THE CITY IN MELVILLE'S REDBURN, PIERRE AND ISRAEL POTTER Fakrul Alam B. A. (Hons. ) , University of Dacca, 1972 M.A. , University of Dacca, 1373 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF VASTER OF ARTS in the Denartment of English Fakrul Alam 1980 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY August 1980 All rights reserved. This thesis may not ke reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy qr qther means, with~utnermission of the auttmr. TITLE OF 'IHfSIS: The City in Melville's IZedfxlm, Pierre and Israel Potter. Chairperson: Paul Delany -- ?ref. -in Blaser , Senior Supervisor - # Pllof . Jerdld Zaslove, Associate Professor Prof. Fby Miki, Assistant Professor .. ,- Prof. Warren Tallman, Associate Professor, Departmmt of English, U.B.C. Date Approved: :uq. 6 , )?YO J 1 PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis, project or extended essay (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a reqbest from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying- of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Title of Thesis/Project/Extended Essay Author: . - (signature) ABSTRACT The city plays a significant role in Melville's novels. It is important as settine and as an essential element of the thematic structure of Redburn, Pierre and Israel Potter, Little attention has been given, however, to Melville's utilization of the urban environment in his novels. It is the aim of this study to fill this gap in Melville criticism. Thi~theeis focuses on these three novels and on the opening sequence of Moby-Dick. It examine^ the changes in Melville's treat- ment of urban episodes and attempts to uncover the narrative prin- ciple~at work in them. The anple of vision from which the city is viewed in each of these novels is appraised. An important part of thi~study is devoted to the examination of the sources of the urban episode? and to Melville's increasingly allusive technique in his treatment of cityscapee. Chapter I of this study examines the Liverpool chapters of Redburn. Description and not narration predominates as the narra- tive mode in this novel. No sustained attempt is made to stress the tonal qualities of the cityscape or to link it with the narra- torts consciousne~s. Chapter I1 how^ Melville approach in^ the city in Moby-Dick and in Pierre from a more ubjective point of view; the details of' the urban land~capeare now carefully selected and tend to image the consciou~nes~of the narrator-hero (Noby-Uick) or the protago- nist (Pierre). Melville's ironic use of the country-city conven- tion and the psychological realism evident in the urban episodes * iii of Pierre are explored. The final chapter of this study analyzes the London section of Israel Potter. In this novel the city is treated as a meta- phoric wa~telandand as a vast prisonhouse which confines the pro- tagonist. The narrator now approaches the city through a technique of indirection and ~etsit in a context of myth, history and allu- p ion. Melville has moved away from the city described (Redburn) to the city given a symbolic meaning. For my parents, whose dream it is, that I should someday complete this. "Now first they tell The human mind is free to range Enlargement -ay: but where's the change We're yet within the citadel - May rove in bounds, and study out The insuperable towers about." (Clarel, 11, xxi, 38-43) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professor Robin Blaser, for introducing me to the Melville after Moby-Dick and for his time and advice. I would also like to thank my friend Aaly Rahman for his suggestions. Especially, I would like to thank my wife Nazma for her encourage- ment and for letting me have all the time I needed to complete this the~is. TABLE-- OF CONTENTS Page ADD~OV~~ i i Abstract iii Dedication v Quqtation vi Acknowledgements vi i Table of Contents viii Introduction 1 Chapter I 5 Redburn and Liverpool Chapter I1 Pierre and the City Chapter I11 Israel Potter and London Conclusion Melville's Changing Angles of Vision and the City Amendir 3 Views of Lmdon Bridge from Charles Knight's London Bibliography viii INTRODUCTION The extent of Melville's involvement with the sea has tended to obscure the importance of other areas of human exserience in his work. The city, for example, plays an important role in Melville's fiction. It is prominent in Redburn (1849) and Pierre (1852) and plays a significant part in Israel Potter (1855). Many of the short stories also have urban settings: "Bartleby the Scrivenerw is a story of Wall Streets "Temple Second" (1854) vividly recreates a sojourner's experience in London; "The Tartarus of Maids" (1855) draws a bleak picture of the Industrial City; "Jimmy Rose" (1855) places the fluctuating fortunes of the central character in a fast-changing New York. Later, when Melville turned from fiction to verse after The Confidence-Marl (185?), he created one of the most memorable poems about urban disorder in "The House-Top" (1866) and a complex, powerful por- trait of Jerusalem in Clare1 (1876). Of the hundreds of' critics who have analyzed Melville's work:;, only a few have discussed the importance of the city to his art. Most of them have done so 9 passant, or have concentrated on a particular novel or a story. The result, more often than not, has been a lack of perspective. For in his treatment of the city, as in hip treatment of every other theme, Melville constantly altered his angle of vi~ion. Yet only two critics have attempted to do justice to the complexity and the breadth of Melville's involveme\nt with the city. James Polk has tried to trace the image of the city throughout the canon, while Janis Stout ha:: described the function * of the city as setting in the fiction.' Thcir studies are percep- 3 tive and helpful; yet, because of limitations of' space, both Polk and Stout focus only on a few urban images and episodes in the different works. This study tries to avoid the limitations of these approaches - the tendency to generalize on Melville's treatment of the city on the basis of a particular work, or the tendency to trace the role of the city throughout the oeuvre in a few pages. Instead, I will concentrate on Melville's approach to different cities in Redburn, Moby-Dick, Pierre and Israel Potter. My intention has been to consider as fully as necessary the different aspects of the urban episodes as they appear in a particular novel; at the same time, I have tried to situate Melville's utilization of the urban environment in any one novel in the context of his art in other works. In particular, I have tried to answer the relevant questions about Melville's intention and technique in these episodes t From what viewpoint does Melville approach the city in the~enovels? Why and how does he use sources and allusions and what do they reveal about his attitude to the city? What is the function of the city in the thematic structure of the novels? In what ways did his attitude to the city change and how were they reflected in his art? I have tried to trace the movement from the particular to the symbolic in Melville's treatment of the cityscape and have attributed the changes in his presentation of the city to the chanpes in hi3 narrative perzpective . For example, the narxttor- hero of Redburn stresses the local, the topical and the merely sensational aspects of Liverpool because of his proximity to the cityscape. In Israel Potter, however, the omni:-*cient narrator 3 views the city from a distance. He can see it in its totality and can thus reveal the essential significance of Israel'r situation. From his vantage point, the city becomes a sy~bolof the human condition. I have also disagreed with some prevailing notions about the function of the urban episodes in the novel. For example, the dominant critical opinion about the Liverpool chapter?, the belief that they represent the hero's initiation into depravity and misery, appears to me to be only partially true. To overemphasize the fact that in Pierre Melville extols the country at the expen:;c of the city also appears to me to be a reductive approach to the novel. And to find in the 1,ondon chapter:: of Israel Potter ~iprlr: of Melville's exhaustion, as some critics have done, is to me a perpetuation of the biographical fallacy in Melville criticism. I have not, however, tried to be comprehensive in my approach to Melville':; treatment of the city. I have ignored the shi;-a:;- a-city metaphor and have concentrated only on three novels since any further extension of my focur would lengthen this study immea~urably. Indeed, I have not tried to discuss all the cities of the novels. For example, the London of Redburn has been ignored entirely. Melville him:-elf had not virited London when hc wrote about it in the novel; a:: a result, his description of it i: vague and inconsequential and does not illuminate his attitude to the city in any significant way.