind as you plan a paper about character in Typee. And one way to envision a response to this question is to think about the elements that Typee shares with fairy tales a genre that Melville references in chapter What does the landscape share with these tales? How might this landscape and the journey be read symbolically?

Both could serve symbolic functions. You would also do well to examine the language used to describe the Typee Valley throughout the book. What draws Tommo to him? Examine the role of Fayaway in Typee. Does she function as more than just an exotic love interest for Tommo? In many ways, this question relates to the question about gender as a theme in Typee.

There is, modern scholars argue, no lake in the Typee Valley. Why, then, would Melville have invented scenes like this? What function do they serve? Good biographies of Melville should provide you with a good place to begin research on these topics. He signed on to the whaler Acushnet in January , then jumped ship on the South Sea island of Nukuheva in June after 18 months aboard the whaling ship. After living among the Typee people on Nukuheva for four weeks, Melville shipped aboard another whaler, the Lucy Ann, and, along with other sailors, participated in a mutiny in Tahiti.

Melville crafted Typee from his experiences among the Typee. Prior narratives of the South Seas: Throughout Typee, Melville makes use of, and uses overt references to, numerous published accounts of the South Sea Islands. To what use does Melville put these texts? Why does he make such overt reference to them? In his introduction to the Penguin edition of Typee, Bryant notes that Melville also drew from missionary accounts of the South Sea Islands.

The textual history of Typee: Typee has a complex and vexing textual history. In his correspondence with Evert A. Similarly, you might wish to study his next book, Omoo, which continues the theme of missionaries and conversion. Despite its challenges to traditional American ideologies about gender, sexuality, and religion, there are other ways in which Typee seems clearly to be aimed at a 19th-century reading public. Where do you see the imprint of the values of an antebellum American audience? While a response to this question could address the textual emendations discussed in the previous question, there are other ways to develop this topic.

A belief in the values of domesticity reigned in middle-class American culture in the 19th century. This cult of domesticity centered moral value in the home and the family. Consider how Melville was able to write about sexuality in a relatively overt way for the 19th century in Typee. Examine, for example, his portrait of Fayaway and his relationship with her. Since Tommo spends time immersed in a culture that he knows only by reputation, and since he gains only the most rudimentary understanding of the language, this topic is especially clear in Typee.

The idea of the noble savage: Is Typee an argument in favor of the concept of the noble savage? In order to address this question, you should familiarize yourself with the concept of the noble savage. The notion of the uncivilized innocent is often associated with the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and romantic philosophy, though it has it roots in the Enlightenment. In what ways do the Typees seem to be the embodiments of this concept? Similarly, you might want to examine the writing of Captain James Cook, who sailed to the South Seas in the 18th century and whose writing seems to espouse the idea of the noble savage.

Tommo comments on Cook in Typee. Consider, too, how the language of paradise and Eden is interwoven with this concept in Typee. The concept of the noble savage seems to be at odds with the Christian belief in original sin. Consider Typee as a commentary on human perception and comprehension. Because Tommo has such limited understanding of the Typee language, his understanding of Typee culture, values, and behavior is all the more dependent on his eyesight.

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