Moby Dick

I would like to analyze the chapter The Spirit-Spout through style and narration, the structure which houses “the spirit.” This is one of my favorite chapters of the novel, and I think this chapter shows how great of a lyricist and poet Melville can be. Because of its natural fluidity as opposed to Ishmael’s usual choppiness of style, I think this was one of the easiest chapters for Melville to write and therefore more revealing.

You did not care a penny for the book. But, now and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled the book — and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel enough to despise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul.

http://www.melville.org/letter7.htm

Melville wrote these words in a famous letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne on November 15, 1851, parts of which we discussed during our Gender and Madness lecture. What is the soul, the spirit of Moby-Dick? Could it be the same depicted in the Spirit-Spout, the chapter that Hawthorne’s wife admired so much?

There are many elements of style that Melville uses in this chapter to achieve his effect. In the title and the first few paragraphs he uses an usual form of alliteration known as sibilance, or repetition with the letter ‘s.’

…one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. (224)

This form has a very classical feel. Today, it almost seems archaic or dream-like. Though the term “sibilance” originated in 1823, the term sibilant, meaning “having, containing, or producing the sound of or a sound resembling that of the s or the sh in sash,” came into English in 1669 from the Latin sibilare, to hiss, whistle, of imaginative origin (Merriam-Webster). Whether classic or pseudo-classic, by using repetition, and this unusual manifestation of it, Melville creates a deliberately unreal atmosphere with a spark of the sublime. Such metaphors as “the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver” makes one think of Biblical scrolls or ancient knowledge, also adding to the classical and mystical feel.

There is also something strange about the way the silvery jet is introduced. The first time, the action of the jet “rising” is not given until two clauses afterwards, and then only in an indirect way, through metaphor.

…on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. (224)

By placing the verb later on Melville gives the impression that the spout is static, that it has always been there, almost like the  men of the Pequod have come across a fixed glistening rod jutting out of the sea. It doesn’t disappear until the end of the next paragraph, and even then he doesn’t describe it descending. He just says “yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night.” By leaving out action, Melville gives the illusion of apparition. Most of Melville’s symbolism lies in his style.

…some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. (225)

By appearing and disappearing, it is both eternal and ephemeral. By repetition, coming every night at the same hour, Melville gives the impression of a consciousness, a purposeful intelligence, an order.

Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be. (225)

Here, Melville gives the action right away: it is jetted; but even so, it is done mysteriously, as if there was no cause or originator of the action.

Another trick Melville likes to use is sharp, strong contrasts of which these are just some:

“…his [Fedallah’s] turban and the moon, companions in one sky.” (225)

“…she [the Pequod] rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in her–one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal.” (225)

“While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked.” (225)

“Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he [Ahab] would not seek that respose in his hammock.” (227)

These contrasts make us more aware of our reality and the constant alternative. By putting Fedallah’s turban in the same frame as the moon, Melville simply, but powerfully conjures up humanity and eternity, or as Mary Warnock puts it in her book of the same title, imagination and time. By stripping the scene down to its bare essentials, it makes us more aware, even while it seems less real. It also makes us feel more alone with our humanity, like the men at sea.

(In the blog post Phantom Ship, Josana takes a look at the symbolism of the sea-ravens in which she also notices that “second sentence seems to suggest that the Pequod hangs on the balance of life and death.”)

Who or what is the Spirit-Spout supposed to be? I think that is exactly what Melville wants us to wonder. While this may seem like a dream or loll in the text compared to the storm developing in the reader’s mind–Melville, “still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.”

And sometimes one can recognize the spirit through the form. In a book perhaps mangled and imperfect, while the birds weigh down on Ahab’s ship, Melville’s thoughts take flight.

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