"In and Out of Eden":Agrarian Utopia and Power Politics in Hawaiian Life
Charles Stoddard's Hawaiian Life is an imperial narrative work that incorporates the pastoral landscape of the Pacific Islands into the geo-political considerations of American empire in the Pacific:when delineating the landscape of the Pacific,first by associating the"wilderness"of the Pacific with the"uncultivated""New World"on the North American continent,then by highlighting the pinnacle moment of geographical"discovery"in the Western colonial history through the rhetoric of"discovery"and"witness,"he eventually realizes,in a symbolic sense,his goal of controlling and occupying lands and resources through dominant"gazing."He also attempts to draw a seemingly harmonious and beautiful Edenic landscape,on which on the one hand are placed the pastoral ideals of the United States to perpetuate the myth of the frontier,on the other hand,the real and cruel reality and social relations are meticulously masked in the cane plantation where despotism,exploitation and oppression exist behind this false utopian illusion.
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