ABSTRACT
In his South Sea romance Mardi (1850), Herman Melville sends his multicultural crew of Oceanic warriors and philosophers on an allegorical journey through the colonial world in search of the white maiden Yillah, who has been abducted by hostile natives. During their “chartless voyage,” they circle the earth from east to west, thus imitating the imperial master narrative of the westward course of empire. Exclaiming that the journey will take them “West, West! West, West!” the protagonist Taji indicates his explorer's passion: west, the direction to which “prophet-fingers” point; west, to which, “at sun-set, kneel all worshipers of fire,” to which “in mid-ocean, the great whales turn to die” and to which “face all the Moslem dead in Persia”:
West, West! Whitherward mankind and empires—flocks, caravans, armies, navies; worlds, suns, and stars all wend!— West, West!— Oh boundless boundary! Eternal goal! Whitherward rush, in thousand worlds, ten thousand thousand [sic] keels! Beacon, by which the universe is steered! 1
