Resumen
Resumen de Omoo
Para quién es
For readers who love sea stories, travel writing and humor with a sharp edge, and anyone curious about Melville before Moby-Dick.
De qué trata este libro
Omoo is a sea narrative by Herman Melville, published in 1847 as the follow-up to his first book, Typee. It is based on his own months in the Pacific as a young whaleman, but he shaped it as a novel, with a narrator, a cast of rough sailors and a loose, comic plot. The word omoo, as the book explains, means a rover, a person who wanders from island to island.
The story picks up where Typee left off. The narrator has escaped a valley in the Marquesas and been taken aboard an Australian whaler called the Julia. The ship is leaky, the crew is badly treated and the captain is ill. Before long the voyage comes apart, and the narrator finds himself ashore on Tahiti with a sharp-tongued ship's doctor for company.
Melville wrote it to entertain, and also to report on what Western ships, missionaries and navies were doing to the islands. You get a funny, restless adventure, a portrait of Tahiti in the 1840s and one of the best friendships in his early work. Let us begin with the ship that carries the narrator out of the Marquesas.
En este resumen
- 1A leaky whaler picks up a runawayFree
- 2A sick captain and a doctor without a cure
- 3The crew refuses to sail again
- 4Life in a prison with open doors
- 5Missionaries, kings and French guns
- 6Roaming the island with Long Ghost
- 7Work, wages and the cost of freedom
- 8What the book is really about
- 9A comic voice with a serious edge
Idea clave 1 de 9
A leaky whaler picks up a runaway
The story opens at sea. The narrator has left the Marquesas aboard the Julia, an Australian whaling barque that most of her crew would gladly be rid of. She is small, old and rotten in her timbers. The pumps must be worked often, and the sailors joke that she is held together by habit.
The narrator takes a place before the mast, which means he lives in the forecastle with the common sailors. He is not fully one of them. He has gone to sea before, he can read and write, and he carries himself with a trace of the gentleman. Even so, he shares their food, their work and their grievances.
The food is poor and the discipline is loose where it ought to be firm. The ship has sailed with too few hands, and several of the crew are sick. The narrator describes the men one by one, in the way of a storyteller who has plenty of time. He gives them nicknames and odd habits, and he lets the reader see how a crew of misfits becomes a small, quarrelsome community.
Why does a man sign onto a ship like this? Melville answers with a mix of necessity and restlessness. Whaling is the only way across the Pacific for a penniless young American, and the narrator makes no show of being proud of it. He simply tells what the life is like, with a dry eye for its absurdity.
This opening part sets the tone for the whole book. The Julia is a place of comic misery, and the reader learns that the real danger on board is not weather. It is a sick captain, an uncertain chain of command and a crew that has stopped believing in either.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- The narrator
- An unnamed young American sailor joins the Julia and becomes Doctor Long Ghost's companion in wandering.
- Doctor Long Ghost
- The Julia's tall, witty doctor becomes the narrator's close friend and companion ashore.
- Captain Guy
- The Julia's sick captain relies on his officers to manage the ship and its dissatisfied crew.
- Mr. Jermin
- The Julia's capable, forceful mate runs the ship under Captain Guy and drives the sailors hard.
- Consul Wilson
- The British consul at Papeete deals with the Julia's angry sailors while uncertain of his authority.
- Queen Pomare
- Tahiti's ruler exercises limited power among the missionaries, British officials and French naval officers surrounding her.
- Zeke and Shorty
- Two white settlers running a potato farm on Imeeo hire the narrator and Doctor Long Ghost.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 104,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 6 h 55 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about Omoo
What is Omoo about?
Omoo follows an American sailor who leaves a bad whaling ship, lands in Tahiti and wanders the islands with a witty companion, Doctor Long Ghost. It mixes comedy, travel description and criticism of foreign influence.
What does the word Omoo mean?
In the book, omoo is a word from the Marquesan islands meaning a rover, someone who wanders from island to island. It fits the narrator, who drifts from ship to jail to farm without settling anywhere.
Is Omoo a true story?
It is based on Melville's own time in the South Pacific in the early 1840s, but he shaped it as a novel. He exaggerated and rearranged events, so it should be read as fiction built on fact.
Do I need to read Typee before Omoo?
No. Omoo is a sequel and begins where Typee ends, but it tells its own story and explains what you need. Many readers enjoy it on its own, though reading both adds context.
Who is Doctor Long Ghost in Omoo?
He is a tall, educated, quick-witted sailor who serves as the ship's doctor and becomes the narrator's companion on Tahiti. He is the book's liveliest character, funny, talkative and not always reliable.