Work record

Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life

Name: Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life
Author: Herman Melville

Herman Melville

1846 · 19th Century · Novel · English

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Abstract

Written: 1845
Setting: 1842; Nukuheva, Marquesas Islands
Author: Herman Melville
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre: Travel narrative and adventure
Form: Narrative in 34 chapters with sequel
Recommended: Grades 9–12 (Adventure narrative with discussion of cannibalism and colonialism.)

Escape. A young American whaleman and a shipmate slip away from their vessel in a Marquesan harbour, sick of a tyrannical captain and endless months at sea.

Arrival. Crossing ridges and gorges, they descend by mistake into a valley whose people are feared as man-eaters, yet they are welcomed with feasts and gifts.

Valley. Cared for by an attentive young attendant and befriended by a lovely island girl, the injured narrator describes food, dress, tattoos, ceremonies and the sacred rules of the island with great curiosity.

Critique. He praises the islanders' contentment and condemns the violence of colonizers and the failings of some missionaries.

Fear. His hosts will not let him go, wish to tattoo him, and he sees signs of cannibal feasts. After his companion vanishes he flees to a whaleboat, fighting his way out.

Reading. Melville's first book is both adventure story and social criticism. Readers can enjoy it while noticing the romantic assumptions in its portrait of Polynesian life. The book works well alongside a study of nineteenth-century whaling, Pacific exploration and missionary history. Students can separate what Melville likely saw from what he borrowed or imagined, and ask whose voices are missing from his account of the islanders.

Main characters

Tommo: An American sailor who deserts his ship.
Toby: The narrator's companion in desertion.
Mehevi: The Typee chief who protects the narrator.
Kory-Kory: A devoted young man who cares for the narrator.
Fayaway: A beautiful young Typee woman.
Marnoo: A traveller from another tribe who can speak English.

Summary

Typee, published in 1846, was Herman Melville's first book and his most popular during his lifetime. Based loosely on his own experience in 1842, it is told by a young American sailor who, with his shipmate Toby, deserts the whaler Dolly at Nukuheva Bay in the Marquesas Islands, weary of the harsh captain and the long voyage. Hoping to reach the friendly Happar people, the two men struggle through mountains and ravines and instead come down into the valley of the Typees, a people reputed to be fierce cannibals. To their surprise they are received with kindness. The chief Mehevi protects them, the young man Kory-Kory serves the narrator, whom the islanders call Tommo, and the beautiful Fayaway becomes his companion. Toby leaves to seek help for the narrator's injured leg and does not return. The narrator describes the valley with fascination: its abundance, its customs, its festivals, its tattooing, the taboo system, and the islanders' apparent happiness without money, law courts or poverty. He compares their life favorably in many respects with civilized society and attacks the conduct of Europeans and of some missionaries in the Pacific; in one passage he calls the white civilized man the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth. Yet his unease grows. The Typees will not let him leave, they wish to tattoo his face, and he discovers evidence that they eat the bodies of slain enemies. After about four months, he escapes with the help of a native from another tribe and reaches a boat from an Australian whaler, fighting off pursuers. Melville's narrative mixes adventure, ethnographic description and social criticism. Students can read it as a lively travel story and as an early American critique of colonialism, while noticing that the narrator's view of the islanders is itself shaped by romantic assumptions. Toby's later appearance confirmed parts of the story, and the edition includes the 'Story of Toby' sequel.

Virtues in this work

Fortitude: The narrator endures hardship and fear.
Justice: He condemns cruelty done in the name of civilization.

Plot or Argument

Desertion
The narrator and Toby leave the whaler Dolly at Nukuheva.
Into the valley
They cross the mountains and arrive among the Typees.
Life in Typee
The narrator describes the people, customs and beauty of the valley.
Escape
Fearing tattooing and cannibalism, he escapes to a whaleboat.

Characters

Tommo, narrator
An American sailor who deserts his ship.
Toby, shipmate
The narrator's companion in desertion.
Mehevi, chief
The Typee chief who protects the narrator.
Kory-Kory, servant
A devoted young man who cares for the narrator.
Fayaway, companion
A beautiful young Typee woman.
Marnoo, visitor
A traveller from another tribe who can speak English.

Lessons

Civilized and savage
Melville questions who is truly savage. Students can weigh his claims.
- What does the narrator admire in the Typees?
- What does he criticize in Europeans?
- Is his view fair to both?
Related across the library
- The Sign of the Four, Lesson: Treasure and its cost
  Treasure and its cost. Nearly everyone touched by the Agra treasure is destroyed or corrupted by it. Watson is glad when it is lost.
- The Time Machine, Lesson: The long view of time
  The long view of time. In the further vision the Traveller watches the sun swell and redden, life dwindle to crabs and lichens, and finally the sounds of every living thing fall silent. Wells draws on the physics of a cooling sun and the long timescales of geology to show a universe far older and longer than human history. The narrator's answer is practical: even if that is our end, it remains for us to live as though it were not so.
- The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Lesson: Dawdling has a cost
  Dawdling has a cost. Jonathan enjoys Aunt Emma's cookies and her warm chair so much that he falls asleep, and then he forgets the very thing he came for. Because he starts home late, he has to cross the mountain in the dark. The story makes the lesson gently and without scolding: finish the errand before you rest.
- Understood Betsy, Full Text
  whenever there was anything to fear When they were out walking Aunt Frances took her out for a walk up one block and down another every single day no matter how tired the music lessons had made her the aunt s eyes were always on the alert to avoid anything which might frighten Elizabeth Ann If a big dog trotted by Aunt Frances always said hastily There there dear That s a NICE doggie I m sure I don t believe he ever bites little girls MERCY Elizabeth Ann don t go near him Here darling just get on the other side...
- Rameau's Nephew, Lesson: An honest cynic
  An honest cynic. The nephew admits every vice and accuses respectable society of the same vices hidden. His frankness is disarming, and the philosopher struggles to answer it. Students can learn that candour about sin is not repentance, and that an argument may expose pretended virtue without proving that virtue is false.
Paradise and captivity
The valley seems a paradise but becomes a prison.
- When does the narrator begin to fear?
- Why can't he simply leave?
- What does the ending suggest about paradise?
Related across the library
- SEC v. W. J. Howey Co., Lesson: Respecting the trial court
  Respecting the trial court. Frankfurter did not defend the offering; he defended a rule of judicial administration. Two courts had found as a fact that the contracts were separate, and he believed the Supreme Court should not reweigh such findings. His dissent raises the lasting question of when an issue is one of fact and when it is one of law.
- Poems: First, Second and Third Series, Lesson: Seeing nature exactly
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- Robinson Crusoe, Lesson: Work as repentance
  Work as repentance. Island labor becomes thanksgiving and ordered stewardship.
- Ex parte Milligan, Lesson: Open courts as the test
  Open courts as the test. The majority draws a bright line: where the civil courts are open and able to act, civilians must be tried by them. The old English maxim that when the king's courts are open it is a time of peace gave Davis a test that judges could apply without second-guessing generals on strategy.
- Fathers and Sons, Lesson: Ideas meet life
  Ideas meet life. Bazarov's nihilism is tested by love, family and death, which his theories cannot master. Turgenev shows the limits of ideology without simply dismissing it.
Travel writing
Typee mixes fact and fiction. Students can discuss the responsibilities of a travel writer.
- How much of Typee is true?
- Why did some readers doubt it?
- How should we read accounts of other peoples?
Related across the library
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  Truth in travel writing. Chatwin's mixture of fact and invention raises questions about the ethics of writing about real people. The book invites readers to ask what they expect from non-fiction.
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  Conversion. Casy and Tom move from personal concerns to concern for all.
- Down and Out in Paris and London, Lesson: Hidden labor
  Hidden labor. Diners never see the kitchens that serve them.
- The Last Battle, Lesson: A lie dressed in a lion's skin
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- A Child's Garden of Verses, Lesson: Attention widens
  Attention widens. The rain poem moves from near umbrellas to ships at sea—attention growing outward.

Context

In the 1840s, European powers and American whalers were changing the Pacific islands; France took possession of the Marquesas in 1842.

Composition

Melville spent about a month in the Taipi valley in 1842; he wrote Typee after returning to America, and it was published in London and New York in 1846.

Reception

It was a popular success; some readers doubted it until Toby (Richard Tobias Greene) confirmed the story; missionaries objected to its criticisms.

Travel Journey Colonialism Empire Nature / Landscape Home Exile Class / Society

Comparisons

Moby-Dick
Melville's later whaling masterpiece.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
Poe's sea adventure of the same period.

Quotes

“the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth”

— Herman Melville, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, Chapter XVII (Project Gutenberg #1900).Quote card

Science and the Modern World, Lesson: Mistaking the map for the country
Mistaking the map for the country. The 'fallacy of misplaced concreteness' is Whitehead's name for treating a useful abstraction, such as matter with simple location, as if it were the whole of concrete reality. He does not reject the abstraction; he praises its efficiency. The error lies in forgetting what was left out, including colour, value and mind.
The Art of War, Ch. II.6 (Waging War)
There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare The conclusion of Sun Tzu's accounting of the cost of a campaign in men, animals and treasure.
Mother Courage and Her Children, Lesson: Living off the war
Living off the war. Courage's livelihood depends on the war continuing, and each of her children dies at a moment when her mind is on business. Brecht built the play to show the cost of trying to profit from violence while staying clear of it.
The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In, Lesson: Reading late and partisan sources
Reading late and partisan sources. The Arabic accounts were written down long after the events and shaped by tribal pride, legal concerns and storytelling conventions. Kennedy neither discards them nor accepts them uncritically; he compares them with Greek, Syriac, Armenian and Coptic writers and with what can be known of administration and geography. His method models careful use of imperfect evidence.
Memoirs, Medical lens
Three threads matter for a medical reader. First, the Kentucky breakdown of late 1861: the press called Sherman insane, he was sent home on leave, and his family letters (outside this book) describe despair and thoughts of suicide. Biographers have read the episode variously as acute stress, a depressive episode or an exhausted man's realism caricatured by the press; these are interpretations, and the memoir itself offers only anger and documentation. Second, disease and military medicine: typhoid kills Willie,...

“four or five Marquesan Islanders sent to the United States as Missionaries might be quite as useful as an equal number of Americans despatched to the Islands in a similar capacity.”

— Herman Melville, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, Chapter XVII (Project Gutenberg #1900).Quote card

United States v. The Amistad, Statement of the case and arguments of counsel
the said vessel cargo and slaves while so being the property of the said Spanish subjects arrived within the jurisdictional limits of the United States and were taken possession of by the said public armed brig of the United States under such circumstances as make it the duty of the United States to cause the same vessel cargo and slaves being the property of said Spanish subjects to be restored to the true proprietors and owners of the same without further hindrance or detention as required by the treaty now su...
Reynolds v. United States, Full Text
United States shall consist of not less than sixteen nor more than twenty-three persons while a statute of the Territory limits the number in the district courts of the Territory to fifteen Comp Laws Utah The grand jury which found this indictment consisted of only fifteen persons and the question to be determined is whether the section of the Revised Statutes referred to or the statute of the Territory governs the case By sect of the Revised Statutes the district courts of the Territory have the same jurisdicti...
Worcester v. Georgia, Lesson: A missionary's conscience
A missionary's conscience. Worcester and Butler could have avoided prison by taking Georgia's oath or leaving the Nation, as most of their fellow missionaries did. They refused, believing the oath would deny the rights the Cherokee held under federal treaties and abandon the people they served. Their decision to remain imprisoned rather than accept a pardon on the state's terms kept the case alive.
Munn v. Illinois, Full Text
MUNN V ILLINOIS U S OPINION OF THE COURT CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE MR CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court The question to be determined in this case is whether the general assembly of Illinois can under the limitations upon the legislative power of the States imposed by the Constitution of the United States fix by law the maximum of charges for the storage of grain in warehouses at Chicago and other places in the State having not less than one hundred thousand inhabitants in which grain is stored in...
White Fang, Part V, Chapter IV
Human kindness was like a sun shining upon him, and he flourished like a flower planted in good soil. White Fang's life at Sierra Vista, where there is plenty of food and no work, is a Southland of the heart as well as of the map.

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

Why the narrator deserts.
The first meeting with the Typees.
Descriptions of daily life and the taboo.
The narrator's comments on missionaries.
How the narrator escapes the valley.

Key terms and names

Taboo: A Polynesian system of sacred prohibitions.
Marquesas: A group of islands in the South Pacific, now part of French Polynesia.
Ethnography: The description of peoples and cultures.
Whaler: A ship that hunted whales for oil on voyages lasting years.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Why do the narrator and Toby leave the ship?
Comprehension Who are Mehevi, Kory-Kory and Fayaway?
Comprehension How does the narrator escape?
Interpretation Why does he call civilized man the most ferocious animal?
Interpretation Why does he want to leave such a pleasant place?
Big Question What does it mean to be civilized?

Faith Connections

Matthew 7:3 (Scripture)
Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye? Melville turns judgment back on his own society.
Acts 17:26 (Scripture)
God hath made of one blood all nations of men.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: So-called civilized nations commit cruelties as great as those they condemn in 'savages'; the narrator's experience challenges easy assumptions of superiority.

Rhetorical device: ironic reversal. Melville suggests sending Marquesan missionaries to America.

Debate: Resolved: that Melville's view of the Typees is as romantic as it is critical.

Memory Work

the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth
Chapter XVII. Melville's startling reversal of 'civilized' and 'savage'.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace the narrator's feelings about the valley from arrival to escape.

Comparison with Moby-Dick: Compare Typee's sailor-narrator with Ishmael in Moby-Dick.

Creative Prompts

Essay
Is Typee more a celebration of the islanders or a critique of civilization?
Dialogue
Write a conversation between Tommo and Kory-Kory about life in America.
Classroom
Map the Marquesas and trace the narrator's route.