Race and Cultural Identity in Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym
This essay examines how Edgar Allan Poe uses racial symbolism and cultural difference in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Focusing on Pym's encounters with the black-skinned natives of Tsalal, the paper argues that Poe employs contrasts between whiteness and blackness to reflect nineteenth-century American anxieties about race, segregation, and interracial contact. The essay also considers how characters such as Peters and the Grampus cook foreshadow the novel's racial themes, and how Pym's own morally ambiguous actions — including cannibalism — complicate any simple reading of "civilized" versus "savage" behavior.
- Introduction: Exploration and the Encounter with Difference: Pym's voyage sets up racial and cultural themes
- Whiteness and Blackness on the Island of Tsalal: Tsalal's blackness contrasts with white explorers
- Color Symbolism and Segregation in Nineteenth-Century America: Color differences mirror American racial anxieties
- Race and Cultural Identity Before Tsalal: Earlier characters foreshadow the novel's racial themes
- Moral Ambiguity: Savagery and Survival: Pym's cannibalism complicates civilized versus savage readings
- Conclusion: Cultural Difference and the Limits of Connection: Cultural identity prevents meaningful cross-racial connection
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What makes this paper effective
- The essay consistently grounds its literary analysis in direct textual evidence, quoting Poe's novel at length and then interpreting the passages rather than simply summarizing them.
- It maintains a coherent argumentative thread — that racial and cultural anxiety drive the novel's climax — across multiple supporting examples drawn from different parts of the text.
- The paper avoids reducing the novel to a simple pro- or anti-racist reading by acknowledging Pym's own morally compromised behavior, adding nuance to the "civilized versus savage" binary.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models close reading paired with contextual argument. Each quoted passage is followed by an interpretive claim that connects the textual detail to a broader cultural or historical context, specifically the racial anxieties of nineteenth-century America. This technique shows how literary analysis moves from the specific (a description of water veins or a character's hair) to the general (segregationist ideology).
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by situating Pym's voyage within a tradition of exploration narrative, then moves to close reading of the Tsalal chapters, expands outward to consider color symbolism as social allegory, revisits earlier racial coding in the novel, complicates the "savage native" reading through Pym's own cannibalism, and closes with a thematic synthesis about cultural difference and survival instinct.
Introduction: Exploration and the Encounter with Difference
Befriending natives is a key theme in Edgar Allan Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. After experiencing a series of stressful episodes, the central character, Arthur Gordon Pym, develops an interest in exploring new territories and learning more about the world. His interaction with the natives on the island of Tsalal further illustrates the writer's tendency to engage with ideas connected to the concept of exploration. At the same time, it emphasizes the traditional relationship between explorers and natives on new lands — a relationship based on profit and likely to end in violence.
While the novel covers a range of other topics before turning to the themes of whiteness and blackness, this particular subject is far more dramatic than the rest. Pym experienced significant distress: he nearly died on several occasions, witnessed people being killed, and even resorted to cannibalism when no other option remained. Nevertheless, the novel maintains a relatively optimistic tone up to the point where Pym encounters the natives of Tsalal.
Whiteness and Blackness on the Island of Tsalal
Poe takes care to highlight the differences between explorers and natives from the very first moment they interact. "At every step we took inland the conviction forced itself upon us that we were in a country differing essentially from any hitherto visited by civilized men" (Poe 116). This idea distinguishes Pym's previous experiences from his arrival on the island — everything seems new to the protagonist, to the point where he appears to regard himself as completely foreign to the land.
Even the water on Tsalal reminds Pym of the difference between colors, as it contains several veins that separate hues from one another. "Upon passing the blade of a knife athwart the veins, the water closed over it immediately, as with us, and also, in withdrawing it, all traces of the passage of the knife were instantly obliterated. If, however, the blade was passed down accurately between the two veins, a perfect separation was effected, which the power of cohesion did not immediately rectify" (Poe 117). This passage reinforces Poe's determination to confront readers with obvious distinctions between colors. The writer likely intended it as a reference to the divide between white individuals and dark-skinned individuals. Many people in nineteenth-century America held deep aversions to white-black relations and were determined to prevent the two races from mixing. The state of Tsalal thus resembles a segregated nineteenth-century America, reflecting the intense racial tensions of the era.
The protagonist describes the locals as being "jet black, with thick and long woolly hair. They were clothed in skins of an unknown black animal, shaggy and silky, and made to fit the body with some degree of skill, the hair being inside, except where turned out about the neck, wrists, and ankles" (Poe 113). Poe presents the natives as having a special relationship with the color black — their tools, animals, clothing, and weapons are all entirely black. The presence of white individuals in the region consequently underscores the degree to which white people are intrusive on the island.
Color Symbolism and Segregation in Nineteenth-Century America
Differences between cultural values persist throughout the final section of the book, from Chapter XXI when Pym's boat arrives on the island to the very last pages of the text. The fact that Captain Guy waves a white handkerchief upon spotting the locals signals to readers the natives' aversion to the color white. Racial and cultural segregation inform this moment: Pym's companions were accustomed to viewing white as a symbol of peace, while the natives could only perceive it as something entirely unlike anything in their world. It is, however, difficult to determine whether the natives were hostile toward the color white specifically or toward white people in general, since Pym's crew is unable to interpret their language.
Pym's presence at sea had been uncertain, and readers would have found it difficult to attribute his potential death there to anything other than his own decision-making. By contrast, his presence on Tsalal presents a clear antagonist: everything on the island is different from the world Pym is accustomed to. The island is dominated by the color black and by color differences so pervasive that they seem to embody dark cultural values in the eyes of the narrator. The white intruders are, in this reading, the disruptive element on a land that has its own coherent identity.
Conclusion: Cultural Difference and the Limits of Connection
While Poe certainly generated a significant amount of controversy with this text, the writing largely reflects the racial feelings prevalent in nineteenth-century America. The fact that the natives of Tsalal are hesitant about cooperating with whites can be interpreted as the writer's intention to emphasize how different races are generally unwilling to mix. It is notable that the Tsalalians appear frightened of white just as white people are frightened of blackness. As discussed above, cultural identity plays an essential role in the text: white people are guided by their association with whiteness, while Tsalalians are guided by their relationship with blackness. The environments in which these two communities have spent their lives have shaped their understanding of the world and made it difficult for them to accept ideas they have little experience of.
All things considered, Poe's novel emphasizes how cultural differences can make it nearly impossible for two communities to connect. While many readers may be inclined to judge the natives harshly for their actions, these same readers may fail to consider the long-term consequences that the arrival of the Jane Guy's crew posed for Tsalal. When a person's survival is threatened by a new and incomprehensible force, removing that threat by any available means can appear to be the only rational response.
Works Cited
Amaral, A. M. "Racial and Cultural Anxieties in Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym." Retrieved October 25, 2015, from http://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1352&context=undergrad_rev
Kennedy, G. J. & Weissberg, L. Romancing the Shadow: Poe and Race. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Kopley, R. Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations. Duke University Press, 1992.
Poe, E. A. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Courier Corporation, 2012.
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