Typee and Trees
The Oxford Handbook of Herman Melville
Read a new piece by Centre for the Study of the United States affiliate Melissa Gniadek. "Moby-Dick might be the Melville work that most immediately conjures the ecologies of empire, but concerns about the effects of imperialism on environment (and recognition of the effects of environment on empire) are present beginning with Melville’s first book, Typee. This chapter explores these issues through a focus on Typee’s trees. Trees and their products are everywhere in Typee: as indicators of Nukuheva’s Edenic nature, as resources linked to the novel’s complex meditations on culture avant la lettre, and as objects linked to affect and memory. Considering Typee in relation to some of Melville’s other meditations on trees in novels including Omoo, Mardi, and Redburn, this chapter considers the implications of making trees central to Melville’s engagement with ecologies of empire."