Edgar Allan Poe's sole novel never appealed to me during my Poe phase, which was perhaps 17 years ago. For some reason, the nautical jargon and central character never resonated with me until Mat Johnson's satirical Pym piqued my interest. Learning of Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket influence on H.P. Lovecraft also fueled my interest. However, the fantastic, cosmological horror of Lovecraft's famous novel set in Antarctica is only hinted at in Poe's 1838 novel. Johnson's inspiration, of course, leans more heavily into the racist beliefs and practices of Poe's time, reimagining the half-Indian Dirk Peters as a black man and turning Tsalal into a utopian refuge from the blinding white horror of Antarctica and Arthur Gordon Pym. A number of other writers, including Jules Verne, were inspired by Poe's singular novel and sought to write their own sequels or adaptations, trying to find something to match the tantalizing conclusion of the original's interrupted ending.
At first, Poe's novel seems like a simple adventure story set at sea. After an initial tale of shipwreck involving an inebriated Augustus and Pym, which foreshadows their future fate, the narrative shifts to the Grampus. Arthur Gordon Pym and his friend, Augustus, join a whaling expedition after the former is sneaked aboard by the latter. Unfortunately, a mutiny on board occurs and the ship is, after some time, damaged in a gale. The four survivors, which include a man named Richard Parker (the inspiration for the character of the same name in Life of Pi), are left adrift while they slowly starve and die of thirst. Bizarrely, after committing themselves to cannibalism, they eventually access the storageroom of the ship to feed themselves a bit longer. More strange events occur, such as crossing paths with the Flying Dutchman and, their eventual rescue by the Jane Guy ship, a British schooner from Liverpool. En route to the South Seas, the Jane Guy takes the survivors (Dirk Peters and Pym) with them. They stop at a few South Indian Ocean islands like Kerguelen, restock, and eventually engage in some explorations further south in the direction of Antarctica.
Now, in the then-unknown Antarctic region, more bizarre and inexplicable events occur. Temperatures oddly rise, and they encounter black-skinned peoples on an island called Tsalal. The natives are, unlike the Negro cook from the Grampus, jet-black with black teeth. Perhaps inspired by European accounts of Polynesian and Melanesian peoples, Edgar Allan Poe turns these "savages" into something questionably human by turning their teeth black. Nonetheless, the natives are initially friendly and engage in trade with the crew, especially in "biche de mer," which sells well in the Chinese market. Of course, the treacherous black natives, after lulling the white men into a sense of false security, trap them in a ravine and kill off all but Dirk Peters and Pym. After more days of struggling to survive, they eventually escape in a canoe and continue southward, entering a land of pure whiteness (white birds who cry "Tekeli-li!" like the Tsalalians), vapor, white ash, and a shrouded human figure of vast proportions and white skin). This is the famous ending of the novel, and the "Note" after chapter 24 indicates that Dirk Peters is alive and well in Illinois some years after this.
Now, what does any of this mean? First, like the future famous novel of Melville, it shows how interconnected the global economy was, and how the diverse crews of whalers and other ships brought together all "races" of men. Through their collective labor, ties to trade and burgeoning international markets, these ships, and their contact with the South Pacific and other peoples exemplify modernization of human societies. "Savages" and "civilized" peoples were unable to remain wholly distinct, and the former were incorporated into wider circulations of goods and people through natural resources, such as the "biche de mer" of Tsalal. In the case of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, however, the peoples of Tsalal succeed in destroying the ship that would have led to their incorporation into a colonial world of trade and domination. Perhaps, like the example of black rebellions in Virginia (Nat Turner) and Haiti, Tsalal exemplifies a refusal of modernity and its blessed comforts and sciences. Tsalal's people, intriguingly, are not entirely cut off from more advanced peoples, as they possess canoes constructed by another people which are more seaworthy than their rafts. Their own social organization is seen as primitive by Pym, but they are in communication with peoples of the surrounding islands and governed by a common king. While technologically "primitive," their land of color excludes whiteness. This actually brings to mind Haiti and the lack of citizenship accorded to whites in the 19th century.
However, this reading of Tsalal and the mysterious white land to its south ignores the numerous Biblical references and the god-like being of whiteness described in the Antarctic region, not to mention the ancient inscriptions in "Ethiopian" (Ethiopic), Arabic and Egyptian describing blackness, whiteness, and the South (Antarctica) as separate regions. The darkness of Tsalal, linked to ancient Ethiopia, is forever in opposition to the whiteness of the Antarctic, possibly another reference to race as a fundamental divide linked to Biblical prophesy (the destruction of Jerusalem?) or other references to racial difference justified by pro-slavery voices in the US? The novel's ambiguous ending, as suggested by a number of studies, could also be found in Christian prophecy and Poe's own suffering (the loss of his mother and brother). And here lies the greatness of the novel, since its open to a vast number of interpretations and possible symbolic messages that combines a number of genres. Poe's creative use of ancient Egyptian, Ethiopic, and Arabic writings in the South Seas hints at a fascinating example of world-building for his fictionalized version of the South Pole. No one knows what to make of this innovative, creative tale.
At first, Poe's novel seems like a simple adventure story set at sea. After an initial tale of shipwreck involving an inebriated Augustus and Pym, which foreshadows their future fate, the narrative shifts to the Grampus. Arthur Gordon Pym and his friend, Augustus, join a whaling expedition after the former is sneaked aboard by the latter. Unfortunately, a mutiny on board occurs and the ship is, after some time, damaged in a gale. The four survivors, which include a man named Richard Parker (the inspiration for the character of the same name in Life of Pi), are left adrift while they slowly starve and die of thirst. Bizarrely, after committing themselves to cannibalism, they eventually access the storageroom of the ship to feed themselves a bit longer. More strange events occur, such as crossing paths with the Flying Dutchman and, their eventual rescue by the Jane Guy ship, a British schooner from Liverpool. En route to the South Seas, the Jane Guy takes the survivors (Dirk Peters and Pym) with them. They stop at a few South Indian Ocean islands like Kerguelen, restock, and eventually engage in some explorations further south in the direction of Antarctica.
Now, in the then-unknown Antarctic region, more bizarre and inexplicable events occur. Temperatures oddly rise, and they encounter black-skinned peoples on an island called Tsalal. The natives are, unlike the Negro cook from the Grampus, jet-black with black teeth. Perhaps inspired by European accounts of Polynesian and Melanesian peoples, Edgar Allan Poe turns these "savages" into something questionably human by turning their teeth black. Nonetheless, the natives are initially friendly and engage in trade with the crew, especially in "biche de mer," which sells well in the Chinese market. Of course, the treacherous black natives, after lulling the white men into a sense of false security, trap them in a ravine and kill off all but Dirk Peters and Pym. After more days of struggling to survive, they eventually escape in a canoe and continue southward, entering a land of pure whiteness (white birds who cry "Tekeli-li!" like the Tsalalians), vapor, white ash, and a shrouded human figure of vast proportions and white skin). This is the famous ending of the novel, and the "Note" after chapter 24 indicates that Dirk Peters is alive and well in Illinois some years after this.
Now, what does any of this mean? First, like the future famous novel of Melville, it shows how interconnected the global economy was, and how the diverse crews of whalers and other ships brought together all "races" of men. Through their collective labor, ties to trade and burgeoning international markets, these ships, and their contact with the South Pacific and other peoples exemplify modernization of human societies. "Savages" and "civilized" peoples were unable to remain wholly distinct, and the former were incorporated into wider circulations of goods and people through natural resources, such as the "biche de mer" of Tsalal. In the case of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, however, the peoples of Tsalal succeed in destroying the ship that would have led to their incorporation into a colonial world of trade and domination. Perhaps, like the example of black rebellions in Virginia (Nat Turner) and Haiti, Tsalal exemplifies a refusal of modernity and its blessed comforts and sciences. Tsalal's people, intriguingly, are not entirely cut off from more advanced peoples, as they possess canoes constructed by another people which are more seaworthy than their rafts. Their own social organization is seen as primitive by Pym, but they are in communication with peoples of the surrounding islands and governed by a common king. While technologically "primitive," their land of color excludes whiteness. This actually brings to mind Haiti and the lack of citizenship accorded to whites in the 19th century.
However, this reading of Tsalal and the mysterious white land to its south ignores the numerous Biblical references and the god-like being of whiteness described in the Antarctic region, not to mention the ancient inscriptions in "Ethiopian" (Ethiopic), Arabic and Egyptian describing blackness, whiteness, and the South (Antarctica) as separate regions. The darkness of Tsalal, linked to ancient Ethiopia, is forever in opposition to the whiteness of the Antarctic, possibly another reference to race as a fundamental divide linked to Biblical prophesy (the destruction of Jerusalem?) or other references to racial difference justified by pro-slavery voices in the US? The novel's ambiguous ending, as suggested by a number of studies, could also be found in Christian prophecy and Poe's own suffering (the loss of his mother and brother). And here lies the greatness of the novel, since its open to a vast number of interpretations and possible symbolic messages that combines a number of genres. Poe's creative use of ancient Egyptian, Ethiopic, and Arabic writings in the South Seas hints at a fascinating example of world-building for his fictionalized version of the South Pole. No one knows what to make of this innovative, creative tale.
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