Transnationalism and Multiculturalism: Towards Re-Reading Herman Melville’s Mardi

Abstract

Transnationalism and multiculturalism are concepts that tend to collocate, as the occurrence of one undoubtedly calls in the other. This is because when people go across their national boundaries to other localities, they go with their culture and come in contact with other cultures which when merged, gives rise to a multicultural society in which several cultures or ethnic groups co-exist within the same geographical space. This paper aims at analyzing trans- border migration and its consequences on the culture of those involved in the process. The paper therefore sets out to examine the assertion that in Herman Melville’s Mardi, the movement or migration of characters beyond national frontiers results in multiculturalism. The study proves that there exist some relationship between Transnationalism and Multiculturalism and that these two concepts have been used in Herman Melville’s Mardi to buttress the fact that the cosmopolitan nature of man gives him the opportunity to be associated with travels and a mixture of cultures. Theories of Tran’s nationality and Transnationalism will be used in the analysis of the work under study. The former refers to the rise of new communities and the formation of new social identities and relations that cannot be defined through the traditional reference point of nation-states. The later, closely associated, denotes a range of social, cultural and political practices and states brought about by the sheer increase in social connectivity across borders. These theories will help in establishing the fact that transnationalism enhances multiculturalism in Melville’s fiction.