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Views of Herman Melville About the Society, Essay Example

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Societal and political affairs were an essential issue in the lifetime of Herman Melville. Even though he was acknowledged as a person who never takes part in the elections, he held stubbornly to his political and societal beliefs.[1] Throughout that time, it was usual for societal and political affairs to be a popular subject of household conversations, as usual societal principles were reinforcing the American families. At that time, foremost conflict occurred between the Republicans and the Democrats.[2] Moreover, families survived and acted in keeping with a certain party’s principles. The Melville family’s members usually had the identical societal principles. Nevertheless, Herman Melville was a Democrat. Even though he had a great admiration towards the Southerners, he despised the slavery and unfair actions of the colonists.[3] Thus, he was sturdily disagreeing with Republican outlooks.

Melville was more troubled with inherent human behavior than with the search of prosperity. Melville’s response to severe disapproval from a money-oriented society is characteristically presented through main characters of Bartleby, the Scrivener. He was reasonably unsatisfied with the business world and disappointed with a society principally anxious about material capital.[4] Therefore, Bartleby was the ideal hero for Melville to reproduce his “increasing disfavor of materialism”.[5] Moreover, critic Harold Bloom pointed out that “Bartleby is an autographical portrait of the author and a great original, a symbol of heroic recalcitrance in the fact of persistent urgings to do other than that which he prefers”.[6]

Both Melville and Bartleby were dissatisfied and disconcerted. Melville’s imagination was narrowed by “society’s destruction of humanity in a sanctioned, frantic pursuit of wealth”; at the same time as Bartleby was not permitted to be inventive in an organized, monotonous work.[7] According to Medford, “He would find himself in prison, not in visible prison for restraining criminals, but in the pervasive prison of dull routine and meaningless activity.[8] The author also favored not to create the narratives that society desired, or to pursue a profession that would suit his family, at the same time as Bartleby chooses not to fulfill the storyteller’s instructions.[9] Unfortunately, the society destroyed both Melville and Bartleby. Bartleby underwent a physical death instigated by solitude and business dissatisfaction, but in Melville’s situation, society demolished his life force. He detected society’s estrangement and absence of apprehension for his principles, so dispirited, Melville finished writing narratives at the end of the decade.[10]

One more social feature Melville confronted was religious conviction, especially Christianity. Moreover, Melville denied the Bible and systematized religious beliefs; however, some of his novels are based on the Christian doctrine and Biblical allusions; as an illustration, the cursed children of Noah in The Bell-Tower represent the uselessness of Banadonna’s venture, and the Dantean circles and the diabolic main heroes of The Encantadas obviously depict the wicked, inhuman behavior of the island inhabitants.[11] Their images prove Melville’s conception of the “fallen world,” and possibly Melville’s denial of God was grounded on the inequality and evil he observed and practiced in the society.[12]

One component that can be traced in every story is Melville’s obligation to the search for the veracity. Melville disdained unrealistic sanguinity, and even though his outlooks toward society turned out to be more cynical later during his lifetime, he sustained to support social impartiality and restructuring.[13] As stated by Willard Thorp, Melville was a key literary symbol owing to his talent to “say ‘No’ in an age which demanded that all good citizens should say ‘Yes’”.[14] He spoke about the problems that everybody else wished to disregard, searched for the draughts of the country’s past, stated the defects in the present political and social tendencies, and predicted the unavoidably destructive results of overlooking these difficulties.

Views of Herman Melville About the Social Contract

Melville regarded slavery and the absence of a social contract the greatest troubles in the US society, although his narrative Benito Cereno discloses the fears of slavery, remarkably enough, from a point of view of white American. Cereno’s involvements with the slave rebellion and his suppression to the Afro-Americans destroy his sanguinity, life-force, and mentality.[15] In the sphere of suppression on the vessel, there is no empathy, no happiness, and no impartiality.[16] Social dependence and the absence of social contracts is also a repetitive leitmotif in The Encantadas, since two atrocious human residents of these diabolic islands, Dog-King and Oberlus, imprison other people and punish them with corporeal- and humanity-breaking slavery.[17] In The Encantadas, the actions truthfully appear appropriate for the situation, since slavery is a harsh and abnormal penalty. Thus, it must only happen in the Hell, not in enlightened, contemporary surroundings.[18]

Benito Cereno also delivers a frightening image of the unavoidable results of maintaining a human population subjugated. “Natural law” eventually appears, and burdened people revolt to fight back their accepted privileges and social contracts in order to penalize their dictators.[19] Since all sophisticated methods of guaranteeing impartiality have been repudiated, they should count on ferocity to secure independence. Nevertheless, as critic Nicholas Canaday stated, “even when blacks gain power, they are still denied authority to exercise that power because this right must be granted by society”.[20] Thus, in Benito Cereno, the struggle between power and supremacy is demonstrated in Babo and Cereno, as Cereno has authorized rights but no influence, and Babo has influence but no power. Nevertheless, this advances a disagreement of Babo as a courageous hero.[21]

At the end of the story, Delano regards Babo as a wicked dissident who produced much trouble for the Spanish people and is worthy castigation for his unlawful activity.[22] Hitherto, Babo was only responding on the uncivilized disparity of the situations and can be regarded as wily, authorizing frontrunner that helped to free the oppressed blacks.[23] Even the merciless assassin of Alexandro Aranda, Benito Cereno’s acquaintance and previous skipper, is “a justifiable political statement in the pursuit of personal freedom”.[24] With the help of main heroes like Benito Cereno and Babo, Melville displayed the convolution of the slavery state of affairs and analyzed the unassuming “American good versus evil attitude”.[25]

Melville thought that on condition that slavery and inexcusable ferocity were allowed in USA, “the Declaration of Independence is a lie”.[26] He denied “the three dogmas of the American Revolution – Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” – as “they were denied to a large portion of the population of this free and equal nation”.[27] Moreover, James E. Miller noted the insincerity of United States in Benito Cereno, since Delano “claims to empathize with the blacks and preaches love and compassion, yet he sees nothing wrong with the enslavement of an entire race”.[28] The majority of the Americans of XIX century rejected the crimes being performed against the Afro-Americans. When Benito Cereno arrives to Delano’s vessel, he makes it not to protect his individual life but to avert Delano from developing into a target of the actuality as well.[29]

Repeating the inevitability of comprehending the genuine nature of manhood and society, Melville demonstrated that lack of knowledge is more hazardous than comprehending, although veracity may be excruciating. In The Bell-Tower, there is a distinct defect in the church bell because a person is forgone during the molding, which eventually results in the bell’s demolition.[30] Thus, Melville is imaginably signifying that the feebleness of “America’s Liberty Bell” is the huge unfairness of servitude and the disadvantage of humankind for national development and opulence.[31]

Melville supported social improvement in numerous spheres: through elimination of slavery, reassessment of the results of the Industrial Revolution, the development of a social contract, and the improvement of systematized religious conviction. In conclusion, Melville created his novels on two planes – the external level for the common community, and the profounder implication for the more perceptive booklover. Finally, Melville composed the veracity and advised his readers to raise the value of authenticity, to reassess American principles, and to take concern of alterations.[32]

Views of Herman Melville About the Education

Herman Melville obtained his initial education in New York City. He was granted schooling at the New York Male School even though he also sustained an opulent autodidact’s greediness “steeping himself in anything he could read from anthropology to history to Shakespeare”.[33] His education at the Albany Academy finished when his father died.[34] In spite of his aristocratic upbringing, honored family backgrounds, and hard effort, Melville became poor with no university education.[35] Afterwards, he was mainly self-educated and studying as a vagabond similar to Ishmael in Moby-Dick who declared that “a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard”.[36] He had numerous professions –banking office worker, accounts clerk in the household trade, governmental schoolmaster – and he learned plumbing before developing into a seaman.[37] Having finished his oceangoing career, Herman Melville’s anxiety over his irregular education stimulated him to study ravenously. As Melville’s father stated,

“Herman I think is making more progress than formerly, and without being a bright Scholar, he maintains a respectable standing, and would proceed further, if he could be induced to study more — being a most amiable and innocent child, I cannot find it in my heart to coerce him, especially as he seems to have chosen Commerce as a favorite pursuit, whose practical activity can well dispose with much book knowledge”.[38]

Some of his narratives contain Melville’s practices on Nuku Hiva and the period of time spent with the populations of the atoll studying such differences as the dissimilarity between ferocious person and anthropophagus.[39] This educational involvement granted Melville not only the new life-style of alternative collective of people “but also that values are not concrete and shift depending on the context of the society and culture”.[40] Thus, while he was getting mature, he realized that spending time in a university would never teach somebody how to live and survive in the real life.

However, in the end, due to the financial necessity, in 1857, Melville became a lecturer. He worked at colleges, primarily describing his voyages in the South Seas.[41] Melville also was a tax examiner for the New York City, a position he worked for 19 years.[42] Thus, Melville was a highly educated person with an amazing background and ravenous for learning, in spite of the absence of university degree.

Views of Herman Melville About the American Character Identity

Herman Melville was a merciless opponent of the allegory of American Exceptionalism. He thought that the society in which he was working was a “fallen world”.[43] This notion is the mainstay of his opinion on the authenticity of human being and of American character identity, “mankind and the natural world will always fall short of the ideal, whether or not this ideal ever actually existed, for only in a fallen world could the atrocities of humanity and nature occur”.[44] This standpoint is shown in every narrative but is unequivocally presented in The Encantadas. In the beginning acts, the horrifying, diabolic scenery is depicted, about which Melville mentioned, “In no world but a fallen one could such lands exist”.[45]

By underlining the search for veracity and authenticity, Melville inspired readers to judgmentally assess American political affairs, philosophy, principles, character identity, and outlooks. Some researchers pointed out that Melville’s fiction produces polemic, since he demonstrates that the United States are not unquestionably the greatest country in the world, stimulating the American preeminence’s mind-set still predominant nowadays.[46] Benito Cereno assesses the development of undeveloped America as a global authority and the state’s role in worldwide political affairs.[47] Each dominant character in Benito Cereno signifies a feature of global government: Benito Cereno, from the customary Spanish European philosophy, signifies the Ancient World; Captain Delano, the positive and imprudent American, obviously depicts the Modern World. Moreover, some scholars suggested that Babo, the frontrunner of the rebellious slaves, characterizes the Third World.[48]

The communication between Delano, the American, and other two characters discloses America’s relations with other global authorities in XIX century. Delano thinks of the Spanish vessel with disdain, delicately employing his national dominance.[49] He feels empathy for the Spanish outmoded dresses, their silly misconceptions, their rude behaviors, and their absence of authority on the vessel.[50] According to expert opinion, “because of the way Captain Delano controls his ship, The Bachelor’s Delight, he can only assume that Don Cereno, as a European among Africans, would also be in control of his own ship”.[51] The Americans’ misunderstandings and typecasts assist Babo in fooling the Skipper about the factual situation of matters. Delano undertakes that Afro-Americans are too passive and ill-informed to suppress a team of White people. In addition, he thinks that Cereno has influence because he has the lawful right to control the vessel, and that “the San Dominick could not survive without his valiant rescue and assistance”.[52] Researchers agreed on the point that Delano’s insentient assumptions obstruct his aptitude to appreciate other nations and, since America does not undergo the problems of the previous ages to the same degree as Africa and Europe, Delano has numerous idealistic principles about the manner the business works.[53] As an illustration, he considers that Afro-Americans are obviously suitable for servitude, “there is something in the negro which, in a peculiar way, fits him for avocations about one’s person…Captain Delano took to negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs”.[54] When Delano’s prejudices have been crushed about the spirit of the Afro-American revolutionaries, he unremittingly follows the San Dominick to guarantee impartiality when no such impartiality is probable due to the horrifying crimes have been performed on both sides.[55]

Even in the middle of XIX century, the United States was developing as the undeniable frontrunner of global political affairs. When Babo and Benito Cereno arrived to the vessel of Captain Delano, the American independently suppresses them both.[56] Herman Melville was condemning America and its character identities for its unrestrained authority and unsophisticated assessment of the world.[57] According to Melville, the foremost internal imperfections of American society and the American national character identity are the unfairness of slavery, the jeopardies of industrial development, and spiritual insincerity.[58] He demonstrated that America is on a hazardous track, not only regarding the worldwide matters but also within the country itself.

References

Barry Phillips, “‘The Good Captain’: Amasa Delano, American Idealist,” in A Benito Cereno Handbook, ed. Seymour L. Gross (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1965), 114

Harold Bloom, ed., Modern Critical Interpretations: Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, “Benito Cereno,” “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and Other Tales (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 2.

Marvin Fisher, Going Under: Melville’s Short Fiction and the American 1850 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 25.

Michael Clark, “Witches and Wall Street: Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law,” in Modern Critical Interpretations: Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, “Benito Cereno,” “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and Other Tales, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 138.

Nicholas Canaday, Jr., “Captain Delano and the Problem of Authority,” in A Benito Cereno Handbook, ed. Seymour L. Gross (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1965), 105.

Willard Thorp, Herman Melville (Chicago: American Book Company, 1938), xcvii.

[1] Harold Bloom, ed., Modern Critical Interpretations: Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, “Benito Cereno,” “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and Other Tales (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 2.

[2] Barry Phillips, “‘The Good Captain’: Amasa Delano, American Idealist,” in A Benito Cereno Handbook, ed. Seymour L. Gross (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1965), 114.

[3] Bloom, Modern Critical Interpretations: Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, “Benito Cereno,” “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and Other Tales, 12

[4] Ibid., 12

[5] Ibid., 13

[6] Ibid., 13

[7] Phillips, “‘The Good Captain’: Amasa Delano, American Idealist”, 96.

[8] Ibid., 96

[9] Ibid., 96.

[10] Bloom, Modern Critical Interpretations: Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, “Benito Cereno,” “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and Other Tales, 15.

[11] Willard Thorp, Herman Melville (Chicago: American Book Company, 1938), xcvii.

[12] Ibid., xcvii.

[13] Thorp, Herman Melville, xcvii.

[14] Ibid..

[15] Marvin Fisher, Going Under: Melville’s Short Fiction and the American 1850 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 25.

[16] Ibid., 26.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Nicholas Canaday, Jr., “Captain Delano and the Problem of Authority,” in A Benito Cereno Handbook, ed. Seymour L. Gross (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1965), 105.

[20] Canaday, “Captain Delano and the Problem of Authority”, 106.

[21] Ibid., 106.

[22] Ibid., 106.

[23] Michael Clark, “Witches and Wall Street: Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law,” in Modern Critical Interpretations: Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, “Benito Cereno,” “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and Other Tales, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 138.

[24] Ibid., 138.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Canaday, “Captain Delano and the Problem of Authority”, 108.

[27] Canaday, “Captain Delano and the Problem of Authority”, 108.

[28] Ibid., 108.

[29] Clark, “Witches and Wall Street: Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law”, 139.

[30] Ibid., 140.

[31] Ibid., 140.

[32] Ibid., 141.

[33] Bloom, Modern Critical Interpretations: Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, “Benito Cereno,” “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and Other Tales, 15

[34] Ibid., 15.

[35] Ibid., 15.