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I'm currently looking for more pre-reading activities before I start a play version of Moby Dick (with the four classes of sophomores I teach) - I'd like to take a chapter or two and have the students read it in class. Do you have any suggestions about what may work as an excerpt for students to read? I'm looking to give them more of the action invovled in the work.
As an American literature teacher, often working with advanced high school students, I feel compelled to teach Melville as part of the standard canon of American literature. Moby Dick, however, is just a little too much for even the best readers--I usually recommend they read it later in life. But Typee has an enduring appeal and is, for the most part, easily understood. To be sure, the redundant descriptions of the island can get tedious, but put in the perspection of Romanticism, it becomes tolerable. The issue of the encroachment of civilization upon the idyllic Typees still provides some spirited discussion. I think Typee is a better introduction to Melville than anything else. Afterall, it was his major work during his life and remained so until he was "rediscovered" in the 1920's. Maybe it needs to be "rediscovered."
If you are looking for prereading for Moby Dick, then there are better things to use than Typee. Omoo is much more picaresque and lends itself to excerpting--there is a whole chapter about one island that is the center of all tattooing in the region. Its whole economy is based on tattoos--the lowest caste of this island are human scratch paper. Might make for good prereading. Alternatively, sections of White Jacket would be a good choice. It is also picaresque and goes to great lengths to describe life on an American Man-of war. Flogging section is powerful.
Another option is to use material that inspired Melville himself--Dana's Two Years Before the Mast comes to mind.