Exotic Bodies in Melville’s Typee

Abstract

[Abstract] Not only has the body been instrumental to (post)colonial discourses of various kinds. It is also a crucial site for representation and control, as well as prime means of developing and reinforcing prejudices against specific groups. It is my intention to examine the ways in which the ‘visual’ and textual intrusion of “exotic” bodies have challenged or confirmed inherited or traditional consideration regarding the body. I will argue that, at least in the case of Melville’s work, readers perceive an evolution from the use of exotic/colonial bodies to undermine and criticise ‘dominant’ or ‘hegemonic’ perceptions and values of the western body to a vision in which the colonial exotic body is valued on its own.