Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1846

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Chapter 7

Chapters 8-14

Chapters 15-21

Chapters 22-28

Chapter 29-The Story of Toby

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Cultural Exchange and Colonialism

Typee is a novel about colonialism. Tommo, the narrator, is an American aboard a European ship that is sailing around the South Pacific. At each island they encounter, Europeans have already arrived. Trading posts have been set up, and the items have been claimed in the name of European countries, even though people are already living on the islands. As Tommo notes, this practice has already caused much death and suffering. Tommo criticizes the colonialist practices of France and Britain, though many of these critiques concern the methodology rather than the practice of colonialism. As a sailor, even on a whaling vessel, Tommo is deeply immersed in the system of colonial enterprise, and colonial views are ingrained in him. His ship trades with the locals, as well as the other colonialists in the area, helping reinforce the colonialist dynamic of material exchange. In addition, Tommo’s preconceptions about communities such as the Typees suggest that he has accepted many of the racist stereotypes about South Pacific and Polynesian peoples. When he first hears of the Typees, for example, he assumes that they are brutal cannibals who will kill him on sight. This colonialist stereotype is self-justifying, granting the Europeans the assumed right to rule over people they describe as violent heathens. Although the novel does not portray colonialism in a good light, Tommo is evidently fully invested in the colonialist cultural viewpoint, at least at the beginning of the novel.

Tommo decides that he cannot remain aboard the Dolly, even though he has signed a contract that binds him to the ship for many more years. By breaking this contract (and thus knowingly breaking the law), Tommo signifies his willingness to depart from the commonly accepted principles of Western culture. After he abandons the ship, he and Toby encounter the Typees. Much to Tommo’s surprise, the Typees do not immediately kill him. In fact, they introduce him to their community and allow him to live among them. In this moment, Tommo’s narration becomes more critical of the colonialist mindset. His preconceptions about the Typees, he discovers, are baseless. Rather than a band of violent heathens, they are a peaceful, serene community and live fascinating and meaningful lives. He gradually decides that their culture and beliefs are more moral and natural than those of the European and American countries he has visited. The Typee way of life, he decides, may be superior to that of the colonialists who condemn them. His ire turns toward his own culture as his fear of the Typees dissolves.

Tommo’s depiction of the Typees plays into Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s outdated and offensive theory of the “noble savage,” which suggested that people who live among nature (such as the Typees) are intrinsically more virtuous since they have not yet been corrupted by European civilization. While this theory frames colonizers as corrupting influences, both Rosseau and Tommo still view cultural exchange from the perspective of the colonizers. Tommo never truly learns the Typee language or culture, and many of his observations are patronizing or infantilizing. Furthermore, he can never truly abandon his Western orientation. He refuses to tattoo himself because in the back of his mind he assumes that he will one day return to Europe. Tommo’s depictions of the Typees as “noble savages” are as alienating and as othering as the colonialist mindset, and he never truly abandons his Western ideas. Tommo seeks to dispel the myths about the Typees, but in doing so he helps perpetuate other myths and theories about cultural exchange.

The Importance of Trust

Throughout Typee, Tommo must navigate different forms of trust. He immediately signals his trustworthiness to readers, for example, noting plainly and warmly his intention to dissuade them from their preexisting notions about the Polynesian people. He is a trustworthy narrator, he asserts, because of his firsthand experiences. His desire to dispel the lurid stereotypes of Polynesian peoples adds further credibility to his story, imbuing him with trust because he can describe culture, food, clothing, and much more with the authority and perspective of experience. Likewise, Tommo’s decision to abandon ship demonstrates the importance of trust: He no longer trusts the captain to act in a reasonable manner, so he breaks his contract even though doing so may have future ramifications. Tommo enlists Toby to join him, which is a big gamble for Tommo, who runs the risk that Toby might report him to the captain. Toby proves trustworthy, however, and he and Tommo form a bond. They may not have deep conversations or have much in common, but they trust one another implicitly. Abandoning the ship is fraught with danger and, even when they are cold, wet, and hungry, their trust endures. Tommo’s authority as a narrator derives not only from his experiences but also from the evidence of how he treats Toby and how Toby treats him. The men trust in one another helps encourage trust in Tommo’s narration.

Tommo and Toby then meet the Typees. Contrary to the racist stereotypes about the Typees, they do not immediately murder and eat the two men. Gradually, Tommo comes to trust the Typees. He learns to leave his prejudices and assumptions behind, becoming friends with many Typee people. Toby cannot replicate this trust. He does not trust the Typees or their food. When they serve him pork, he accuses them of feeding him human flesh. Toby’s inability to trust them contrasts with Tommo’s trusting relationship. Since Tommo trusts the Typees, he comes to love life in the community, while Toby, incapable of trusting them, constantly tries to escape. The irony of Toby’s inability to trust is that he is so desperate to leave that he enlists the help of a sailor who lives on the island. This Westerner betrays Toby, thus teaching him a lesson about why he should not trust people based on ethnicity alone. Trust initially brings Toby and Tommo together, but their capacity to trust the Typees causes them to split apart.

Toby leaves without explanation, so Tommo must assure himself that the Typees did not kill his friend. Although Tommo trusts the Typees, his trust is never absolute. When he sees three shrunken heads, for example, he worries that one might have belonged to Toby. Much like Toby, Tommo does not abandon his prejudices. Principally, he is never completely convinced that the Typees are not cannibals, even though he builds trusting relationships with them. Eventually, Tommo’s suspicions are vindicated, forcing him to flee amid a violent pursuit. Tommo’s successful escape leaves him in a difficult position. His experiences among the Typees taught him that he cannot accept the beliefs of European and American societies. Since they were so wrong about the Typees, he cannot fully trust Western thought to be right about anything else. However, he can no longer fully trust the Typees either. Tommo is left in a difficult position, unable to trust in anything other than his own experiences and perspectives. This inability to trust helps explain his role as the narrator. He can never return to a world that he does not trust as true, so he seeks to make his world more trustworthy by telling the Typee story as it should be told. Tommo presents himself as the only one to trust.

Religion and Morality

By his own admission, Tommo is a product of the Western world. He is an American and a Christian. When he compares himself to people, he tends to ally himself to Europeans and Christians, recognizing in them something of himself. To Tommo, religion serves as the moral foundation for what he believes about Western culture. Western morals are, to Tommo, largely Christian. He believes in the Christian God and derives his morality from the Bible, the teachings of Jesus, and the doctrine of Christian institutions. Religion is thus a foundational element of his worldview. Religion, particularly morality, informs much of how he operates. Contact and experience with Typee culture, however, forces Tommo to reckon with these moral precepts.

Tommo praises the Typee people in religious terms. He likens Fayaway to Eve in the Garden of Eden, suggesting that her level of innocence and purity can be found only in the Bible. In fact, he experiences many elements of Typee life as much like life in the Garden of Eden. In contrast, he has experienced life in European and American societies. The rampant crime and immorality of such societies makes Tommo ponder his hypocrisy: He wonders how Christianity can be so important to morality given that the non-Christian Typee people live in a state of innocence and grace, while the Christians lead immoral lives. Reflecting this tension between religion and morality, Tommo criticizes the Christian missionaries who tried to bring Christianity to the South Pacific. These missionaries failed, he believes, and their actions resulted in corruption and suffering wherever they went. Tommo suggests that the Typees (and other Polynesian cultures) are moral, even without Christianity, while Christians act immorally despite their religion. Tommo can empathize with the irreligious Typee people, wondering why they would want to give up their way of life in exchange for a religion that preaches shame and hypocrisy. The more time that Tommo spends away from his own religion, the more he develops his own secular morality.

Despite his respect and reverence for the Typee way of life, however, Tommo never completely abandons his Western morality. Many stereotypes suggest that the Typee eat human flesh, and these stereotypes motivate Tommo’s fears and anxieties. Initially, he and Toby both assume that the Typees will immediately eat them, but this assumption proves false. Tommo learns that for the most part the Typees lead moral lives to the extent that they never argue or quarrel. Their social practices may differ, such as their practice of polygamy, but Tommo understands that everyone in the community accepts these practices. Whereas Christianity preaches shame and guilt, the Typee religion seems to invoke a self-policing, common sense form of morality which seems to Tommo to just work. Tommo respects this but cannot condone Typee society entirely, because he discovers that they are, in fact, cannibals, eating the flesh of enemies killed in battle. This highly ritualized cannibalism is far from the blunt savagery that he was led to believe was innate to the Typee culture. Caught between two moral worlds, Tommo ultimately cannot remain among the Typees. The respect he retains for their culture, their religion, and their morality, however, is evident in how he contextualizes their cannibalism. It remains sacrilegious to him, but he appreciates so much of Typee religion and morality that he is willing to excuse and explain something that disgusts him. In his role as narrator, this is Tommo’s most strident endorsement of Typee society.