Tommo: Friend, Foe, or Just Plain Frustrating?
During class on Wednesday, we discussed our reception of Tommo as the main character in Herman Melville’s Typee. As readers, we are able to sympathize with Tommo’s unfortunate situation as he is thrust back into nature after twenty-two years of careful social grooming and refinement. In this regard, we find him to be likeable, entertaining, and even comical at times as he maneuvers through this story unsure and hesitant with every step he takes. However, when I analyzed Tommo outside the context of his current predicament, I found him to be fairly frustrating. Tommo appears to be in a constant state of escape; escape from the whaling ship he once willing boarded, escape from the nature that he once willingly sought, and finally escape from the Typee natives that he once desperately needed. Though one could argue that his restlessness is attributed to his budding youth, Tommo never really seems content with his current state of being, constantly choosing the unknown over his reality. Both Tommo’s life and his story function as blank maps that can only be filled after each new choice and experience is made.
This is a really interesting interpretation of Tommo. Tommo is always looking for something better, but I didn’t find it annoying, I found it relatable. By the end of the book, Tommo is willing to leave the Typee valley because he was not willing to accept Cannibalism even though he preferred the culture as a whole to Western culture. I think Tommo is not perfect, but his search of a utopia is a very human instinct and in the end he is the vessel in which we are told the story of Typee. If anything, his overly trusting nature is the least realistic thing about his character.
I do feel, as a reader, I also found myself wanting Tommo to take one path and stick with it. But, if the story line gone that way, the novel would not have been as interesting because we wouldnt be constantly wondering what Tommo was going to do next. From what else could he escape? His inability to commit kind of foreshadowed the fact that there was no way he was going to stay on the island with the Typees, and something was going to happen to make him want to escape.
Tommo’s constant indecision may be a function of his over idealizing of situation. When he first comes to the Typee, he views it as a paradise, but as time goes on and everything is not exactly how he hoped it would be, he becomes disillusioned by it and wants to leave . Similarly his ship journey did not go exactly the way he originally wanted it to be and he abandons his ship. Tommo’s initial wide-eyed hopefulness may only lead to his frequent disillusionment and abandonment.
I feel that so often is the case that when one wishes for something that perhaps the worst thing for them is to see it realized and obtained. For Tommo he sought to escape from the reportedly bad care of his ship captain and so he left thinking it would make him feel better. To try and rationalize his leaving, he may have sought out the best nature and the Typee had to offer as his plan was in all effect over at that point. Once free, he had no more to do, and so he clung to whatever he could while demeaning what he left behind. Once he realizes that things aren’t as perfect as he’s trying to see them though, he once again seeks to leave and make his life better by doing so. For someone like Tommo it seems that escapism is the path forever to be tread, and so his constant shifting around can be understood even if it is not entirely noble or respectable.