Melville’s Imperialist Myth In Omoo

Herman Melville(1819-1891)was an important writer of American literature in the 19th century.As one of the "Polynesian trilogy",Omoo was a narrative novel and an autobiography.Omoo was composed based on Melville’ s experience.Melville expressed his views on imperialism through the narrator.In the turmoil of the "barbaric society" and the "civilized society",Paul’s cultural and political identity was changing.This thesis focuses on the continuous reposition of Paul’s identity in Omoo.Combined with imperialism,the paper elaborates the process and reasons of the implied author’ s identity change from the perspectives of "The Others","Subaltern" and "Hybridity".This paper defines the implied author as an opponent of colonial expansion from the perspectives of the crews,the missionaries and the beachcombers.At the same time,it defines the implied author as a believer of "White Superiority" by analyzing the narrator’ sunconscious behavior and activities.Finally,it defines the implied author as a fence sitter wandering between white and non-white based on the psychology,the theme and the fragmentation of the novel.The present author displays the examples to illustrate the process and reasons of identity changing.The complex feelings and psychology push Paul to wander between Pacific islanders.At the end of the novel,Paul doesn’t make a final choice for his identity,which shows the implied author’ s puzzlement of identity.In the perspective of imperialism,the implied author is Melville.Melville’ s imperialist myth can be observed by analyzing the complex emotions of the implied authors.Since Omoo is an autobiography,we can learn a lot about implied author through narrator’ s behaviors and psychological state.It provides a new way for researches on Melville’s Omoo.Meanwhile,to study imperialism from the perspective of identity is an effective way.It can provide new methods to study imperialism for other scholars.