Melville's Anatomies
- Binding: Paperback
- Publisher: Univ of California Pr
- Publish date: 01/01/1999
Description:
In fascinating new contextual readings of four of Herman Melville's novels -- Typee, White-Jacket, Moby-Dick, and Pierre -- Samuel Otter delves into Melville's exorbitant prose to show hoe he anatomizes ideology, making it palpable and strange. Otter portrays Melville as deeply concerned with issues of race, the body, gender, sentiment, and national identity. He articulates a range of contemporary texts (narratives of travellers, seamen, and slaves; racial and aesthetic treatise; fiction; poetry; and essays) in order to flesh out Melville's discursive world.
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Otter presents Melville's works as an "inside narratives" offering material analyses of consciousness. Chapters center on the tattoed faces in Typee, the flogged bodies in White-Jacket, the scrutinized heads in Moby-Dick, and the desiring eyes and eloquent, constricted hearts of Pierre. Otter shows how Melville's books tell of the epic quest to know the secrets of the human body. Rather than dismiss contemporary beliefs about race, self, and nation, Melville inhabits them, acknowledging their appeal and examining their sway.
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