White jacket or The world on a warship

White Jacket or The World on a warship (orig. White-Jacket or The World in a Man-of-War ) is a 1850 published novel by American author Herman Melville . In the novel he describes a trip on a ship of the US Navy. In terms of subject matter and style, White Jacket is the forerunner of Melville's most famous novel, Moby Dick .

action

Melville describes the voyage of the American frigate Neversink in a white jacket . The story begins with the announcement of the journey home from Callao in Peru; At the beginning of the novel, the warship is already at the end of the first half of the journey. In the course of the story, Cape Horn , Rio de Janeiro and the equator are passed.

Melville uses this framework to cover the various aspects of life on the warship. This includes, first of all, the description of the hierarchy levels on board as well as the people who wear them on the “Neversink”. In addition, the various situations that arise during the trip are shown. These include, for example, the accommodation of the crew, keeping the ship clean, the leisure activities of the sailors, the processes in the hospital , the burial at sea, the punishment for offenses, the drinking habits of the crew and the associated smuggling activities.

The aim of the narrative is to illuminate all aspects of warship life. The title "The World on a Warship" already indicates this. In addition, the detailed description is expressly intended to serve as a parable on the lives of people in the world:

“Like a warship that sails through the seas, this earth sails through space. We mortals are all aboard a fast-sailing, never-sinking world frigate whose shipbuilder is God; and it is only one small vehicle in the Milky Way fleet whose Grand Admiral is God. "

Style and narrative form

White jacket is divided into 95 chapters as well as a final consideration. The voyage of the Neversink is the framework in which the individual aspects of warship life are discussed in detail. A very limited world is examined down to the last detail and viewed as a microcosm. The focus of the novel is on the description of the normal living conditions on the ship. There is no plot . The narrative thus represents a string of descriptions, anecdotes, scenes, portraits and reflections on the philosophical or legal background of sea life, which are held together by the place (the Neversink ) and the person Weißmantel.

The first-person narrator of the novel is the eponymous white jacket. He is a seaman , responsible for the rigging work . The narrator bears the name “white jacket” - he has no other name - because of the white jacket he wears. He made this jacket himself from canvas after he lost his previous clothing. Weissjacke's perspective is not that of the navigating bridge, for he is one of the common sailors; Nevertheless, he does not take the perspective of the people on the crew deck, but looks at the warship world from his post at the highest yard of the frigate, which enables him to present a free, broad, informal and fair representation.

main characters

The main character of the novel is the narrator white jacket. As a first-person narrator, warship life is presented from his perspective. In addition, a large number of secondary characters appear, who Melville finally characterizes as follows: “But we have seen that a warship is nothing more than this our old-fashioned world on water, full of the most varied natures, full of strange contradictions; and even if blessed here and there with a few excellent fellows, on the whole she is filled with the spirit of Belial and Hell to the coarse of her hatches. "

Some of the more common people are:

Jack Chase: Jack Chase is also a seaman on the “Neversink”. He is from Great Britain. Chase is Melville's draft of an ideal person. He is a person with a good heart, brave, outspoken and acts as a mediator in conflicts. Chase is educated and can entertain his teammates with Shakespeare or Homer recitations. Chase actually was a sailor on the main mast of the "United States". He also actually deserted during a trip to fight for freedom and human rights in the unrest between Peru and Bolivia . The concept of the ideal human was also presented in Moby Dick in the person of Queequeg.

Captain Claret: Claret appears in the novel mostly as the gray eminence in the background. Just as it rarely appears on the ship due to the different daily routines of the crew, it also appears in the narrative primarily on the sidelines, for example when it comes to carrying out punishments. He is the monarch of the ship, endowed with absolute authority.

Squadron doctor Dr. Cuticle: The doctor is enthusiastic about his job. He “would rather cut off a man's arm ... than chop up the wing of the most tender pheasant.” Once he has the knife in his hand, the merciless surgeon stood before you uncovered. ” This is based on the Clear description of an amputation that Dr. Cuticle, contrary to the opinion of the other ship doctors of the squadron, and which the patient, a sailor, pays with his life.

Intention and meaning

On the one hand, the white jacket is about the meticulous description of life on the frigate. This is particularly true to reality because Melville went to sea himself and knew what he was looking at from his own eyes. After his father's death, Melville left New England in January 1841 on the whaler Acushnet and, after spending several years in the Pacific , reached Boston in October 1844 on the frigate United States . These years of travel and the experience on board a whaler and a warship formed the basis for Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), White-Jacket (1850) and Moby Dick (1851).

Second, Melville is following the denunciation of abuses on the ship. The questioning of the structure of life on the warship and the practically absolutist rule of the captain of the warship covered by naval legislation runs like a red thread through the novel and is always treated against the background that in the home country of Neversink , the United States of America, at the time the novel was set - in the middle of the 19th century - a liberal society had long been established, the advantages of which have still not found their way into the ships of the Navy. Melville always argues from a humanist perspective when describing the grievances . He hardly invokes religious or legal argumentation concepts, but rather calls for humanity in view of the extensive inhumanity on board. Melville can therefore be classified as an author who was influenced by the Enlightenment and defending democracy .

A large space (Chapters 33 to 36) is devoted to the treatment of flogging . Melville discusses in detail the type of punishment legitimized by the legislation and makes a passionate plea against the implementation of this inhuman practice. During his fourteen-month service on his voyage on the "United States" he witnessed 163 flogging, as can be seen from the criminal record of the frigate. Regarding the practice of flogging, Melville's success can be attested that corporal punishment was abolished in the American Navy.

literature

Hayes, Kevin J .: The Cambridge introduction to Herman Melville. Cambridge 2007.
Diorio, Mary Ann L .: A student's guide to Herman Melville. Berkeley Heights, NJ, 2006.
Pechmann, Alexander : Herman Melville: Life & Work. Vienna 2003.
Lütten, Volker: State and perspectives of human existence in Herman Melville's novel "White Jacket". Hamburg 1997.
Reynolds. Larry J .: Antidemocratic Emphasis in White Jacket. In: American Literature, 48, March 1976.
Allen, Priscilla: White-Jacket: Melville and the Man-of-War Microcosm. In: American Quarterly, 25, 1, March 1973.
Vincent, Howard P .: The tailoring of Melville's "White Jacket". Evanston 1970.
Allen Zirker, Priscilla: The major and minor themes Melville's "White Jacket". 1966.
Vincent, Howard P .: White Jacket: An Essay in Interpretation. In: New England Quarterly, September 22, 3, 1949.