Herman Melville\'s Typee: A Peep

Herman Melville's Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life

Nature vs. civilization (happiness, cannibalism and religion)

Herman Melville's first novel entitled Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life depicts the capture and escape of a Western sailor who attempts to run away to the South Sea Islands. Initially, the book offers a fairly sympathetic depiction of South Sea islanders, considering the year when the book was written. (Typee was first published in 1846). The islanders are capable of a kind of pure and unspoiled happiness that Westerners seem unable to enjoy. The book asks the question: who is ultimately the more 'civilized' race? Melville is somewhat ambiguous about the answer to this question. At first, he seems to largely side with the natives, given their natural, uncorrupted state. Yet he gradually comes to suggest that the society of so-called 'natural man' is just as corrupted by human nature as European societies.

At the beginning of the novel, Western civilization is symbolized by the life of the soldiers on the ironically named 'Dolly,' a name which suggests the false and painted nature of modernity. The tyrannical Captain Vang terrorizes his charges, and does not even follow the supposed rules of the sea. At the beginning of the book it has been six months since the Dolly has come to shore, in violation of maritime protocol. The narrator, Tom, fantasizes about an escape to a paradise of an island. The paradoxes inherent in his dream of encountering a more primitive existence are manifest in the jumbled fashion in which Tom envisions this seductive yet potentially terrible world: "naked houris -- cannibal banquets -- groves of cocoa-nut -- coral reefs -- tattooed chiefs -- and bamboo temples; sunny valleys planted with breadfruit trees -- carved canoes dancing on the flashing blue waters -- savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols -- heathenish rites and sacrifices" (Melville 5). This exotic contrast of the horrific and the pleasurable suggests that the happiness of the natives is somehow dangerous, even life-destroying for Westerners yet irresistible.

When Tom first encounters the residents of the South Seas, they seem to live in a state of unfettered freedom and open sexuality, untainted by Christianity, shame and guilt. A "picturesque band of sylphs" are said to capture the Dolly with the "savage vivacity" and "voluptuousness in their character" (Melville 15). Debauchery soon follows, but Tom attributes this not to the girls, whom he says are innocent, but the fact that they have been "brought into contaminating contact with the white man" (Melville 15). Tom states that the girls are not less moral; rather they are more moral than the Westerners they encounter. The only blameworthy people are the sailors who exploit the women for their own happiness. The young women regard the world in a trusting fashion.

The women's sexual exploitation becomes a metaphor for the exploitation of the natives at the hands of the West. Westerner missionaries have attempted to convert the people of the South Seas; Western mercenaries have used the native ignorance of European currency and values to cheat the islanders; the French have tried to conquer the native's land. "In all the cases of outrages committed by the Polynesians, Europeans have at some time or another been the aggressors" (Melville 28). Europeans call upon Christendom to "applaud their courage and justice" as they persecute the natives for merely defending themselves. This simple, human response of self-defense is seen as evidence of barbarism by the Europeans. Of course, when the natives have accommodated the Europeans and treated them in a friendly fashion, this is likewise seen as a weakness and portrayed as evidence of the people's fitness for servitude.

Tom's identification with the Polynesians might seem to be unrealistic, given that he is supposed to be a simple sailor. However, Melville implies that he may be liable to be very sympathetic to the people of Typee because he has been persecuted and treated unjustly by his captain. Tom, under the influence of Polynesian life, decides to cast off his miserable existence on the Dolly and desert. In contrast to the miserable life on the ship, the native people of Typee are able to lead a life of leisure. There is plentiful game in the forest for them to hunt and they can gather most of the fruits and vegetables they need.

True, the residents of Typee do sometimes engage in cannibalism, but only of their enemies. This thirst for revenge, Tom believes, is not so different than the types of vengeance enacted by Europeans within their conventional system of law, which includes beheadings, hangings, and even drawing and quartering. At least the people of Typee, says Tom, are not bloodless and gutless when they enact justice (Melville 125). Natives have been criticized for not having any language to express virtue, but that speaks better of their civilization, because Europeans have so many words to describe vices, Tom believes.