Essay Database

The "Civil" and The "Savage" Herman Melville in his book Typee gives the "civilized" world a peek at the "uncivilized" world in the Nukuhiva valley. Through his speaker Tommo's experiences in the valley Melville shows the "civilized" world what it would be like to live in harmony with nature. He thinks that the people who live close to the nature are much happier, healthier and are free from most of the miseries that the people …

…a strange man is "uncivil". But to the Typees it was the other way around. To them going in the canoe was the "taboo". So the qualities that Melville uses to distinguish between the "civil" and the "uncivil" (or the "savage") are too ambiguous. So we cannot call the Typees an "uncivilized" group of people. Simply because the "civilized" world and the "uncivilized" world has different ideas about what is "civil" and what is "uncivil".