Melville’s first three books all begin with a sailorly transgression on the part of the narrator(/Melville figure). In Typee, which I knew to be at least somewhat autobiographical, I was so taken aback by the fact that it began with a runaway I had to immediately check whether that part was accurate (it was). I just couldn’t believe Melville would have done such a thing, in spite of the (lame) excuses he gives at the beginning of the book. Mardi has similar excuses for why it’s okay for the narrator to break his contract, and steal a whaleboat to boot.
In the case of Omoo, the problem is not running away, but refusing to work, and it’s been a problem since before the narrator came aboard. Captain Guy is not much of a seaman, and the men don’t respect him; the mate, Mr. Jermin, is much better, but drinks and often overreaches his power. He also provides some excellent opportunities for Melville’s sarcastic sense of humor.
Sometimes, when rather flustered from his potations, he went staggering about deck, instrument to eye, looking all over for the sun—a phenomenon which any sober observer might have seen right overhead. How upon earth he contrived, on some occasions, to settle his latitude, is more than I can tell. The longitude, he must either have obtained by the Rule of Three, or else by special revelation. Not that the chronometer in the cabin was seldom to be relied on, or was any ways fidgety; quite the contrary; it stood stock-still; and by that means, no doubt, the true Greenwich time—at the period of its stopping, at least—was preserved to a second.
The mate navigates the ship around the South Pacific, keeping their location to himself and the captain, who remains in the cabin as an invalid. Several of the men are ill as well, and eventually two die. And the ship’s doctor (as an English whaleman, it has one) has gotten in an argument with the captain and left his post to live in the forecastle, idle.
The whole first section of Omoo, which takes place on the Julia, is notable for just that: idleness. Earlier this year I wrote a bit about work as a major element of sea writing, and it’s strikingly absent from the decks of the Julia. The men are described one by one not in terms of what they do on the whaler qua whaler, but in terms of their practical jokes and drinking habits. The cooper’s main skill is breaking into the stores of pisco. The doctor’s primary activity is teasing all the men who are still vaguely trying to sail the ship. Eventually, they even stop keeping a lookout for whales—not an unreasonable move, considering they have only one harpooneer and barely men enough to crew a single whaleboat.
But bad things happen when sailors stop working, and though the captain and mate are unreasonable it’s the men who end up in jail on Tahiti. Fortunately, it’s not too much of a punishment—though it does brand them as undesirable sailors and prevent them getting better work that they could use to actually support themselves later.
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