Herman
Herman Melville
An anti- transcendentalist or not Melville, Herman
(1819-91), American novelist,
a major literary figure whose exploration of
psychological and metaphysical
themes foreshadowed 20th-century literary
concerns but whose works remained in
obscurity until the 1920s, when his
genius was finally recognized. Melville was
born August 1, 1819, in New York
City, into a family that had declined in the
world. "The Gansevoorts were
solid, stable, eminent, prosperous people; the
(Herman’s Father’s side)
Melvilles were somewhat less successful materially,
possessing an
unpredictable. erratic, mercurial strain." (Edinger 6). This
difference
between the Melville’s and Gansevoorts was the beginning of the
trouble for
the Melville family. Herman’s mother tried to work her way up the
social
ladder by moving into bigger and better homes. While borrowing money from
the
bank, her husband was spending more than he was earning. "It is my
conclusion
that Maria Melville never committed herself emotionally to her
husband, but
remained primarily attached to the well off Gansevoort family."
(Humford
23) Allan Melville was also attached financially to the
Gansevoorts for support.
There is a lot of evidence concerning Melville’s
relation to his mother Maria
Melville. "Apparently the older son
Gansevoort who carried the mother's maiden
name was distinctly her favorite."
(Edinger 7) This was a sense of alienation
the Herman Melville felt from his
mother. This was one of the first symbolists
to the Biblical Ishamel. In 1837
he shipped to Liverpool as a cabin boy. Upon
returning to the U.S. he taught
school and then sailed for the South Seas in
1841 on the whaler Acushnet.
After an 18 month voyage he deserted the ship in
the Marquesas Islands and
with a companion lived for a month among the natives,
who were cannibals. He
escaped aboard an Australian trader, leaving it at
Papeete, Tahiti, where
he was imprisoned temporarily. He worked as a field
laborer and then shipped
to Honolulu, Hawaii, where in 1843 he enlisted as a
seaman on the U.S. Navy
frigate United States. After his discharge in 1844 he
began to create novels
out of his experiences and to take part in the literary
life of Boston and
New York City. Melville's first five novels all achieved
quick popularity.
Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), Omoo, a Narrative of
Adventures
in the South Seas (1847), and Mardi (1849) were romances of the South
Sea
islands. Redburn, His First Voyage (1849) was based on his own first trip
to
sea, and White-Jacket, or the World in a Man-of-War (1850) fictionalized
his
experiences in the navy. In 1850 Melville moved to a farm near
Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, where he became an intimate friend of
Nathaniel Hawthorne, to
whom he dedicated his masterpiece Moby-Dick; or The
White Whale (1851). The
central theme of the novel is the conflict between
Captain Ahab, master of the
whaler Pequod, and Moby-Dick, a great white whale
that once tore off one of
Ahab's legs at the knee. Ahab is dedicated to
revenge; he drives himself and his
crew, which includes Ishmael, narrator of
the story, over the seas in a
desperate search for his enemy. The body of the
book is written in a wholly
original, powerful narrative style, which, in
certain sections of the work,
Melville varied with great success. The
most impressive of these sections are
the rhetorically magnificent sermon
delivered before sailing and the soliloquies
of the mates; lengthy "flats,"
passages conveying nonnarrative material,
usually of a technical nature, such
as the chapter about whales; and the more
purely ornamental passages, such as
the tale of the Tally-Ho, which can stand by
themselves as short stories of
merit. The work is invested with Ishmael's sense
of profound wonder at his
story, but nonetheless conveys full awareness that
Ahab's quest can have
but one end. And so it proves to be: Moby-Dick destroys
the Pequod and all
its crew save Ishmael. There is a certain streak of the
supernatural being
projected in the writings of Melville, as is amply obvious in
Moby Dick.
The story revolves around the idea of an awesome sea mammal, which
drives the
passions of revenge in one man and forces him to pursue a course of
action
which leads ultimately to his death as well as the deaths of his
companions.
There is a great deal of imagination involved in these stories and
the
creativity is highly apparent. There is an expression of belief in
the
supernatural, as the author strives to create the image of a humongous
beast in
the mind of the reader. There are no indications that Melville was
in any way
averse to fame or to the pursuit of excellence in his work. Every
author, when
writing a book, is hopeful of it’s success and Melville was no
less. The
Piazza Tales (1856) contain some of Melville's finest shorter
works;
particularly notable are the powerful short stories "Benito Cereno"
and
"Bartleby the Scrivener" and the ten descriptive sketches of the
Galápagos
Islands, Ecuador, "The Encantadas." Bartleby's story is an
allegory of
withdrawal suggesting more than one level of interpretation.
Among them,
Bartleby may be seen as a writer (like Melville), who chooses
no longer to
write; or as a human walled off from society by his employment
on wall Street,
by the walls of his building, by the barriers of his office
nook within the
building, by the brick surface he faces out his window, and
by the walls of the
prison where he dies. Bartleby's employer, the narrator
of the story, has
several walls of his own to break out of. In his final
grasp at communication,
the narrator invites the reading that Bartleby's
life, and the story that
presents it, are like dead letters that will never
reach those that would profit
from them. He leaves us with the words, "Ah
Bartleby! Ah, humanity!"
In "Bartleby, the Scrivener", Melville tries to
relate to the reader
and explain his declining situation. This story, on an
allegorical level
represents Melville, his life, and what he wished his
reading audience would
understand about him. This is probably what he wanted,
but readers, initially,
see a melancholy story about the condition of
humanity. Whether or not Melville
is an anti-transcendentalist is a question
to be pondered over. As such he is as
focused on leaving an impression on his
readers as any other writer on the
writing block. Therefore, I believe that
Melville was transcendental in many
ways. He was a writer who portrayed his
own persona through his writings and
thus he was a writer who had the power
to be able to express his own emotions
and experiences through his
characters. This he has accomplished by writing
stories, which had a depth,
an essence of their own. Melville was not o much
concerned with the
commercial success of his works, but that was still a very
high contributing
factor to the motivation behind his writings. Although he
mainly drew on his
personal experiences while formulating the stories that he
wrote, he greatly
embellished them through his imagination and creativity to
create literary
masterpieces out of them, which are appreciated greatly today.
Being a
success meant a great deal to Melville and he was always aware of the
fact
that his books were not very popular during his lifetime. In fact
Bartleby
the Scrivener relates to this very fact through its portrayal of a
writer, and
it is greatly reflective of Melville’s own private situation. He
probably
wished that his writing would be more popular among the readers,
although he
professed his own demise with Bartleby's atrophy. The expression
of accepted
failure was prevalent in Scrivener. Yet this did not make
Melville any less
desirous of fame and popularity. He still strove to deliver
excellence in his
works in any way possible. Every writer in history has had
to find a place for
himself in the mind of his readers before reaching a
level of maturity and
respect in this profession. The quality of work is
judged solely on the readers
perception of the work and nothing else.
Melville was desirous of hitting the
right cord with the readers and his
audience. He wanted to be able to capture
the attention of his audience and
leave an impact on their minds, so that the
tale would be remembered long
after it had been read. With Moby Dick, he used
the powerful tool of
imaginative fantasy to capture the attention of his
readers. The story
incorporated the extraordinary, action, adventure, revenge,
suspense...in
fact every ingredient necessary for commercial success. But it
didn’t prove
to be so. The book is appreciated not as a classic work and
Melville has
received much more fame in the present time frame. In Scrivener, he
drew a
picture of a man very similar to himself. A man sick of working,
finally
declines rapidly to reach his demise. However, in Herman Melville's
'Benito
Cereno' reveals the author's disgust with Emersonian
transcendentalism through
the self-delusions of the protagonist. Cereno
personifies nature, seeing it as a
benevolent force that acts deliberately
for the good of humanity. Melville makes
it apparent that such idealism
offers no practical use in a world that is as
much evil as good, and will
likely be a burden. Cereno is Melville's strongest
example of his suspicions
for the American idealist. In this one case through
his expression of disgust
towards the idealists and their idealism, he has
portrayed the image of a
hard core idealist who is converted to a realist
through the experiences that
he goes through. This also drew on his seafaring
days as experience and he
struggled to bring across the death of the idealist
and the birth of the
realist. But at the end of the day, whatever emotions he
possessed about the
nature of idealism and idealistic thought, still form an
integral part of
him. Whether or not the reader understands the general aura of
wanting to
achieve something from his creations, yet Melville still strove to be
a
commercial success and his aim for excellence in the field of
writing
continued.