Polynesia: Fiction, Film, and Culture

Prof. Harvey

KEY PASSAGES AND SUMMARY SHEET
FOR HERMAN MELVILLE'S TYPEE + SOME ESSAY WRITING TIPS

92        --old men in "Ti": what realm, animal or human?

            103      --gets a headache

133      --language technical for theology

155      --no written records, so old ruins a mystery

160      --all remains a mystery to him

174      --law is childish/irrational

201      --common sense law

221      --taboo stuff

224      --no authority for taboo

248      --"blended confusion" of sounds

252      --Mow-Mow

THE FAMOUS KORY-KORY PASSAGE

--body tattoos associate him with animal realm

--head, regimented linear tattoos, make him appear incarcerated

--free or "natural" insofar as animals are free?

--or constrained by tattoos/taboos—the rules that his culture subscribes to?

--but of course Kory-Kory would not understand the distinction between natural freedom and coercive/regulating culture (we assume!)

--true liberty in the Western/modern tradition means the freedom to assent or dissent to the law

--assent isn't even an option for Kory-Kory

--remember the tattoos: liberty to choose what type of tattoo, but not whether to be tattooed

--so, in a sense, Kory-Kory is imprisoned because he doesn't understand what it means to be imprisoned

--all animals are imprisoned within instinctual impulses

--and perhaps taboo is the same (or perhaps not!)

--perhaps Tommo flees because of the paranoia of being with a cultural system that is comprehensive yet unknowable to him

GENERAL/DIAGRAM SUMMARY

            WESTERN                                                                  MARQUESAN

                                                                                    ACCORDING TO TOMMO                                                 

1)         mind                                                                             1)         body                           

2)         heartlessness                                                                 2)         heartful

3)         conquest                                                                       3)         submission/doomed     

4)         quest/mobility                                                               4)         seclusion/immobility

5)         communication with other worlds                                  5)         inability for...

6)         codified/written laws                                                     6)         natural law

7)         writing                                                                          7)         meaningless chatter

8)         toil/technology/anxiety                                                   8)         ease/physical

                                                                                                            gratification/

                                                                                                            somnolence/

                                                                                                monotony

9)         conquer environment                                                     9)         integration with...

10)       artificiality/complexity                                                    10)       naturalness/simplicity

11)       time oriented/history                                                      11)       timeless/no history

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PAPER WRITING TIP

--as you read categorize passages via clusters (e.g., law, speech, headache)

--choose an issue/tension/contradiction/source of anxiety on character or author's part

--choose 4-6 key passages, from beginning to end of book, that "unfold" the issue (see Paper Writing Instruction handout about development)

--then write around the passages

--possible paper topic with Typee is on how Tommo responds to native speech about their laws, customs, etc.