Typee

infobox Book |
name = Typee
title_orig = "Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life"
translator =


image_caption =
author = Herman Melville
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = flagicon|USA United States
language = English
series =
subject =
genre = Semi-autobiographical novel
publisher =
release_date = February 26, 1846
english_release_date =
media_type =
pages =
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. 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).

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, [Editor's Introduction by Ernest Rhys, in "Typee, A Narrative of the Marquesas Islands", by Herman Melville, Everyman's Library 1907/1949] 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 [Forsythe, "Herman Melville in the Marquesas", "Philosophical Quarterly", 15/1 (Jan 1936), 1-15. Anderson, "Melville in the South Seas" (1939).] 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.

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 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.

But there can be no doubtfact|date=May 2008 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 reallydeserving of it were ever yet discovered by voyagers or bytravellers. They have discovered heathens and barbarians whom byhorrible cruelties they have exasperated into savages. It may beasserted without fear of contradictions that in all the cases ofoutrages committed by Polynesians, Europeans have at some time orother been the aggressors, and that the cruel and bloodthirstydisposition of some of the islanders is mainly to be ascribed tothe influence of such examples.

The naked wretch who shivers beneath the bleak skies, and starvesamong the inhospitable wilds of Tierra-del-Fuego, might indeed bemade happier by civilization, for it would alleviate his physicalwants. But the voluptuous Indian, with every desire supplied,whom Providence has bountifully provided with all the sources ofpure and natural enjoyment, and from whom are removed so many ofthe ills and pains of life--what has he to desire at the hands ofCivilization? She may 'cultivate his mind--may elevate histhoughts,'--these I believe are the established phrases--but willhe be the happier? Let the once smiling and populous Hawaiianislands, with their now diseased, starving, and dying natives,answer the question. The missionaries may seek to disguise thematter as they will, but the facts are incontrovertible; and thedevoutest Christian who visits that group with an unbiased mind,must go away mournfully asking--'Are these, alas! the fruits oftwenty-five years of enlightening?'

In the final analysis, it is certainor|date=May 2008 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). 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.

Critical response

"The Knickerbocker" called "Typee" "a piece of Münchhausenism". [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.]

Publication history

Published in 1846, "Typee" was Melville's first book, and made him one of the best-known American authors overnight. [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.] 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. [Nelson, Randy F. "The Almanac of American Letters". Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 187. ISBN 086576008X]

The inaugural book of the critically acclaimed Library of America series was a volume containing "Typee", "Omoo", and "Mardi", published on May 6, 1982.

References

External links

*gutenberg|no=1900|name=Typee
* [http://www.archive.org/details/typeepeep00melvrich "Typee"] , 1846 first edition, scanned book via Internet Archive, other later editions available.
* [http://www.yeoldelibrary.com/text/MelvilleH/typee/index.htm "Typee"] , HTML version from Ye Olde Library
* [http://librivox.org/typee-by-herman-melville/ "Typee"] , audibook from [http://librivox.org/ LibriVox]
* [http://www.loudlit.org/works/typee.htm "Typee"] , audiobook with accompanying text from LoudLit
* [http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu:8100/melville/ "Typee"] , Fluid Text Edition at the University of Virginia Press