Marcos Norris
Major Literary Figures
Dr. Schaak
January 31, 2008
Civilization and Human Definition
Herman Melville's first published book, Typee, is a literary work which melds autobiographical travel narrative with the elements of a fictional novel. Versatile in genre and subject matter, Typee is both an anthropological relation of Polynesian life and a societal critique of Western Christianity and European Imperialism in the nineteenth century. Within this transcultural collation emerges questions of religion, social science, morality, sexuality, and human identity. Consequently, Typee is painted with the narrator's (Tommo's) personal ambivalence concerning his questionable world view and the ambiguity of meaning therein.
Accordingly, a central tension within the literary work is the narrator's struggle with personal identity when faced with the deconstruction-inducing epiphanies of his transcultural experience. Owen Elmore, writing on Typee, shrewdly describes the process of this struggle, saying:
As the inexorable expansion continues in Melville's mind, other signifiers begin falling for him, until, like a chain of dominos, signifiers topple into signifieds everywhere, and vice versa, on all intellectual levels: the young Melville of course--as anyone would do to save his diffusing socialized self--quickly supplied new distinctions" (85).
According to Elmore, the narrator's world view deconstructs when thinking critically about his transcultural experience, inevitably leading towards attempts to preserve his socialized western identity.
For the purposes of this paper, I would like to explore this tension specifically in regards to what I believe is the narrator's sexual awakening in primitive society and his juxtaposed desire of preserving his socialized western identity. Therefore, I will first provide evidence which I believe confirms the central character's sexually-centered self-awakening, and then I will argue for the text's relating critique of western society.
The community and geographical setting in Typee are central to the story's sex-related development. Caleb Crain, in his article "Lovers of Human Flesh: Homosexuality and Cannibalism in Melville's Novels," underscores the significance of setting writing that "In the nineteenth century, cannibalism and homosexuality shared a rhetorical form. Both were represented as "the unspeakable."...In Melville's day, the savages of the South Pacific islands were infamous for both their cannibalism and their promiscuity" (28). In his article, Crain convincingly demonstrates that in the nineteenth century, cannibalism and homosexuality were so closely associated through language that any application of these linguistic-ties to the Southern Pacific islands would naturally irradiate these associations into the minds of nineteenth century readers.
In light of modern-day anthropological studies of the islands, it seems likely that Melville--who experienced the Marquesans first hand--intended the communication of these linguistic associations. As Crain informs us:
To learn about the homosexual activity of the Marquesans, Melville had to decode veiled allusions and suggestions. What was certain was their cannibalism. In twentieth century anthropology, the status has been reversed. The homosexuality of the Marquesans is frankly and thoroughly documented. But as reports of cannibalism are challenged to meet modern standards of evidence, they recede into rumor. (31)
These modern-day findings, unquestionably telling, empower readers of Typee to interpret the sexual allusions in the narrative as stable evidences of Tommo's sexual experiences in the valley of Typee.
Of these allusions, perhaps one of the more veiled, is Tommo's description of the bread-fruit trees of the island. The text reads:
The leaf, in one particular stage, when nearly all the prismatic colors are blended on its surface, is often converted by the natives into a superb and striking head-dress. The principle fibre traversing its length being split open a convenient distance, and the elastic sides of the aperture pressed apart, the head is inserted between them, the leaf drooping on one side, with its forward half turned jauntily up on the brows, and the remaining part spreading laterally behind the ears. (114)
The description of the leaf very closely resembles a description of the female vagina; the insertion of the head between the aperture, indubitably then, alludes to the head of the male penis inserting into the vagina. This allusion to sexual intercourse introduces a context for which the following description may be interpreted:
The fruit somewhat resembles in magnitude and general appearance one of our citron melons of ordinary size...The bread-fruit, however, is never used, and is indeed altogether unfit to be eaten, until submitted in one form or other to the action of fire...After the lapse of ten or fifteen minutes, the green rind embrowns and cracks, showing through the fissures in its sides the milk-white interior. As soon as it cools, the rind drops off, and you then have the soft round pulp in its purest and most delicious state. Thus eaten, it has a mild and pleasing flavor. (115)
The heat from the fire in this description, symbolic of the heat caused by the exertions and friction of sexual intercourse, cause the bread-fruit (or male testicles) to produce a milky-white substance (semen), which, as Tommo tells us, has a "mild and pleasing flavor." These descriptions of the island's primary source of food add to the context of the narrative an overall sexual nuance. Likewise, because the "milky-white substance" is "delicious" and "pleasing" to all of the Typee people, homosexuality (or perhaps more accurately, pansexuality) equally pervades the context.
During the Typee's celebratory "Feast of Calabashes" sexual innuendo is again associated with the island's fruit; the text reads,
Some half-dozen young boys seated themselves in a circle...Mehevi, who was greatly delighted with the change in my costume, gave me a cordial welcome. He had reserved for me a most delectable mess of "cokoo," well knowing my partiality for that dish; and had likewise selected three or four young cocoa-nuts, several roasted bread-fruit, and a magnificent bunch of bananas, for my especial comfort and gratification...surprisingly sweet and tender. (165)
Alongside the island's bread-fruit, Tommo is also served cocoa-nuts and bananas, which, when paired together resemble male genitalia; Melville cleverly uses "young" to position these young genital-like fruit as belonging to "three of four" of the young boys in the circle. Furthermore, it is quite possible that "cokoo" is a play on "cock" (slang for penis) which has been especially reserved for Tommo. The experience--comforting, gratifying, sweet, and tender--reveals Tommo's engagement in the island's sexual recreation, as well as Tommo's expanding sexuality.
While in the valley, Tommo takes on Kory-Kory (the young and physically phenomenal son of a chief) and Fayaway (a surpassingly beautiful Typee girl) as his closest companions. Several instances in the text, suggest that these two islanders were both his close companions and his close sexual partners. In a particular instance, for example, Tommo is immersed within the tender affection of a throng of young girls, while Kory-Kory "retired only to a little distance and watched their proceedings with the most jealous attention" in order to "strike a light" (110,112). The text reads, "At first Kory-Kory goes to work quite leisurely, but gradually quickens his pace, and waxing warm in the employment, drives the stick furiously along the smoking channel, plying his hands to and fro with amazing rapidity, the perspiration starting from every pore. As he approaches the climax of his effort, he pants and gasps for breath" (111). As before, fire is used to symbolize sexual friction; in this instance, Kory-Kory is vigorously rubbing the stick (his penis) in order to produce the "reluctant spark" (his orgasm). Thus, Kory-Kory, jealous with homosexual desire, masturbates while witnessing the many girls' sensual employment on Tommo's soiled body.
In another instance, it appears that Tommo, on one of his many excursions, engages sexually with both Kory-Kory and his beloved Fayaway. The text reads,
the long brown tresses of Fayaway streamed in the air--and the canoe glided rapidly through the water, and shot towards the shore. Seated in the stern, I directed its course with my paddle until it dashed up the soft sloping bank...Whilst Kory-Kory, who had watched our maneuvers with admiration, now clapped his hands in transport, and shouted like a madman. Many a time afterwards was this feat repeated. (134)
Tommo guides the penis-shaped boat rapidly towards its destination while he and Fayaway are positioned in what modern-day slang would describe as "doggy-style." Kory-Kory is all the while emphatically engaged.
Thus, Tommo's sexual identity while in the valley of Typee is clearly one of bisexuality--an identity which is not only common but assumed in the pansexual society of Typee. What is particular to this society and especially relevant to our discourse, is the primitive character of the Typees' social existence. For it is the particular character of this social-realm which enables Tommo to express his bisexuality and expand his personal apprehension of self. Unlike the civil and advanced societies of white-Europe and white-America, the valley of Typee is free from the laws and social-structures which previously directed Tommo's self-apprehension.
Perhaps the most telling example of Tommo's transition from the bindings of societal definition to the freedom of genuine self-expression is mirrored in his escape from his monomaniac sea-captain (who is symbolic of a commanding and strict white-society) into the heart of Nukuheva. While breaking through the island's outer boundaries (symbolic of societal boundaries) Melville employs suggestive language which designates and characterizes Tommo's initial transition. The text reads,
When we arrived within a short distance of the ridge, we were stopped by a mass of tall yellow reeds, growing together as thickly as they could stand, and as tough and stubborn as so many rods of steel...Half wild with meeting an obstacle we had so little anticipated, I threw myself desperately against it...Twenty minutes of this violent exercise almost exhausted me, but it carried us some way into the thicket...On we toiled, the perspiration starting from our bodies in floods...Fatigued with my long-continued efforts, and panting for breath...I was aroused by Toby...He was laying about him lustily. (38)
As Tommo and Toby advance through the prison-like thickets, the sexual language and images intensify to suggest that the breaking free from societal definition exposes a suppressed sexual awareness.
Even the trajectory traversed by Tommo and Toby is suggestive. For example, ascending in their plight and breaking through symbolic societal barriers, suggests that the escapees have not only broken free but have also transcended their social structures, enabling them to look down on those structures and comprehend their new-found freedom. Similarly, they descend, as if reuniting with prehistoric man, into the heart of an Edenic valley wherein resides the animalistic core of human nature. Fully aware of his structureless context, Tommo "had not failed to remark the simplicity of manner, the freedom from all restraint, and, to a certain degree, the equality of condition manifested by the natives in general" (186), for "the Typees, so far as their actions evince, submitted to no laws human or divine--always excepting the thrice mysterious taboo" (177). But as we learn, even the sacred "taboo" is carelessly cast out (133).
Within this context, Tommo's self-apprehension expands and he casts out-of-mind his stifling American identity. Comfortable in his new skin, Tommo strips nearly naked; the text reads, "I removed from my person the large robe of tappa which I was accustomed to wear over my shoulders whenever I sallied into the open air, and remained merely girt about with a short tunic descending from my waist to my knees" (161). At this point in his journey--now dressing as the Typees dress--Tommo has, in many ways, transformed into a Typee. Tommo reflects that in this "altered frame of mind...every object that presented itself to my notice...struck me in a new light, and the opportunities I now enjoyed...tended to strengthen my favorable impressions...There seemed to be no cares, griefs, troubles, or vexations...The hours tripped along as gaily as the laughing couples down a country dance" (126). Tommo's freedom, and that of the islanders,' produces joy and peace foreign to the inhabitants of civilized society.
His translation, nevertheless, is only temporary as word brings news of approaching French colonists. Familiar with the ill-effects of European expansion, Tommo realizes the inevitable fate of the Typees; he proclaims: "Ill-fated people! I shudder when I think of the change a few years will produce in their paradisaical abode; and probably the most destructive vices, and the worst attendances on civilization, shall have driven all peace and happiness from the valley" (195). Stricken with despondency, Tommo realizes that soon his structureless denizen and vigil of self-fidelity will be lost along with the prehistoric valley.
Tommo's transition in consciousness clearly manifests when interacting with one of the Typee's master tattooists. Having stumbled upon the artist and disturbing his work, Tommo elicits him into a fetish, which results in the artist's constant attempts to tattoo Tommo's face. Persistently reluctant to the artist's importunities, Tommo realizes that "in some luckless hour I should be disfigured in such a manner as never more to have the face to return to my countrymen" (219). Interestingly, Tommo agrees to have his arms tattooed--areas which can be hidden with an American or European shirt--but "His majesty was greatly displeased with the proposition" (220). Instead, "The only consolation afforded me was a choice of patterns: I was at perfect liberty to have my face spanned by three horizontal bars...or to have as many oblique stripes slanting across it." The options available to Tommo are restricted to his face--an area incapable of hiding from his countrymen. The stripes and bars of the patterns--which symbolize Tommo's imprisoned identity--would isolate him as an outcast in white society. In other words, Tommo resists the disclosure of his bisexuality in order to reunite and coincide with the laws and structures of advanced civilization. Thus, he is forced to incarcerate his identity and surrender "the unspeakable" to the crushing weight of a monomaniacal nation.
In conclusion, Typee--through the skillful use of allusions and symbolism--communicates a young man's journey toward self-awareness and sexual expression. Melville's intelligent examination of the transcultural experience grants us insightful anthropological awareness of societal creations and their relationships to the individual. The identity struggle related in Typee is one common to numberless people around the world; the text's relating critique of western civilization, in principle, applies as much today as it did in the nineteenth century. Therefore, Typee positions Melville not only as a skilled author, but also as a talented anthropologist whose philanthropic message exceeded his time.














Works Cited
Crain, Caleb. "Lovers of Human Flesh: Cannibalism and Homosexuality in Melville's Novels."American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography. March 1994: 25-. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. 20 January 2008 .
Elmore, Owen. "Melville's Typee and Moby-Dick." Explicator 2007 Winter: 85-. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. 20 January 2008 .
Melville, Herman. Typee. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.