In Israel Potter, potential of status growth is discussed throughout the story. Jones talks about his past and says he was once called the “monkey” (Ch. XVI). Jones once was in a position where Israel is now but was able to climb the social ladder. He calls himself a “bloody cannibal” because of a murder he committed in the past of Mungo Maxwell. Humans are capable of premeditated slaughter. Men hunt each other because of wealth, power, hate, religion, and possibly psychotic illness. Animals hunt each other because of the food chain, yet they are considered the savages while man is savage because of what society says. Melville is suggesting that we are not so different from animals. In Chapter XIX, titled “They Fight The Serapis,” …show more content…
Waging wars require a nation to be as brutal to its own subjects as it is to its enemies. Life is brutal in nature; animals live by preying off each other. But genocide is not part of the animal kingdom; it is human enterprise—a human evil. During the wars between the ships, Captain Jones is only interested in total annihilation. He frequently howls like a dog and his men become a “litter of dogs” during the battle, which again, shows that man and animal are interchangeable especially during a war (Ch.XVI). The ship is both personified but then animalized with the description of appearing as an “Indiaman” but at the same time having an “elephantine bulk.” Melville creates dualism within the ship giving it characteristics of man and animal. Melville addresses an important question: “In view of this battle one may ask- What separates the enlightened man from the savage? Is civilization a thing distinct, or is it an advanced stage of barbarism?” (Ch. XIX). Is there a contingency that is truly natural and authentic to man? Freud claimed that civilization has deeper unconscious desires and drives which are amoral, and civilization keeps these desires in check through norms, values …show more content…
Israel escapes again and flees to London running through the wilderness, like a hunted fox. This depiction stems back to the very beginning of Melville’s description of Israel’s captivity. He too, whether English or American, is now equally subject to enslavement (Ch. XXII). Israel wanders the streets of London, and although he has escaped this suppression he experienced for fifty years of wandering in “exile”, he has to start over, thus Melville is hinting at us that a freeman is not free. Just as when slaves became free or fled to the free-states, and they had to begin a new life, they were still subjected to oppression. Fredrick Douglass had a similar