How we cite our quotes: (Chapter, Paragraph)
Quote #1
From his betaking himself to this humble quarter, it was evident that, as a deck-passenger, the stranger, simple though he seemed, was not entirely ignorant of his place, though his taking a deck-passage might have been partly for convenience; as, from his having no luggage, it was probable that his destination was one of the small wayside landings within a few hours' sail. But, though he might not have a long way to go, yet he seemed already to have come from a very long distance. (1, 12)
These lines are a reminder of class differences of those aboard the ship. The mute not only keeps to but "knows" his place. That place is humble and less than comfortable. He's also got no luggage, even though he looks like he's been traveling a long way. He might only be on a short journey now, but he's got the vibe of having a long way to go still.
Quote #2
Thus far not very many pennies had been given him, and, used at last to his strange looks, the less polite passengers of those in that part of the boat began to get their fill of him as a curious object; when suddenly the negro more than revived their first interest by an expedient which, whether by chance or design, was a singular temptation at once to diversion and charity, though, even more than his crippled limbs, it put him on a canine footing. (3, 18)
Urgh, we're so not cool with Guinea being compared to a dog in this "game." Apparently, he hadn't been making much money up until this point, when somebody decided to start throwing coins into his mouth. Since he can't walk, Guinea has to shuffle around on the floor to catch the coins. This is a dehumanizing move on the part of the passengers. Seriously, bad on them for coming up with this. It seems to add to the divide been those struggling to earn a living and those who throw their pennies away.
Quote #3
But not to such extremities, or anything like them, did the present crowd come; they, for the time, being content with putting the negro fairly and discreetly to the question; among other things, asking him, had he any documentary proof, any plain paper about him, attesting that his case was not a spurious one.
"No, no, dis poor ole darkie haint none o' dem waloable papers," he wailed. (3, 24-25)
Melville tries his hand at regional dialects here and may not actually be too successful. Besides the super not-cool racial representations going on, we get a look at a particularly bleak consequence of extreme poverty: you have to live outside an accepted system or institutions.
To make him prove that he's not faking his injuries and his homelessness, the crowd asks if Guinea's got any documentation or ID to make his case. Reminder: this text is from 1857—it's not like everyone carries driver's licenses. The only people carrying the kind of documentation these people are looking for would be professionals or business owners. A very poor person straight up would not be dealing with that kind of paperwork.
This moment is especially icky because we've got a distressed man who cannot walk making money because people thought it'd be hil-ar-ious if they threw coins at him to catch in his mouth like a dog. At this point, this man is being asked—ever so politely now—if he has a doctor's note. Face palm. Talk about missing the forest for the trees when it comes to caring for your fellow man.
Quote #4
"You—pish! Why will the captain suffer these begging fellows on board?"
These pettish words were breathed by a well-to-do gentleman in a ruby-colored velvet vest, and with a ruby-colored cheek, a ruby-headed cane in his hand, to a man in a gray coat and white tie, who, shortly after the interview last described, had accosted him for contributions to a Widow and Orphan Asylum recently founded among the Seminoles. Upon a cursory view, this last person might have seemed, like the man with the weed, one of the less unrefined children of misfortune; but, on a closer observation, his countenance revealed little of sorrow, though much of sanctity. (6, 1-2)
No request for alms could go without the requisite hissing of a rich dude who just doesn't wanta Fanta. When the man in the grey-and-white suit asks for a donation to his charity, he gets the old "you're a liar and nobody likes you" treatment. We also get a nice long gander at this wealthy man's ruby garb. He is snazzy. We think there's more going on here than just a fashion show, though; it's almost as if the opulence of the dude's attire is in direct contrast to the needs to the needs of the less fortunate.
Quote #5
"Ah, well," smiled the other wanly, "if that subtle bane, we were speaking of but just now, is so soon beginning to work, in vain my appeal to you. Good-by."
"Nay," not untouched, "you do me injustice; instead of indulging present suspicions, I had rather make amends for previous ones. Here is something for your asylum. Not much; but every drop helps. Of course you have papers?"
"Of course," producing a memorandum book and pencil. "Let me take down name and amount. We publish these names. And now let me give you a little history of our asylum, and the providential way in which it was started." (6, 70-72)
We're still with the man in the grey-and-white suit. He's just got a clergyman to agree to donate to his charity. Psst: this clergyman has also just said that he feels bad for not believing in Guinea, and he's given Grey-and-white suit some change to give to Guinea the next time he sees him. All of a sudden, the clergyman wants to back out of donating to the charity, and these lines follow.
Basically Grey-and-white suit's like: Hmmm, are you letting the distrustful tendency in human nature poison you? Well, are you? Hmmm? The clergyman ponies up the cash—but not before he asks about "papers." Hmm, interesting. We're back at the notion that documentation is what determines what's legit. Grey-and-white suit writes his name down in a notebook with a pencil, and this semblance of a connection to an institution seems to be enough to prove that poor people are poor and that Grey-and-white suit is helping them.
Quote #6
Fortunately, to arrest these incoherencies, or rather, to vary them, a haggard, inspired-looking man now approached—a crazy beggar, asking alms under the form of peddling a rhapsodical tract, composed by himself, and setting forth his claims to some rhapsodical apostleship. Though ragged and dirty, there was about him no touch of vulgarity; for, by nature, his manner was not unrefined, his frame slender, and appeared the more so from the broad, untanned frontlet of his brow, tangled over with a disheveled mass of raven curls, throwing a still deeper tinge upon a complexion like that of a shriveled berry. Nothing could exceed his look of picturesque Italian ruin and dethronement, heightened by what seemed just one glimmering peep of reason, insufficient to do him any lasting good, but enough, perhaps, to suggest a torment of latent doubts at times, whether his addled dream of glory were true. (36, 43)
Frank and Mark Winsome are chatting when some dude pops up selling pamphlets. To inform? To entertain? Unclear. What we do know is that he's not quite all there. There are a variety of social levels on board this ship, and Melville's survey of passengers includes those experiencing poverty with some form of mental illness. The narrator notes that this dude comes off as inoffensive. He's got maybe a glimmer of reason, so we're rooting for him.
Quote #7
In his tattered, single-breasted frock-coat, buttoned meagerly up to his chin, the shutter-brain made him a bow, which, for courtesy, would not have misbecome a viscount, then turned with silent appeal to the stranger. But the stranger sat more like a cold prism than ever, while an expression of keen Yankee cuteness, now replacing his former mystical one, lent added icicles to his aspect. His whole air said: "Nothing from me." The repulsed petitioner threw a look full of resentful pride and cracked disdain upon him, and went his way.
"Come, now," said the cosmopolitan, a little reproachfully, "you ought to have sympathized with that man; tell me, did you feel no fellow-feeling? Look at his tract here, quite in the transcendental vein."
"Excuse me," said the stranger, declining the tract, "I never patronize scoundrels."
"Scoundrels?"
"I detected in him, sir, a damning peep of sense—damning, I say; for sense in a seeming madman is scoundrelism. I take him for a cunning vagabond, who picks up a vagabond living by adroitly playing the madman. Did you not remark how he flinched under my eye?' (36, 45-49)
Talk about icing somebody out. Winsome gives zero cares for you if you're in need of money. He's also pretty suspicious of this poor man's mental state. He argues that since the dude isn't completely insane, he must be faking. We're starting to think Melville's trying to tell us it's a pitiless world out there.
Quote #8
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other, pointing to the figure of a pale pauper-boy on the deck below, whose pitiableness was touched, as it were, with ludicrousness by a pair of monstrous boots, apparently some mason's discarded ones, cracked with drouth, half eaten by lime, and curled up about the toe like a bassoon. "Look—ha, ha, ha!" (29, 26)
Charlie has exactly no manners and a harsh sense of humor. Here he's pointing at an impoverished boy and laughing. Also jarring is that this moment is a random blip in a bigger conversation about laughter. Frank is making a case for the goodness of human kindness, seen through jokes and the joy of laughter. Cue Charlie's mean-spirited guffaw. Making a laughingstock of the poor? Not cool. Having an untrustworthy character trying to bond over laughing at the clothes poor people have to wear? That's just Melville's complex way of showing you what not to do.
Quote #9
He was a juvenile peddler, or marchand, as the polite French might have called him, of travelers' conveniences; and, having no allotted sleeping-place, had, in his wanderings about the boat, spied, through glass doors, the two in the cabin; and, late though it was, thought it might never be too much so for turning a penny. (45, 33)
Melville's littlest salesman is an opportunist. Seeing these two men up late on this very long April Fools' Day, he won't pass up a chance at making a sale. As in his naming of Fidèle, Melville drops another French term here, with a heads-up to how "the polite French" would have thought of this kid. Why the nod to this kind of micro-formality? Why bother musing about what the French would have thought? We can't be sure, but what we do know is that Melville likes to prime the reader. With this kid, we're given the idea of "little merchant" to cement the idea he means business. To highlight his poverty, though, we're told he's roaming the cabins because he doesn't have a sleeping place of his own.
Quote #10
"Your dress, my dear Frank, is respectable; your cheek is not gaunt. Why talk of necessities when nakedness and starvation beget the only real necessities?"
"But I need relief, Charlie; and so sorely, that I now conjure you to forget that I was ever your friend, while I apply to you only as a fellow-being, whom, surely, you will not turn away."
"That I will not. Take off your hat, bow over to the ground, and supplicate an alms of me in the way of London streets, and you shall not be a sturdy beggar in vain. But no man drops pennies into the hat of a friend, let me tell you. If you turn beggar, then, for the honor of noble friendship, I turn stranger." (41, 10-12)
Hooooo, this is kind of a doozy, and it's a scary look into Egbert's mind. First off, we get his quick, appearance-based test of human need. A true sufferer of poverty must be malnourished and unclothed, he argues. When pressed for help "as a fellow-being," then he shares what he thinks is the appropriate dynamic between a stranger and a sufferer: beg me…on your knees. Plus, friendship and begging are mutually exclusive for this dude. It's worth pointing out that this means Egbert can't see himself ever being friends with a poor person.