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.Mardi They Enter the Bower of Hautia ; Taji withbegins as a sea narrative much like its predeces-Hautia ; Mardi Behind, an Ocean Before sors, Typee and Omoo.This section received theAt midnight, the canoes are approached by sirensmost praise from contemporary reviewers, perhapsbearing the iris flag of Hautia, as well as the mes-because it most closely met expectations of whatsage that through their queen, Taji may find his Yil-Melville might produce.The descriptions of life onlah.At dawn the travelers arrive at Hautia s land,a ship or in a boat, the several chapters devoted toFlozella-a-Nina, which the narrator also calls thevarious kinds and behaviors of aquatic life, and the Last Verse of the Song. Here, at last, Taji meetsportraits of sea characters such as Jarl and Samoa allthe evil seductress herself.For a time, he resists hermore or less matched the content and style of Mel-but at last surrenders, hoping that through her byville s previous works.Though Melville declaredgaining knowledge of evil through familiarity withhis initial intention to fictionalize his own Southher he will discover his lost love.Sea experiences into a novel, he also borrowedTaji enters Hautia s bower and drinks her wine.freely from other accounts of travel in PolynesiaHe is on the point of embracing her when she van-such as William Ellis s Polynesian Researches andishes.Mohi tells a parable about a youth namedFrederick Debell Bennett s Narrative of a WhalingOzonna, who in vain sought the beautiful AdyVoyage around the Globe.among Hautia s handmaidens, all of whom lookOnce the narrator s party encounters Aleemaalike.All urge Taji to leave, but he remains, con-and captures Yillah, however, the fact-based nar-vinced that he must experience evil to find good.rative of the earlier chapters transforms into a taleWhen the others leave, Hautia draws near, urg-of love and adventure.During the composition ofing Taji to come sin with her.Just as he is losingMardi, Melville himself announced this shift in ahis will to resist, Taji begs Hautia to reveal theletter to the English publisher John Murray.Notingmystery of life and death.She responds by holdingthat the factual nature of the narrative grew increas-up Yillah s rose pearl.As Taji snatches it from heringly dull and restrictive, Melville instead went tohand and calls for his lost love, Hautia mocks him,work heart and soul on a romance. The narrator stelling him that Yillah cannot answer because shewillingness to allow himself to be mistaken for a god lies too deep & bubbles are bursting round her. clearly alludes to Captain JAMES COOK, who imper-Taji rushes out, passing a lake where he sees asonated the god Lono upon arriving in Hawaii,vision of Yillah beneath the surface.He plunges inan impersonation that eventually resulted in hisafter her, but her shadow slips away.When Mohideath.For the narrator of Mardi, however, becom-and Yoomy find him again, he is more dead thaning Taji has different results, allowing him to movealive.When they question his spectral figure, he with relative freedom throughout the cultures heresponds: Taji lives no more.So dead, he has no encounters and, later, to contemplate matters bothghost.I am his spirit s phantom s phantom. secular and sacred.Some of Taji s observations are 126 Mardidrawn from real Polynesian culture based on both especially true as the novel moves into political sat-Melville s experience and his reading but life in ire, in which the party travels Gulliverlike aroundOdo should not be considered a factual representa- the world and visits countries representing Europe,tion of Polynesia, especially as it grows increasingly Asia, Africa, and the Americas.In each nation, thefantastic and allegorical.Mardi s representation of party encounters injustice and unrest includingPolynesian peoples achieves far less verisimilitude the Chartist rebellion in England, the Revolutionthan Typee or Omoo; little attempt is made to rep- of 1848 in France, and the looming Civil War inresent Polynesian language or character, and the America.In each case, the narrator emphasizes theturbans and robes, the salaams to persons of high inhumanity of existing power structures and therank, and the harem of Donjalolo all suggest Ara- need for fairness in governance.Though the nar-bic rather than Polynesian culture.Whereas the rator had early on embodied much of the privilegefirst section of the novel strives for authenticity, and presumed superiority of an agent of empire,this second section parodies travelogue writing in this section aims its critique at imperialism.Mel-its elision of all things foreign into one setting.ville s critique of America is particularly pointed
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