Moby Dick

In attempting to come up with alternative lenses through which to read chapter fifty-one, I immediately latched on to that of determinism. Personally, I’m obsessed with the idea of determinism in this book, especially as it might relate to Melville’s Calvinist background.

As far as Calvinist determinism goes, Augustine emphasized the notion that man was created with free will, but for some reason lost significant aspects of it over time, particularly the ability to permanently change oneself and to accept what he called the “offer of salvation.” These things, according to Calvinist theology, have been for some time either total accidents, or effected by some agent or third party.

Who could such an agent be?…

Ah. The massive white whale who took off Ahab’s leg, thereby permanently altering his physical self. That one.

Taking Moby Dick as an agent of divinity (and, ultimately, fate) offers an interesting perspective on the chapter. There’s a sense of destiny, or at least of divinity, to the spout:

It was while gliding through these latter waters that 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. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea.

The spout continues to lead the men for days, and it is this fact which I think is important. The spout is not a singular spectacle; Melville makes absolutely sure that it leads the ship somewhere. Calls to the men like a siren. Melville describes the men’s compulsion to follow: “And so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it.” There is a sense that the men can no more comprehend the nature or purpose of the spout because an understanding is simply not possible. The spout (and, by extension, Moby Dick) leads the men on and they, not even knowing what the sign could portend, follow. Moby Dick is controlling the ship and, just like he broke Ahab, is now by the same token offering a kind of beautiful, terrifying grace—or at least a final solution:

For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.

Calvinist determinism not only offers new explanations and interpretations of this chapter, but also opens much of the book to discussion. It also begs the question of whether Moby Dick is good or evil… or neither. Also a lens through which to read this chapter.

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