White-Jacket or the World in a Man-of-War

[anteros_lmc]

Melville, H., (2000), White-Jacket or the World in a Man-of-War, Northwestern University Press.

I've posted so many bits and pieces from White-jacket over the last couple of months that it seems a bit unnecessary to write a review as well. However I think it's worth one more post :)


I have to confess that this is the first time I have read any Melville, I am woefully under-read in the American classics.

White-jacket describes a tour of duty aboard the US flag ship the Neversink as seen through the eyes of the eponymous narrator. There is no real plot to speak of although the narrative does follow the arc of the ship's voyage; weathering Cape Horn, anchoring in Rio and cruising home to Virginia. All the characters are archetypes and composites but no less memorable for that. Captain Claret; noble Jack Chase, captain of the fore top; Mad Jack, the alcoholic but astute lieutenant who contradicts a potentially disasterous order from the captain while rounding Cape Horn in a storm; Old Ushant, flogged at the gangway for refusing to capitulate and shave his beard and Lemsford the gun deck poet who hides his odes in the barrels of the long guns. There is a wealth of fascinating detail here covering every aspect of life aboard a man-of-war including stations, quarters, cooking, messing, sleeping, gambling, smuggling, shaving, washing, drinking (water and spirits), sickness, death and burial. Everything in fact, barring action.

Unsurprisingly White-jacket is beautifully written. Melville has an extraordinary sharp eye for the minute and absurd details of life aboard a man-of-war and many passages are very, very funny.

One random example that made me laugh was a description of the how the ratings were given special privilege to rest between watches during a storm rolled up in their jackets on the berth deck.

"Just so we laid: face to back, dovetailed into each other at every ham and knee. The wet of our jackets, thus densely packed, would soon begin to distill.... Such a posture could not be preserved for any considerable period without shifting side for side. Three or four times during the four hours I would be started from a wet doze by the hoarse cry of a fellow who did the duty of a corporal at the after end of my file "Sleepers ahoy! stand by to slew round!" and, with a double shuffle, we all rolled in concert, and found ourselves facing the taffrail instead of the bowsprit....There was some little relief in the change of odour consequent upon this." (p83)

White-jacket treats most of his shipmates with a degree of respect, with the notable exception of the Commodore, and here his sarcasm knows no bounds.

"Another phenomenon about him was the strange manner in which everyone shunned him. At the first sign of those epaulets of his on the weather side of the poop, the officers there congregated inevitably shrunk over to the leeward, and left him alone. Perhaps he had an evil eye." (p 21)

Although, as a group, midshipmen and the marines also come in for considerable scorn.

Of midshipmen:

"At times you will see one of these lads, not five feet high, gazing up with inflamed eye at some venerable sic-footer of a forecastle man, cursing and insulting him by every epithet deemed most scandalous and unendurable among men. Yet that man's indignant tongue is treble knotted by the law, that suspends death itself over his head should his passion discharge the slightest blow at the boy-worm that spits at his feet." (p 218)

And marines:

"When a ship is running into action her marines generally lie flat on their faces behind the bulwarks (the sailors are sometimes ordered to do the same) and when the vessel is fairly engaged , they are usually drawn up in the ships waist - like a company reviewing in the Park. At close quarters, their muskets may pick off a seaman or two in the rigging, but at long-gun distance they must passively stand in their ranks to be decimated at the enemy's leisure." (pp 374-375)

White-jacket is usually regarded as one of Melville's more obscure works but if it is known for anything it is for its passionate and damming criticism of naval law and justice. Melville returns again and again to this theme, railing against the tyranny of the Articles of War and the arbitrary floggings, which in the US navy, unlike the British, could be handed out by even the lowliest and most spiteful midshipman. Melville is particularly, and understandably, incensed that the freedoms that the citizens of the United States fought so hard to enshire are denied to those who fight to protect the liberty of the land of the free.

"How comes it that, by virtue of a law solemnly ratified by a Congress of freemen, the representatives of freemen, thousands of Americans are subjected to the most despotic usages, and, from the dock-yards of a republic, absolute monarchies are launched?...By what unparalleled anomaly, by what monstrous grafting of tyranny upon freedom did these Articles of War ever come to be so much as heard of in the American Navy?" (p 297)

Although Melville holds the British responsible for the tyrannous Articles he also acknowledges that the British Navy is considerably more humane in their application. Indeed White-jacket clearly regards the British Navy, from seamen to admirals, with considerable respect. The fictional Englishman, Jack Chase, is the personification of the noble gallant seaman and the historical Collingwood, rather than Nelson, the apotheosis of the humane and just officer.

"Who Admiral Collingwood was, as an historical hero, history herself will tell you....But what Collingwood was as a disciplinarian on board the ships he commanded perhaps needs to be said. He was an officer, then, who held in abhorrence all corporal punishment; who, through seeing more active service than any sea-officer of his time, yet for years together, governed his men without inflicting the lash." (pp 147-148)

"Collingwood was in reality one of the most just humane and benevolent admirals that ever hoisted a flag." (p 218)

White-jacket takes time to get through but I would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the age of sail. I found it a fascinating history, a moving and very funny memoir and an invaluable writers resource. I've been happily "borrowing" from it for months now and no doubt will continue to do so.

Comments

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to read Billy Budd, mainly because Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick insists it's really about homosexuality in the Navy in Episstemology of the Closet.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

I've heard that from other sources. I suspect the "closet" reading of Billy Budd is quite widely accepted. I haven't read it myself but on the basis of White-jacket I'd definitely give it a go.

I think I read the whole of White-jacket on the underground on the way to and from work. Some bits of it really did make me laugh out loud, I suspect folk probably thought I was a bit mad!

I've never read any Sedgwick, but I've seen her referred to often enough. Would you recommend?

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

I remembered it was on the disc of classics I got with my e reader so there's no time like the present to start it!

Would you recommend?

To be honest? Nah. She's one of those academics who takes fifty pages to make one vague point, I don't find her particularly readable and the person who'd read the book before me had written, "No shit, Sherlock?" in the margins. :D

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

I shall look forward to hearing more about Billy Budd then!

She's one of those academics who takes fifty pages to make one vague point,
Oh joy. And isn't critical theory just full of them?

the person who'd read the book before me had written, "No shit, Sherlock?" in the margins.
Brilliant!! Always the most damning of academic critiques. :D