Typee - A Romance of the South Sea

Overview

More than an impressive travelogue or discerning psychological perspective, this novel is also a chronicle of two friends who jump ship expecting to find paradise on the Marquesas Islands of the Pacific. They find, instead, a group of cannibals. When Tom (he comes to be known as "Tommo" to the Typees) and his friend Toby discover the natives are cannibals, they are continuously wary of their status in this alien society. Tommo's careful observations tell him that the Typees are generous with one another; they do not cheat nor steal; no part of their community is left starving or indigent because of debt or poverty. He begins to understand, with the help of his "serving-man" Kory-Kory that, as long as he remains in their company, his life-style will consist of a relative peacefulness. Tommo reflects on the dubious cross-cultural account of the inhabitants as heathen savages and believes that such a description was given by missionaries and merchantmen who failed to realize the quality of the native customs.

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Author Information

Bio of Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. When his father died, he was forced to leave school and find work. After passing through some minor clerical jobs, the eighteen-year-old young man shipped out to sea, first on a short cargo trip, then, at twenty-one, on a three-year South Sea whaling venture. From the experiences accumulated on this voyage would come the material for his early books, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), as well as for such masterpieces as Moby-Dick (1851), Pierre (1852), The Piazza Tales (1856) and Billy Budd, Sailor (posthumous, 1924). Though the first two novels--popular romantic adventures--sold well, Melville's more serious writing failed to attract a large audience, perhaps because it attacked the current philosophy of transcendentalism and its espoused "self-reliance." (As he made clear in the savagely comic The Confidence Man, 1857), Melville thought very little of Emersonian philosophy. He spent his later years working as a customs inspector on the New York docks, writing only poems comprising Battle-Pieces (1866). He died in 1891, leaving Billy Budd, Sailor, unpublished.

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Additional Info

Imprint

NuVision Publications

Filesize

461.85 KB

Number of Pages

440

eBook ISBN

9781102352167