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Verne's remarks/jokes re "silent servants"

From: thomas mccormick <tom_amity~at~hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 06:49:17 +0000
To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il

As all readers of L'Ile Mysterieuse will recall, the American colonists of
Lincoln island encounter an orangutan whom they name Jupiter and whom they
"adopt" (in effect enslave) as a kitchen worker. The omniscient narrator
eruditely remarks that Georges Buffon and others had made similar use of
orangutans.

Jupiter's training falls to Neb, the only African-American among the
colonists and a former slave himself, to whom - as Verne says in his
nonchalantly and naively racist way - the job of chef has fallen by default,
Neb "being a Negro". Neb jokingly or sarcastically describes Jupiter as "my
pupil, and soon my equal". The sailor Pencroff, Neb's best friend among the
colonists, rejoins "He's better than you; he doesn't talk!". Readers will
recall that this is not the novel's only joke about silent servants being
the best.

In his American travelogue Humbug, Verne makes similar jokes, in these
terms: He tells us that African-American slaves regard monkeys and apes as
"Negroes" who were wise enough not to talk, lest they be made to work.

It is in fact a common piece of Malay and Dayak folklore that orangutans are
indeed quasi-human and able to talk, but that they voluntarily remain silent
in order to avoid being made to work. If such a quip had actually originated
among African-American slaves, or indeed among any oppressed human beings,
it would of course possess the overtones of bitter sarcasm that Verne
evidently means to convey and to attribute to his supposed American sources.
(The Malay mot, attributing this sentiment to orangutans, is ironic rather
than sarcastic: They, and many other animals, were and are enslaved, in
addition to being used as pets, and their lack of human speech doesn't
preclude that!)

Among the Vernophiles on this listserv, I wonder if some would like to
document, or speculate on, Verne's source for his joke, and by what route
such a bit of East Indian folklore or humor might have reached him. I am a
layman in such matters; I guess, but do not know, that Verne read Buffon.
Whether or not it is true that Buffon had an orangutan house servant, he was
of course interested in these animals. Perhaps Buffon passed this piece of
folklore on to his readers, and Verne picked it up.

Tom

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Received on Tue 14 Mar 2006 - 08:49:33 IST

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