Laurie A. Sterling Bloom's How to Write About Herman Melville (2008)

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.If you examine these two texts, it might beespecially interesting to explore whether Melville s commentaryon this theme changed over the course of his career; Typee washis first published book, and Billy Budd was published after his88 Bloom s How to Write about Herman Melvilledeath.While the connections might not be quite so apparentat first, you could also develop an essay on this topic througha comparison with Bartleby, the Scrivener, Benito Cereno, or The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids.Another way to approach this question is to compare thistheme in Typee and in another 19th-century work.The Mar-ble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne (who was a close friendof Melville) presents the young Italian Donatello as a faunliving in the human world of 19th-century Rome.In manyways, Donatello is uncivilized, as are the Typees.And like theTypees, Donatello seems both innocent and violent.2.The values of the Typees and Moby-Dick: Melville revisitedmany of the themes of Typee in Moby-Dick, and many scholarsdescribe his treatment of these themes in the latter work as amore mature treatment.Choose one of the shared themes andanalyze Melville s use of it in the two books.Some of the topics you might choose include the theme of civili-zation versus savageness and the treatment of tattoos and bodilymarkings.Clearly, this question asks you to examine Queequegand his relationship with Ishmael in Moby-Dick.Queequeg,himself a South Sea islander, suggests a more complex treatmentof the notions of savageness that Melville began to explore inTypee.Who is Queequeg? What kinds of values does he embody?In what ways is he like the Typees? In what ways is he savage,and in what ways is he civilized ? How does he affect Ishmael?3.Melville s use of the theme of enchantment: Compare Mel-ville s use of the theme of enchantment in Typee and another ofhis works.How and why does he use this theme? Does he use ittoward the same purpose in both works?It might prove particularly interesting to compare the theme ofenchantment in Typee and The Encantadas, which bears the sub-title the Enchanted Isles. Indeed, both texts profile enchantedisles, but the nature of the enchantment seems very different ineach.Why? You might also want to explore the ways that Mel-Typee 89ville treats the notion of enchantment in portions of Moby-Dick.Should you choose to examine Moby-Dick in relation to thistheme, you would do well to limit the scope of your essay.Youmight, for instance, choose just one chapter that seems to dealwith the idea of enchantment or trace the theme as it applies toone character.Benito Cereno, too, might prove an interesting textfor comparison here.When Delano boards the San Dominick, thenarrator says that boarding a strange ship produces somethingof the effect of enchantment. How might you consider Delano sexperience aboard the San Dominick one of enchantment?4.Critiques of Christianity and 19th-century texts: Typeeclearly criticizes Protestant missionary efforts in the SouthSeas, and in so doing it offers a critique of the missionariesChristian values.Compare Typee s critique of Christianitywith that of another 19th-century text.You might develop a paper in response to this topic by examin-ing Typee in relation to Bartleby, the Scrivener. Clearly, Melvillesees both the evangelizing efforts of the missionaries in Typeeand the charity of Bartleby s narrator as suspect.You could eas-ily move beyond Melville s work in response to this topic.Manyabolitionist texts, for example, call into question the Christian-ity of slaveholding Christians.Stowe s Uncle Tom s Cabin andFrederick Douglass s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,an American Slave present two possibilities for comparison.5.Melville s bachelors: In his portrait of the Hoolah Hoolah groundand the Ti, Melville presents a world secured.from the imagi-nary pollution of a woman s presence. Compare this sacred spacewith the other bachelor realms that populate his fiction.While The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maidspresents an obvious choice for comparison, other texts mightprovide material relevant to this question.Consider how manymale enclaves appear in Melville s texts.Nearly all the shipsin his fiction are populated only by men.Similarly, only menlabor in the office at No. Wall Street in Bartleby. As you90 Bloom s How to Write about Herman Melvilleexamine these spaces, notice how frequently Melville actu-ally refers to bachelors and bachelors quarters [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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