Colonialism and language in Herman Melville's 'Typee'

This postcolonial reading of Herman Melvilles Typee analyzes the books ambiguous position between colonial and anti-colonial discourse. Since a crucial arena in the colonial conflict is that of language, this essay concentrates on the role of languages and the failure of English in Type, Following examples that either critique or perpetuate colonial patterns, the foregrounding of language will be addressed, as well as the Typeean language, classification and naming, metaphors and malapropisms, and reading and writing.