Civilization And Imagery In Herman Melville's Moby Dick

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Two of Herman Melville’s literary masterpieces involve the concept of his characters being either “civilized” or “savage”. In his first novel Typee, Melville sets imagery of a crew being out at sea for sixth months without seeing neither land nor food. Throughout the trip our main character and narrator Tommo is subjected to verbal abuse on the ship and wishes to jump off. He is accompanied by his ship mate Toby also wants exposure to new unmarked lands of the Marquesas to eat tropical fruits and be merry. As soon as they see a different ship sail by they plan to hop on. The con to their plan however is that they must be well aware and cautious of the Typee who are rumored to be cannibals by nature and roam the islands. Throughout the novel there are plenty of self-conflicts that Tommo experiences. …show more content…

On the other hand if he chooses to go native and join the Typee culture, people back in the states will never socially accept him. Typee sets a starting point for Melville to continue his thoughts on civilized and savage-like mannerism in his second book, Moby Dick. Moby Dick also takes place on a whaling ship where the readers develop an understanding for why the crew and the main character Ishmael do what they do. The whaling profession is found to be dangerous and even sometimes deadly based off of precedent with Moby Dick. Moby Dick is represented as being not only pure and innocent based off of its exterior, but as frightening and terrifying as a killer great white whale could be. The characters in this story also represent some civilized and savage features similar to Typee just portrayed

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