Herman Melville wrote about all different types of themes ranging from topics about the Civil War to what a woman’s role should be. Melville was not afraid to express his opinions to anyone, especially his readers. Melville was from New York and he supported the abolition of slavery. He believed that the slave owners were exploiting the slaves only for their free labor. He was not opposed to a short-lived Civil War that had the primary purpose of reuniting the North and the South. Although he was in favor of a brief Civil War, he resented a long bloody one, similar to the one that occurred. He wrote Battle-Pieces and the Aspects of War in an attempt to describe what happened on the battlegrounds of the Civil War. After the war ended, Melville thought that America was going to be reunited as one, big, happy country again. Then the government enforced a reformation act on the South, called Reconstruction. Melville quickly realized that Reconstruction was an atrocious mess that tried to fix the South. Melville also despised the minuscule amount of respect that the Northerners exhibited toward their soldiers. He felt like they deserved much more than what they received. Additionally, Melville’s opinions regarding women were all over the place. He mainly thought they were evil, but he also noted that they make the world go round.
Herman Melville has shared, throughout his writings, that he has some mixed feelings about the Civil War. According to Megan Williams, “Melville’s prefatory paragraph tells his reader[s] that the version of the Civil War that emerges from this volume has been written by nature” (142). This quote is saying that the Civil War was necessary for the development of the United States and that nature predicted the war. Melville hated the cruel actions of slavery and he thought that the only way to abolish slavery was for the Union to defeat the Confederacy in the Civil War. He was all for the idea of a quick Civil War that would scare the Confederacy into reuniting with the Union and conforming to the Union ways. As we all know, that did not happen. To Melville’s dismay, the Civil War consisted of four years of constant fighting and bloodshed.
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Melville wrote many poems about the Civil War describing its gruesome and bloody battles. In these poems, Melville exclaimed how this war would shape America in the future (Rand 96). If the Civil War had not happened and the Union and the Confederacy had split into two different countries, there still could have been unforgiving tensions between the two countries. Melville was saying if Abraham Lincoln lost the election to John Breckinridge, the United States could have turned out to be two countries that would butt heads every decade or so over the issue of slavery or the issue of trying to reunite the two countries again. Melville also said that if the Confederacy defeated the Union, America would turn out to be a completely different country. The abolition of slavery and the push for equal rights among the colored could still be going on, or the Union could have conformed to the Confederacy, where slavery would be legal and prevalent all over the United States.
Herman Melville also wrote a lot about the controversy of slavery. In William Rand’s journal, he quotes Philip Fisher as saying “For Melville … slavery is the route to thought” (92). Slavery was a hot topic at the time, which was a source of much discussion in the United States. Melville believed that slavery both united and divided the nation. When slavery was first used during the colonial era, when Great Britain controlled the thirteen colonies, it enabled the colonies to develop at a faster pace than without it. The Northern colonies traded lumber, fish, fur, grain, bread, and manufactured goods to the British, while the Southern colonies traded crops such as corn, wheat, tobacco, rice, sugar, silk, and wine. The Southern colonies were burdened with the labor-intensive responsibility of farming. As a result, Southerners needed a cheaper and faster way to grow their crops, so they ended up using slaves to do their work. This allowed the Southern colonies to keep up with the Northern colonies economically. Melville believed that this was the way that slavery united the nation. On the other hand, Melville argues, slavery divided the nation, which almost resulted in the formation of two different countries. Slavery was the leading cause of the Civil War and Melville believed that the war could bring an end to the wretched practice of slavery. If slavery was abolished in the South, there would be no need for a Civil War because there would be nothing to fight over.
Melville liked to input his own opinions of slavery into his fictional works. For example, in the writings where whales are present, the whales usually represent slavery (Rand 96). In his works, one of which being Moby Dick, the whales were only being poached for their blubber and oil, its two most lucrative components. The exploitation of whales is similar to the way that slaves were perceived. Slaves were only used for their labor, and nothing else. Both the whales and the slaves were being exploited, whether for their blubber and oil or just for their hard, physical labor.
Herman Melville often expressed his deep hatred toward Reconstruction in his writings. Clarel was the book where Melville spoke out the most against Reconstruction. He thought that Reconstruction did not do enough to free the slaves and integrate them into society (Hutchins 1173). Melville believed that Reconstruction was equivalent to feeding a dog to a dead lion (Williams 141). In this metaphor, Melville is saying that Reconstruction accomplished next to nothing. He compared the dog to Reconstruction and the dead lion to the South. The dog was being force-fed to the dead lion in the same way that Reconstruction was being forced upon the South. As a result of both scenarios, nothing happened.
Herman Melville believed that Reconstruction almost foiled the plan to reunite the North and the South. Robert Milder once said, “Whatever hopes Melville may have harbored for rejoining a chastened, magnanimous America were defeated by the course of Reconstruction and the popular and critical indifference to Battle-Piece …” (199). What Milder is trying to say in the quote is that Melville was hopeful that the Union and the Confederacy could have rejoined as one peaceful and united country again, but that hope was shattered by the implementation of Reconstruction. Melville’s opinion on the Presidential Plan for Reconstruction, also known as the Ten Percent Plan, was that it was too lenient towards the Southerners. Melville believed that they should have been punished for their actions rather than have the Union government try to overlook the unimaginable horrors that the slave owners caused to their slaves.
Reconstruction has brought about a new squabble between writers. To quote Michael Gilmore, “Reconstruction brought a renewal of linguistic agency, but in the end, the nation's experiment in racial justice only completed the rout of words by actions” (494). Here the author is saying that people had different views on how successful Reconstruction was, and how the South was still implementing slavery, even though they said that they were not. During the Reconstruction era, many authors, including Herman Melville, liked to express their ideas about Reconstruction. Many Southern writers liked what Reconstruction was doing because it allowed for the South to keep doing what they were doing while most, if not all, Northern writers (like Melville) thought that Reconstruction was doing nothing.
Herman Melville had the highest amount of respect and admiration for any soldiers who fought for their cause. He believed that they did not receive the respect that they deserved. In Melville’s Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the Civil War, he repeatedly described how much some people do not care for their soldiers. He explains that these people thought of soldiers as expendable and renewable resources that were only used to win a war. During the Civil War, Northerners thought that the war was going to be a quick cleansing of the South. Melville made several attempts to have the Northerners value the soldiers’ lives, by stating how hard soldiers worked and what horrors they had to go through. Robert Milder explained what Melville said in “The March into Virginia”:
For Northern intellectuals who regarded the war as a purifying crusade, the carnage of battles like Manassas was acceptable, even welcome, as a means … for 'quicken[ing] our consciences and cleans[ing] our hearts' (Fredrickson, p. 80)- 'our' signifying the nation abstractly conceived, not the combatants themselves whose role was one of heroic immolation. (181).
The supposed Northern intellectuals did not sweat the fate of the soldiers. All they cared about was how quickly the war could be won, while the soldiers had their main focus on trying to survive and win the war. Milder points out that the heroic soldiers who died for the North have contributed more to the war than most of the Northerners who did not step foot anywhere near a battlefield. In Melville’s “The March into Virginia,” the reader realizes just how shallow the Northerners were.
Moreover, Herman Melville repeatedly attempted to explain what transpired on the battlefields of the Civil War. Melville’s Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the Civil War was where Melville wrote the most about the horrors soldiers had to go through while in combat. He describes times when a soldier was badly wounded and there was no decent medical treatment to help the soldier. As a result, many soldiers had their limbs amputated, which eventually led many of them to die from a massive amount of blood loss. Melville also described the relationships the soldiers made during the war. The relationships were so strong that some soldiers died for each other. Losing a fellow soldier was compared to losing a brother or sister. Nobody has seen more death and violence than soldiers and the people who haven’t been in a battle wouldn’t understand what it is like on the battlefield. Andrew Miller agrees with Melville in saying “Killing on the battlefield is not synonymous with sacrifice on the Cross, and yet Melville does not hesitate to make this suggestion,” (677). Miller is saying the Northerners believed that the soldiers were sacrificing themselves for the Union, and surviving the war would have been a bonus to them. Melville was not afraid to point this out because he knew that the soldiers’ intentions were not to die in combat. Dying during war might have been one of the worst possible ways a person could have died.
When Herman Melville wrote about women, they usually played an important role in his stories. In most of his writings where women were present, the women would usually be evil and would foreshadow something bad to come. María López Liquete noticed that “Melville … portrays women in two ways: either as unwitting sirens, whose soft allurements led men to destruction or as shrews, brutal and uncompromising in their attitudes towards men” (116). In this quote, Melville implied that women are not smart, and are always up to no good. When he called them sirens, he meant that they only wanted to seduce or backstab men. He also noted that they could become irate if all their needs or wants were not met.
On the other hand, women in Melville’s works can be the “primum mobile” of the story (López Liquete 116). This means that they are the centerpiece of the story, but not the protagonist. Usually, when women take this role, they are heavily relied on by the men in the story. The woman (or women) would be the driving force in the story, pushing and urging the men to complete and fulfill their destiny. This is similar to the role women played during Melville’s time. Women would usually stay at home and do all of the housework including cleaning, cooking, laundry, and raising the children, while the men had to go to work and be the provider of the family. Without the women in the house, the men would have collapsed because they needed someone to rely on after a hard day of work. López Liquete wrote:
The study of women allows us to understand and newly interpret male roles. And Bruce E. Mitchell … explicitly defends the need to analyze the female about the male heroes. In his opinion, 'the protagonists grow through the perceptions they gain from their experiences with women' who provide different sorts of knowledge. (117)
Here López Liquete is saying that Melville’s diverse use of women is allowing for a new understanding of what the male role can be in the future. In future writings, male and female roles can be reversed, where the men act as the caretaker or the “primum mobile” for the women, and the women go on perilous adventures. The quote also says that the male protagonist can grow due to the female’s role in his life. The woman, just by leading by example, can indirectly teach the man how to treat or not to treat others and how to act in certain situations.
In addition to being the centerpiece of Melville’s works, women also stood as symbols. Whenever fair women appeared in one of Melville’s works, they usually represented purity and innocence. Along with their presence came a foreshadowing of something good or magical to occur. These fair women represented the fruits of heaven or the Church leading the way to salvation. In contrast, whenever an ugly, dark, and/or mysterious woman appeared, something terrible usually occurred shortly after. These evil women represented hell or the devil attempting to lure the protagonist into doing something unethical.
Herman Melville often included the real world in his writings. This ranged from the setting or the background of the story to the journey the protagonist embarked upon (Weeks 156). Most of his writings took place around the same period in which he was living. This allowed the reader to make an easy connection with what Melville wrote about. The reader understood what else was going on in the world besides the main story. For example, Moby Dick took place ten years before the beginning of the Civil War, and the reader understood the contemporary references Melville made in the story. Not only did Melville add the real world into his writings, but he also incorporated some of his life as well. For instance, Moby Dick was inspired by a real-life adventure taken by Melville himself (Rand 95). He made up most of the characters to create an even balance of real and fictional writing.
Herman Melville used a plethora of comedy early in his writing career. He had a wide range from slapstick to belle-lettrist (Barry 21). One example of where Melville incorporated the use of slapstick comedy was in the book White Jacket when the “cancer specimen” was presented to Cadwallader Cuticle. Another case where Melville uses slapstick is in the book Moby Dick where Ishmael is constantly mocked. The use of belle-lettrist is used in the book Mardi where invisible spirits were described as “arrant little knaves as ever gulped moonshine” (Melville 391). This was Melville’s way of lightening the mood of the story.
In most of his writings, Herman Melville tended to use a narrator. In using a narrator, Melville attempted to create a sense of mystery while yielding more, yet different insights. Using the narrator’s point of view provides the reader with more information about more people and topics than the first-person point of view. For example, a narrator knows nearly everything in the scene except for the thoughts and ideas of each character. Using a narrator also provokes thought. While the reader does not know what the characters are thinking, he or she can imagine what is going through their heads. The reader also wonders what will happen next.
Herman Melville was not fond of including women in his pieces. Usually, around Melville’s time, authors would often sexualize women, and Melville did not want to participate in this phenomenon. Megan Williams documented that “[Melville had] a Puritan heritage that determined a reluctance to speak about instincts and sex. For Newton Arvin, in 1950, 'physical sexuality was charged through and through for Melville with guilt and anxiety', causing him to avoid women” (115). Megan Williams is saying that Melville was intimidated by writing about women because he did not want to write about sexual instincts. Whenever he wrote or even spoke about sexual activity, he would feel guilty because he knew that was wrong. To Melville, sex meant marriage and this Puritan belief prevented him from writing or speaking about premarital sex.
Herman Melville’s writings normally did not have any order to them. The only kind of order that his writings had, was chronological. Melville did this to make his writings stand out from other authors. Robert Milder quotes Melville as saying 'I seem, in most of these verses, to have but placed a harp in a window, and noted the contrasted airs which wayward winds have played upon the strings,” (Milder 176). In this quote, Melville is saying that he puts random objects in random places while he notices what is going on in the background instead of the misplaced object. Most, if not all, of his Civil War poems had no order to them. This is different from how many other authors wrote about war because these other authors would want to keep the writing consistent with a nice flow.
Overall, Herman Melville’s works demonstrated a wide variety of recurring themes, styles, and techniques. Melville has put a strong emphasis on the Civil War era and what is right and wrong with it. To restate, Melville thought that a Civil War could have been rejuvenating for America if it was to accomplish the goals he had in mind - abolishing slavery and reuniting the North and the South. The war did accomplish these goals, but in a fashion that was much too bloody. Reconstruction was implemented shortly after the war to try to reintegrate the Southern states with the Northern states. Melville thought that the government could not have handled the situation any worse. He believed that the government put too much emphasis on reuniting the country, and not enough on freeing the slaves. Melville was disgraced by the lack of respect the soldiers received from the country they were fighting for. For instance, the Northerners viewed their soldiers as just a means to win a war and nothing else. Furthermore, Melville’s perspective on women was odd, to say the least. He believed that most of them were evil shrews, but then he went on to say that everything revolves around them.
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