Skip to content
1981
1-2: ‘Globalizing Men’s Style’ ‘Sustainability and Men’s Fashion’
  • ISSN: 2050-070X
  • E-ISSN: 2050-0718

Abstract

Herman Melville’s approaches the topic of corporeal coding via the outer layer of clothing. Throughout the novel, the young protagonist consciously uses clothing as a means of self-representation and expression, deploying fashion to create and position himself in different contexts; for example, taking pride in his ragged clothes amongst well-dressed ship passengers becomes a form of social protest. But Redburn is also used to comic effect because his choices are often based on incorrect assumptions of propriety, such as his notion of the way a sailor is supposed to dress not matching the onboard reality. The rules of appearance that construct and restrain an identity are paradoxically bolstered at the same time they are broken, which allows Melville the opportunity to explore rebellion alongside the performative aspect of the self as a body constituting both a visible sign and a living vehicle for the mores, beliefs and ideologies that shape a society.

© 2021 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/csmf_00029_1
2021-10-01
2026-04-21

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Adams, Nathaniel. ( 2013), I Am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman, New York:: Gestalten;.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Alworth, David J.. ( 2014;), ‘ Melville in the asylum: Literature, sociology, reading. ’, American Literary History, 26:2, pp. 234–61.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Baudelaire, Charles. ( 1981;), ‘ The painter of modern life. ’, in The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays (ed. and trans. J. Mayne), London:: Phaidon;, pp. 1–41.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Blum, Hester. ( 2010;), ‘ The prospect of oceanic studies. ’, PMLA, 125:3, pp. 670–77.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Boelhower, William. ( 2008;), ‘ The rise of the new Atlantic studies matrix. ’, American Literary History, 20:1&2, pp. 83–101.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Butler, Judith. ( 1990), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York:: Routledge;.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Casanova, Erynn Masi de. ( 2015), Buttoned Up: Clothing, Conformity, and White-Collar Masculinity, Ithaca, NY:: Cornell University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Chambers, Iain. ( 2010;), ‘ Maritime criticism and theoretical shipwrecks. ’, PMLA, 125:3, pp. 678–84.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Cook, Jonathan A.. ( 2004;), ‘ The historical and literary sources of Redburn’s “mysterious night in London”. ’, Leviathan, 6:1, pp. 9–33.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Creech, James. ( 1994), Closet Writing/Gay Reading: The Case of Melville’s Pierre, Chicago, IL:: University of Chicago Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. D’Aurevilly, Jules B.. ( 1897), Of Dandyism and of George Brummell, London:: J. M. Dent;. Rpt. in D’Aurevilly, Jules Barbey (1988), Dandyism (trans. D. Ainslie), New York: PAJ Publications.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. D’Aurevilly, Jules B.. ( 1988), Dandyism, (trans. D. Ainslie), New York:: PAJ Publications;.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Davis, Fred. ( 1992), Fashion, Culture, and Identity, Chicago, IL:: University of Chicago Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. ( 1983), Anti-Oedipus (trans. R. Hurley, M. Seem and H. Lane), Minneapolis, MN:: University of Minnesota Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. ( 1987), A Thousand Plateaus (trans. B. Massumi), Minneapolis, MN:: University of Minnesota Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Foucault, Michel. ( 1986), The History of Sexuality: The Care of the Self (trans. R. Hurley), New York:: Random-Vintage;.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Fox, Claire F.. ( 2006;), ‘ Commentary: The transnational turn and the hemispheric return. ’, American Literary History, 18:3, pp. 638–47.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Greven, David. ( 2014), Gender Protest and Same-Sex Desire in Antebellum American Literature: Margaret Fuller, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville, Burlington, VT:: Ashgate;.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Hall, Jonathan. ( 1991;), ‘ “Every man of them almost was a volume of voyages”: Writing the self in Melville’s Redburn. ’, American Transcendental Quarterly, 5:4, pp. 259–71.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Hawkins, Stan. ( 2009), The British Pop Dandy: Masculinity, Popular Music and Culture, Burlington, VT:: Ashgate;.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Hebdige, Dick. ( 1979), Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London:: Methuen;.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Kaye, Jeremy. ( 2009;), ‘ Twenty-first-century Victorian dandy: What metrosexuality and the heterosexual matrix reveal about Victorian men. ’, The Journal of Popular Culture, 42:1, pp. 103–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Latour, Bruno. ( 2005), Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford:: Oxford University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Levander, Caroline F., and Levine, Robert S.. ( 2006;), ‘ Introduction: Hemispheric American literary history. ’, American Literary History, 18:3, pp. 397–405.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Martin, Robert K.. ( 1986), Hero, Captain, and Stranger: Male Friendship, Social Critique, and Literary Form in the Sea Novels of Herman Melville, Chapel Hill, NC:: University of North Carolina Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Matterson, Stephen. ( 2014), Melville Fashioning in Modernity, London:: Bloomsbury;.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Melville, Herman. ( 1968), Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, Evanston, IL:: Northwestern University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Melville, Herman. ( 1969), Redburn: His First Voyage. Being the Sailor-Boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service, Evanston, IL:: Northwestern University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Melville, Herman. ( 1970a), Mardi and a Voyage Thither, Evanston, IL:: Northwestern University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Melville, Herman. ( 1970b), White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War, Evanston, IL:: Northwestern University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Melville, Herman. ( 1988), Moby-Dick; or, the Whale, Evanston, IL:: Northwestern University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Miller, Monica L.. ( 2009), Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, Durham, NC:: Duke University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Moers, Ellen. ( 1960), The Dandy: Brummel to Beerbohm, New York:: Viking Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Nixon, Nicola. ( 1999;), ‘ Men and coats; or, the politics of the dandiacal body in Melville’s “Benito Cereno”. ’, PMLA, 114:3, pp. 359–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Reed, Christian. ( 2015;), ‘ The bachelor and the orphan. ’, Leviathan, 17:1, pp. 1–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Rowe, Joyce A.. ( 1993;), ‘ Social history and the politics of manhood in Melville’s Redburn. ’, Mosaic, 26:1, pp. 53–68.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Rubenstein, Ruth I.. ( 2001), Dress Codes: Meanings and Messages in American Culture, Boulder, CO:: Westview Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Stanton, Domna. ( 1980), The Aristocrat as Art: A Study of the Honnête Homme and the Dandy in Seventeenth- and Nineteenth-Century French Literature, New York:: Columbia University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. West, Benjamin S.. ( 2011;), ‘ The work of Redburn: Melville’s critique of capitalism. ’, The Midwest Quarterly, 52:2, pp. 165–81.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Traber, Daniel S.. ( 2021;), ‘ Clothing and the oceanic identity in Melville’s Redburn. ’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, 8:1&2, pp. 29–43, 10.1386/csmf_00029_1
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/csmf_00029_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): dandy; fashion; identity; Melville; oceanic; transnationalism

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test