WILDERNESS OF RUIN is about two kinds of insanity: psychopathy, typified by twelve-year-old sadist, Jesse Pomeroy, and some kind of stress related disease Herman Melville's family thought he suffered from.
Ostensibly, THE WILDERNESS OF RUIN is about Jesse Pomeroy who tortured and murdered several children beginning in 1871 when he was only twelve, but the book also addresses whether great American author, Herman Melville, also might have been insane due to the stress he put himself under monetarily and intellectually while writing such literary works as MOBY DICK and PIERRE.
At first Jesse Pomeroy was guilty of sadistic assaults against very young children. He was readily captured and sent to reform school, but his mother fought for his release, claiming she needed him to help run a small grocery and to help his older brother who ran a news stand and delivered newspapers. A charitable organization helped get him out early, and the family moved to South Boston from Chelsea where he wouldn't be so well known. Shortly after he was freed, two children were murdered, and of course, Jesse was the principal suspect. Ten-year old Katie Curran wasn't found for months, although she was buried in the basement of his mother's grocery, which had been “searched” several times.
The reason Pomeroy is significant is that he was eventually found guilty and held in solitary confinement for over forty years. Jesse was quite adept at trying to escape. Once he drilled through the bars, made it into the passageway and might have escaped had it not been for a guard's cat who drew attention to him.
Melville did well as an author as long as his ambitions were in the popular vein. As a young man, Melville served on a whaling vessel; he wrote several novels such as OMOO and WHITE JACKET about his experiences Once he was introduced to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville aspired to more literary ambitions, culminating in MOBY DICK. Melville was also inspired by the Essex tragedy where a whaler was attacked by a whale, and he used books on that incident as research. Melville was also interested in insanity and read everything he could find on the affliction. Captain Ahab is symbolic of that fascination. The public hated MOBY DICK, especially the long encyclopedic information on whales. This led to money problems and Melville was forced to take a job working at the Custom Office for a miniscule salary. It's surprising that author Roseanne Montillo never mentions “Bartleby the Scrivener,” one of our greatest short stories, which was obviously influence by Melville's job.
It's surprising how similar issues surrounding mental illness and what to do with young offenders were in 1871 and 2015. Today, perhaps Jesse would have been declared an adult and tried for first degree murder. Pomeroy who taught himself the law while in solitary always argued he should have been given an insanity defense. What is really surprising is how many organizations and individuals fought to get either a pardon or a release for Jesse into the general population at the prison. I would imagine his record of over forty years in solitary confinement still stands. Click here to post or read comments.
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