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Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836) by Captain Frederick Marryat
Mini-Lecture by Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.
About the
Author: Frederick Marryat (1792-1848)
Frederick Marryat joined the British Royal Navy as a
midshipman at the age of 14, which seems astonishingly young from a 21st
century perspective. The son of a very wealthy “merchant prince,” Marryat had
more or less completed an education at an English public school, with a
grounding in Greek and Roman classics, mathematics, history, and geography,
which put him ahead of many of his time.
Distinguishing himself as a naval officer, and rising to the
rank of Captain, Marryat served in a unique time
Like William Dampier, who was the captain of a vessel in the
Royal British Navy a century before, Marryat was interested in science and in
writing memoirs, many of which became very influential. Dampier inspired Defoe
(Robinson Crusoe) and Jonathan Swift
(Gulliver’s Travels). Marryat is
known as the inventor of the “sea story,” and there are echoes of Mr. Midshipman Easy in Robert Louis
Stevenson’s Treasure Island.
Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836)
This is a very entertaining tale, part picaresque novel,
part travel adventure. In tracing the life of Jack Easy, the indulged son of a
very wealthy trader-turned-philosophe, and a mild-mannered, apocalyptic leaning
mother, the number of adventures experienced at sea by a young midshipman, all
before age 15, creates a narrative that contains echoes of Gargantua and Pantagruel (Rabelais), Swift (Gulliver’s Travels), and Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe).
Themes:
Picaresque Novel:
Mr. Midshipman Easy is easily as picaresque
as Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) and
Voltaire’s Candide (1762) in the
sense that it traces the adventures of a young man who must live by his wits
and who filters all his experiences through eyes and perspectives muddied by
naivete and/or hopelessly idealistic philosophies.
Candide is poisoned by being immersed by Pangloss who
adheres to Leibniz’s philosophy of optimism. Jack Easy is similarly blinded by
his father, Nicodemus Easy, who, as a self-described philosopher, is a fervent
admirer of the French philosophes
whose idea of equality and the rights of man lead him to criticize society.
Jack’s father gives a very generous loan to a captain who
desires to outfit a privateer, and thus repay the loan with interest and profit
based on “prizes” captured in the legalized piracy practiced by nations which
could not afford to outfit a navy, and thus incentivized private ships to
attack ships of enemy states and disable them (and the countries’ economies) by
seizing the ships and their cargo.
The captain (Captain Wilson) is grateful and thus has a
paternal regard for the young midshipman, and so Jack’s echoes of his father’s
views are comical in context (rather than tragic and/or mutinous as they would
probably appear in reality). Jack enjoys a charmed life, and his frequent disquisitions
on his philosophy are comical, and also critique the views of the philosophes and revolutionaries.
Criticism of Corruption
in the Catholic Church: Very much
like Candide and Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, Mr. Midshipman Easy contains extremely
biting criticism of the Catholic Church, in particular the role of priests and
confessors, who practice deception, poisoning, thievery, and all other sorts of
misdeeds to obtain wealth, property, and control. Jack encounters scheming,
deceitful priests in Sicily, Malta, and in Spain, which are illustrated in
encounters that are humorous as well as insightful. While it is also other
things, the novel is a satire of society, particularly in its view of religion
(the Catholic Church), and certain forms of government and the unpinning
philosophies.
Problematizing the
“Noble Savage” and Stereotypes of Africans: Travel memoirs were filled with
the idea of the “noble savage,” dating back to Bartolome de las Casas Historia de las Incas (1561) and then
employed by Montaigne in his essay, “On Cannibals” (1580) and John Dryden
during the Restoration (1670s) in The
Conquest of Granada. The “noble savage” is viewed as the “other” and the
psychological gulf between an indigenous person (whether native American or
African) was considered to be almost insuperable – either whether viewed as
overly innocent or the embodiment of evil.
Marryat’s character, “Mesty” (short for Mephistopheles
Faustus) is an African who was a king in his own tribe, then captured and
transported on a slave ship to America, where he was a slave. He escaped, then
fled to New York, where he found that attitudes toward blacks were not healthy,
even though slavery was outlawed. So, he joined a ship and set for England. He
finds employment on the Aurora as a servant. Mesty is the real hero of Mr. Midshipman Easy, and his complex,
paradoxical, wise views and actions ground narrative, while at times providing
moments of broad comedy as English snobbery, religious hypocrisy, and human
nature are exposed.
Life as a Privateer:
Quintessence of the Quest for Meaningful Human Employment
The job of the privateer to attack, loot, and plunder is
viewed as a form of game and is almost grotesquely sentimentalized, if one is
seeking historical verisimilitude. The question remains: in this novel, is
being a privateer the quintessence of the quest for meaningful human
employment, or, a critique of colonialism? In Mr. Midshipman Easy, dogged adherence to historical fact is not the
purpose of this tale, which is more of a romance / adventure. Even the most
grotesque elements (the mutinous crew eaten by ground sharks) are comical
rather than ghastly or horrific.
Summary: A Sea Tale?
Mr. Midshipman Easy
(1836) is a very entertaining tale, part picaresque novel, part travel
adventure.
The novel traces the live of young Jack Easy, the indulged
son of a very wealthy trader-turned-philosophe
and a mild-mannered, cowed-by-the-apocalypse mother.
By incorporating a number of adventures experienced at sea
by a young midshipman, all before age 15, Marryat creates a narrative that
contains echoes of Gargantua and
Pantagruel (Rabelais), Gulliver’s
Travels (Jonathan Swift) and Robinson
Crusoe (Daniel Defoe).
