The Myths Of Cannibals: Cannibalism And Colonialism In Melville's Typee

This M.A. thesis aims to examine the relation of cannibal myths to Euro-American colonialism in Melville's first novel, Typee. Since the 1920s there have been at least three approaches to this work: the symbolic or romantic approach, the racial ideological approach, and the cultural anthropological approach. This thesis focuses on the racial and ideological aspect of Typee, exploring the relation between Melville's colonial ideology and his literary representation of cannibals and their man-eating practice. Though Melville speaks overtly against Western colonialism in the novel, a careful examination will reveal that even the critic is involved in the ideology that he condemns openly in the text. This involvement is particularly seen in his reception, perpetuation and manipulation of the popular myths of cannibals. The impact of these cultural myths on his literary practice renders Typee not only a product of colonial ideology, but also an active affirmation of it. In his work cannibalism is less a tribal reality than a cultural construct or a product of colonial imagination. This thesis argues that Melville's cultural identity as a Western white determines his participation in perpetuating the colonial myth and in a subtle form of racism, though he does defend openly the natives against Euro-American colonial domination in the book.The first chapter locates Melville's representation of cannibals and cannibalism in the fabric of Western colonial history and European literary tradition. It clarifies the relation of Typee to those European classical works concerning the trope of cannibal/cannibalism, and identifies Melville's work with the Western literary history. It also lays bare the way that Western writers or thinkers manipulate the trope to serve their domestic social agendas, and reveals their colonial mentality in such a manipulation. It will be pointed out that the use of cannibal/cannibalism as an ideological weapon is not exclusive to Melville's works, but rather is his critical practice under the influence of European literary legacy.The second chapter explores the impact of those preconceived cannibal myths on the psychic state of white people in the nineteenth century. In Typee cannibalism is not only represented as a fearful operator on the mental landscape of Europeans, but it, or rather its location, also serves as the sign of the unexplored world or the frontier."Fearful"and"unknown"are what cannibalism implies mentally to Tom and his companion Toby. Yet they are not simply the psychic effects produced in white people'encounter with natives. Rather they impel proactively the transition of the Typees from the reputed man-eaters to the"experientially"confirmed cannibals, and keep the myths of cannibals in motion in the narrative.The third chapter extends the discussion of the myth of cannibalism to the broad contact zone between Western intruders and Marquesan islanders. The discussion centers on the signifier of body in the text of Typee, for in Melville's representation body is the central locus at which native people and white intruders compete with and negotiate with each other. This chapter approaches"body"from three dimensions: the ethnicity of body, food/cannibalism, and cloth/tattooing. It affirms both Melville's narrative liberation of native people from the myths of cannibals, and his containment of this textual transgression. His status as a non-interventionist Westerner explains why he liberates the reputed cannibals from their transfixed role of alterity, and imparts partial voice to their culture and subjectivity. But as a person enmeshed in his contemporary colonial ideology, it is inevitable for him to enact implicitly some of its imperatives to contain those narrative digressions against colonialism, and to muffle the generated voice of colonial subjects.The last part of this thesis sums up the significance of the study of cannibal myths and colonialism. It examines briefly the impact that Typee produces on the works of later writers, as well as Melville's relation to other contemporary American writers in representing the myths of cannibals. Though Melville's cultural identity underlies the existence of ideological repression and racial discrimination in his text, it does not diminish his greatness and importance as an artist nevertheless.