“Everything is bizarre, and everything has value”

G. M. Goff’s declaration, “Everything is bizarre, and everything has value,” expresses a change in how he understands cultural difference: his own English values are not the only, or the best, way to interpret the world. Spoken while he recounts the islanders’ response to his sister’s suicide, the maxim turns a moment of shocked misunderstanding into an argument for humility and inquiry.

The maxim and its context

Goff introduces the thought while describing his arrival among the islands in a period of mourning. His youngest sister, Miranda, had killed herself by swallowing poison. When he told a group of islanders about her death, they responded with deep laughter. Goff initially assumed they had misunderstood him; explaining again only made them laugh harder.

The laughter forces a reversal in his account. Goff concludes that he, rather than his listeners, had failed to understand: in their view, life held a sanctity that made choosing to end it seem absurd. He recognizes that the assumptions he cherished as an Englishman were not universal standards by which every society could be judged.

From judgment to investigation

The maxim’s two parts set out a method of encountering difference. Calling things bizarre acknowledges the strangeness they may hold for an outsider; saying that everything has value refuses to make unfamiliarity a reason for dismissal. Goff adds a qualification: even if something does not have value, it at least merits investigation. Curiosity thus remains possible without requiring immediate agreement or a final judgment.

The declaration also connects Goff’s scientific outlook with his reconsideration of cultural values. At lunch he has been discussing marine life, including dorids, cuttlefish, and the Irukandji; his reflections on island customs broaden the same attentive interest from natural phenomena to ways of living. The passage does not claim that all beliefs are identical or beyond criticism. It shows Goff recognizing the loss involved in privileging one rigid set of beliefs over others before trying to understand them.

Narrative significance

Washington Black listens as Goff tells the story and thinks it remarkable for a man of science to speak this way. The account deepens Washington’s liking for him, while leaving a tension visible: Goff seems oblivious to Tanna’s silent, unhappy presence, and she ends the lunch by taking up her quill and papers to record the observations he calls out. The maxim’s openness to other perspectives is therefore compelling but not presented as proof that Goff understands everyone close to him.

As a recurring expression in the book’s vocabulary, the line gives a concise form to an ethic of observation: approach what is unfamiliar with attention rather than forcing it into a predetermined hierarchy. Its qualification—investigation when value is uncertain—keeps that ethic practical and provisional. The phrase is not a claim that every encounter resolves neatly, but a principle for remaining receptive when one’s first interpretation proves inadequate.