The “Fact” and “Fiction” of Typee Valley −A Study of Herman Melvillｅ’s Typee-

Typee was published 1846 as a literally and completely factual piece of nonfiction. From the moment of publication, however, the problem of authenticity became an issue among some reviewers, although the general public received it as a real travelogue. Melville himself declares in his preface that he has stated the matters “just as they occurred” and desired “to speak the unvarnished truth.” Today few read Typee as directly autobiographical, or as an authentic travel book. It is now considered as a fiction, a symbolically created thematic construct. Once it becomes a fiction, it allows various interpretations of what Typee Valley means. It is, therefore, necessary to return to the sifting of fact from fiction, so that we can see some of the indications of Melville’s imagination at work and of how he intended to create a world. In this paper, the brief critical history concerning the question of authenticity is first reviewed. Then we consider the several levels of “truth” of the book ; the autobiographical truth of the adventure of the novel, the ethnographic truth of the presentation of Typee Valley, and finally the truth of the author’s beliefs about Typee Valley and its peopl