James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville explore cultivation of a western society in America by using symbolism in nature; for both writers this symbolism indicates dissatisfaction in the degeneration of America; therefore looking at the symbolism in Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” and Cooper’s The Pioneersit is possible to conclude that both writers felt America was a virgin land that was being raped and improperly used by the people who had settled there.
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| Fig. 1. “James Fenimore Cooper 1822.” Painting. The James Fenimore Cooper Society. From http://external.oneonta.edu |
America as the new world was a
symbol of opportunity. Its virgin soil held many possibilities for European
colonists who saw the virtually untouched land as a chance at a new beginning;
however, it became the victim of western ideology and the European image of
societal advancement. Once a vital land full of nature’s greatest achievements
America is now the epitome of western civilization in its industrialized state.
Authors James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville explore this western siege using
symbolism in nature; for both writers this symbolism indicates dissatisfaction
in the degeneration of America; therefore looking at the symbolism in
Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” and Cooper’s The Pioneers it is possible to conclude
that both writers felt America was a virgin land that was being raped and
improperly used by the people who had settled there.
Melville and Cooper employ
striking imagery as a means of communicating the destruction of the virginal
America. For Cooper, this imagery is evident in the description of Marmaduke
Temple’s mansion. The grandiose building is described as gaudy and
overwhelming. The enormous roof rises above all else; extravagant and
domineering with its yellow hue. Its showy ornaments “scattered profusely”
among “gaudily painted railings” give the mansion a “conspicuous” air that
dominates the surrounding area, and gives inspiration to the lesser buildings
that have been built in its image (11). This domineering visage looms over the
destruction left behind by its creators. Surrounding the mansion are the
“unsightly remnants” of the corpses of native trees that had been “partly
destroyed” by the settlers cultivating the land while the saplings of European
trees are just beginning to grow in their place (9, 11). Cooper’s description
of the mansion is clearly a statement on the European settler’s influence on
American land. The mansion itself echoes European dominance over the existing native
culture symbolized in the trees themselves, which are victims of European
cultivation. The poplar trees that are not native to America symbolize
Europeans who have taken over the land, extinguishing native life for their own
growth and development.
In Melville’s “Paradise of
Bachelors and Tartarus of Maids,” another aspect of western civilization is
criticized, that of industry. Melville describes a paper mill, an industrial
institution, as a frozen hell in the heart of an American wilderness. Melville’s
exquisite talent for description paints a vivid portrait of the evils of
industrial corruption in America. The journey to the mill sets up a feeling of
foreboding for what is to come. The road to industrial revolution is paved in
sorrow and despair. The names Melville employs for the places he passes on the
way to the paper mill; “Black Notch,” “Devil’s Dungeon,” and “Blood River”
indicate a natural aversion to the growth and development of the industrial
revolution (2396). Melville then identifies the actual mill as a “sepluchre” which
in the footnotes is defined as a biblical reference from the book of Matthew in
which ancient religious leaders are described as appearing outwardly beautiful but
are actually “full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness” (2396).
Describing the mill, the symbolism of the industrial revolution, as a sepluchre
allows for no other conclusion; while the industrial revolution was outwardly
identified as good thing that promised good intentions, it was inwardly evil and
unnatural. If the mill symbolizes the sepluchre, then most certainly the “dead
men’s bones” that make up the metaphorical sepluchre of the industrial
revolution can be seen in the women who work in the mill.
The women Melville meets during
his visit to the mill are the image of death. The first woman he meets is
described as “blue with cold” conjuring the image of a corpse which persists
with every woman he encounters afterwards (2399). He describes the women as
“blank-looking” who seemed more a part of the machines they worked with than
“accessory” to them (2399, 2400). In contrast to these women is Cupid, a
“lively lad, with the air of boyishly-brisk importance” who shows Melville around
the mill (2400). Cupid represents the industrial revolution, or the cultivation
of western civilization in America. He is full of life and excitement, naively
overlooking the burdens of the maids in his excitement of showing off the machines.
On the other hand, the women who work in the mill, being unmarried and virginal,
represent America as the virgin land being desecrated by western cultivation,
or the mill. Melville’s piece mirrors Cooper’s in its harsh symbolic portrayal
of the degeneration of America.
Although Melville and Cooper were
not commenting on similar circumstances, it appears that they did have a
similar agenda. Both authors made striking visual comparisons between nature
and western civilization. It could be argued that both authors were therefore
focused on what Robert H. Zoellner, author of “Fenimore Cooper: Alienated
America” from the American Quarterly
called “the aggressive manipulation of the American wilderness” which he states
is “the necessary adjunct to social progress” (56). Social progress is the key.
For European Americans social progress was
western civilization and visa-versa. For the European settlers in Cooper’s
novel social progress was established by removing the native wilderness, such
as the pines whose stumps dotted the land around Temple’s mansion, and
replacing it with the more cultivated and civilized poplars.
For Melville, social progress was
what historian W.R. Thompson called “New World industrialism” which desecrated
the “virgin land of America” (34, 36). As Thompson points out in his piece “The
Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids: A Reinterpretation” the white
setting Melville used in his story implies the virginity of America; however,
he goes on to claim that this virginity “represent[s] barrenness” and “bespeaks
unproductivity (36). The maids, whose great potential for productivity is
diminished by their unfavorable circumstances, indicate a neglect on the part
of the mill owner who represents western civilization; therefore, societal
progress in the form of industrialization and cultivation of a western ideology
is exactly the antithesis of progress bringing instead degeneration and decay.
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| Fig. 2 “Herman Melville.” Painting. From Biography.com. |
For both authors social progress
in the form of western cultivation and ideology, while
appearing beneficial and
progressive, is in fact destructive and demeaning. Cooper begins chapter three
of the Pioneers with a poem by Duo
concerning “nature’s handiwork” that speaks to both author’s works by saying
“yet man can mar such works with his rude taste, like some sad spoiler of a
virgin’s fame” (7). The inclusion of
this poem in his novel indicates that Cooper, too, saw America as a virgin land
being desecrated. Similar to the snowy
setting of “Tartarus of Maids,” Cooper’s Pioneers
begins at the heart of winter which, as Thompson points out, implies virginity
(36). The virginal state of Cooper’s America is akin to Melville’s in that he
introduces it at the very end of its innocence. By the time Elizabeth Temple
comes home from a relatively short absence, the land surrounding her house has
been changed by man. Cooper used the wintery setting for this particular scene to
show America at the nadir of her youthful innocence. Cooper presents a land that
has already been raped and brutalized in the name of social progress which
mirrors the frosty barrenness of Melville’s paper mill.
For both authors the degeneration
of the virgin America was an example of putting social progress before nature. Professor
I.G. Simmons explores the connection between nature and social progress in his
piece “to Civility and to Man’s Use: History, Culture and Nature” in which he
attempts to give “perspective on the relations of history, culture and the
nonhuman world called nature” (114). Simmons presents the issue of
“environmental problems” that are incumbent in what he terms “human-environment
relations;” problems like those introduced by Cooper and Melville (115).
Simmons discusses “social changes” that produce “societies which address the
demands of the individual before those of the whole” which is exemplified in Melville’s
paper mill maids whose own demands are put aside in order to serve the needs of
the industry (116). By diminishing the women in the paper mill to nothing more
than “mere cogs to the wheels” of the machinery Melville implies the loss of
individuality in industrial progress; which does not imply social progress,
rather the opposite of it which would be the degeneration of society (Melville
2400). For Melville social progress does not begin but ends with
industrialization.
Cooper, on the other hand,
continues his observations of social progress by identifying its effects on
nature. Simmons states that social change often “place[s] the nonhuman world
very low in any list of priorities,” an idea Cooper explores in great detail
(Simmons 116). Cooper seems especially concerned for the life that is disrupted
and destroyed in the name of social progress. Cooper’s ideology concerning the
importance of nature is often shared through the character known as
Leather-Stocking who often berates the settlers for their wasteful and
unforgiving brutality towards what Simmons called “the nonhuman world” (116). Leather-Stocking
is incredulous when the townsmen go out to wantonly shoot down the migrating
pigeons, saying, “it’s wicked to be shooting into flocks in this wasty manner”
observing the habit the men had of “[killing] twenty and [eating] one” which he
later echoes during a fishing excursion in which the townsmen once again make
sport of killing thousands for the use of only a few hundred, which Leather-Stocking
woefully states “is a fearful expenditure of the choicest gifts of Providence” (Cooper
15, 22, 24). For Cooper, social progress meant the destruction of nature and
all she has to offer.
Melville and Cooper, having a
number of years between each other’s writings and therefore different
perspectives concerning the direction civilization was taking, had similar reactions
to social progress. W.R. Thompson describes this progress as “an endlessly
hungry machine which should it ever cease devouring would spell the end of
civilization” (42). While Thompson is specifically broaching the subject of New
World industrialization the hungry machine he describes can also be prescribed
to the incumbent western cultivation of America which Cooper portrays in his
novel. Arguably, there is a connection between Cooper’s novel and Melville’s
short story by the way of a timeline. Cooper, having written well before
Melville, portrays the beginning of western cultivation and societal progress
which leads into the industrial revolution years later and which is the heart
of Melville’s piece.
From the time Cooper wrote The Pioneers to when Melville wrote “The
Tartarus of Maids” America was experiencing great changes in the name of
societal progress. With the first European settlers came an indescribable need
to create an ideal western civilization. It seems the ideal civilization
automatically assumes the need for social progress at the expense of nature. America
was seen as a savage, uncultivated land that demanded taming in order to unlock
its true potential. Cooper disagreed with his fellow early American settlers,
allowing in his writings that progress should not imply the taming of nature
but rather the coexistence between man and nature, as is evident in the speeches
of Leather-Stocking who preaches moderation and respect for nature. Akin to
Cooper’s initial discomfort at the degeneration of the virginal land of
America, Melville too disputes social progress in the form of industrial
revolution. For Melville, it seems, progress for progress’ sake does not induce
progress at all but the degeneration of society instead, as is evident in his
description of the maids in the paper mill. While both works are set in the
past, as Simmons states in acknowledgement of Soren Kierkegaard; “although life
can only be lived forwards, it can be understood backwards, extended to see
whether history, either in its entirety or at a particular moment, provides any
lessons for the future (115-116). It seems that citizens advocating social
progress in America have not really learned an important lesson, as social
progress continues to support an individualistic ideology centered on the
self-proclaimed importance of mankind.
Works
Cited
Cooper,
James Fenimore. The Pioneers. The Literature
Network. The Penguin Group 1823. 1-25. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. http://online-literature.com/cooperj/pioneers/.
Figure 1.
“James Fenimore Cooper 1822.” Painting. The
James Fenimore Cooper Society. Web. 26 Mar. 2012. http://external.oneonta.edu.
Melville,
Herman. “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature.
7th Ed., Vol. B. Robert S. Levine and Arnold Krupat. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. 2389-2405. Print.
Simmons,
I.G. “To Civility and to Man’s Use: History, Culture, and Nature.” Geographical Review 88.1 (1998):
114-126. JSTOR. Web. 6 Apr. 2012.
Thompson,
W.R. “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids: A Reinterpretation.”
American Quarterly 9.1 (1957): 34-45.
JSTOR. Web. 6 Apr. 2012.
Zoellner,
Robert H. “Fenimore Cooper: Alienated American.” American Quarterly 13.1 (1961): 55-66. JSTOR. Web. 6 Apr. 2012.
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