Herman Melville A Biography And Analysis Essay

Herman Melville: A Biography And Analysis Essay, Research Paper

Herman Melville: A Biography And Analysis

Throughout American history, very few authors have earned the right to

be called .great.. Herman Melville is one of these few. His novels and poems

have been enjoyed world wide for over a century, and he has earned his

reputation as one of the finest American writers of all time. A man of towering

talent, with intellectual and artistic brilliance, and a mind of deep insight

into human motives and behavior, it is certainly a disgrace that his true

greatness was not recognized until nearly a generation after his death.

Born in the city of New York on August 1, 1819, Melville was the third

child and second son of Allan Melvill(it wasn’t until Allan’s death in 1832 that

the .e. at the end of Melville was added, in order to make a more obvious

connection with the Scottish Melville clan), a wholesale merchant and importer

then living in comfortable economic circumstances, and of Maria Gansevoort

Melvill, only daughter of .the richest man in Albany,. the respected and

wealthy General Peter Gansevoort, hero of the defense of Fort Stanwix during the

American Revolution. In total, Allan and Maria had eight children. On his father’

s side, his ancestry, though not so prosperous as on his mother’s, was equally

distinguished. Major Thomas Melvill, his grandfather, was one of the .Indians.

in the Boston Tea Party during the events leading to the war and who had then

served his country creditably throughout the hostilities. The Melvill family

kept on their mantelpiece a bottle of tea drained out of Major Melvill’s clothes

after the Tea Party as a momento of this occasion.

Herman attended the New York Male High School from about the age of

seven until 1830. By that time, Allan Melvill’s business had begun to fail, due

to his credit being overextended. After futile attempts to re-establish himself,

he eventually found it necessary to accept the management of a New York fur

company back in Albany. The family moved there in the autumn of 1830, and during

that time Herman attended, along with his brothers Gansevoort and Allan, the

Albany Academy. Just as luck seemed to again be favoring the Melvills, Allan’s

business affairs again suffered a setback. Excessive worry and overwork finally

took their toll upon his health. By January, 1832, he was both physically and

mentally very ill. On January 28, 1832, Allan Melvill died. The shock of his

father’s financial collapse and his tragic death only slightly more than a year

later took its toll on Herman’s emotions. He was to draw upon this memory two

decades later in his writing of Pierre.

In order to support the family, Herman took a position as an assistant

clerk at a local bank, and his brothers Gansevoort and Allan took over their

late father’s fur business. Possibly because of his mother’s concern over his

health, Herman left his position at the bank in the spring of 1834 and spent a

season working for his Uncle Thomas’s farm near Pittsfield.

During the winter months of early 1835, Herman left Pittsfield and

joined his brothers in the fur business. Now fifteen and a half, he kept the

books of the firm for the following two years. At some time during this period

he enrolled as a student in the Albany Classical School. He also became am

member in the Albany Young Men’s Association, a club for debating and reading,

of which his brother was already a member. Such clubs, in absence of public

libraries, were popular in many cities and served a most useful educational

purpose.

Within a year or two of education at the Albany Classical School, he

had become qualified as a school teacher. He left his brothers at the now

failing fur company and became a teacher at a one-room schoolhouse outside of

Pittsfiesd. On his first day of the new job, the inexperienced teacher was

confronted with thirty students of all ages and levels of skill. Some were his

age, and a few utterly illiterate. In such extreme conditions Herman found it

hard to maintain discipline, let alone teach. After six weeks, he gave up and

returned to Albany.

For a few months, Herman looked for work without success. His leisure

hours, though, were filled with excitement. Early in 1838 he organized a

debating club and promptly got into a dispute over the presidency of the club

with a rival member, which he eventually won.

Before long, Maria Melvill was forced to admit that she could no longer

afford to live in Albany. Faced with the prospect of having to constantly ask

her brother Peter for money, she finally decided to move her family to

Lansingburgh, a village not far from Albany near the Hudson River.

Herman was in a difficult and unhappy position. Although he was almost

twenty years old, he was not contributing to the family’s income and felt

ashamed.

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