Welcome to English 304!
This is the blog space for English 304: Melville & Ellison at Lafayette College (spring 2015). We will reflect on readings and class discussions in this space, and we’ll also interact with Prof. Michael Drexler’s Melville seminar at Bucknell University as well as other interested readers. Each student will be posting and commenting weekly beginning the week of February 2. I’m looking forward to the ideas and conversation that we’ll share together in this space in the coming weeks.
Prof. Chris Phillips, Lafayette College Dept. of English
In class on Wednesday we talked a bit about what kind of writing we thought Typee was, eventually coming to the conclusion that it seemed the most like journal writing. At the time I agreed, as Tommo’s writings were very thoughtful, descriptive, and personal. For example in chapter 11 he went on for a few pages describing Fayaway in great detail. This instance reminded me of the stereotypical subject matter one writes about in their journal (crush on boy/girl). However in our next section of reading, the type of writing seemed to change; it seemed more dry and factual as Tommo described the bread fruit tree, a typical day in the life of a Typee, the festival, how cloth was made, etc. This change in writing, to me, seems that it may be some kind of defense mechanism for Tommo. That is, it serves as a way to keep his mind off of his true feelings of depression in this section of the book. It is ironic that once Tommo has these deep feelings he chooses to hide them from his “journal,” or at least not dwell on them. Do you think he may be too scared to face his fears of being trapped among the Typee forever and is thus hiding behind facts and events? Or is Tommo simply changing the subject matter to write more about what he is experiencing as opposed to what he is feeling?