Moby Dick

For this post, I am taking Professor Friedman’s suggestion to contextualize more fully how Melville writes about “pitchpoling,” at once referring to its regular usage, meaning a boat’s capsizing, and also to a sperm whale’s breaching, a connotation which Melville seems to have crafted himself.  In doing this, Melville is subtly comparing through metonymy the whale, as a natural phenomenon or symbol, and man, who is represented through the actions of the boat.

At the end of an earlier post, I briefly mentioned that chapter 84 itself is titled, “Pitchpoling.”  Upon rereading it however, I notice that Melville seems to be writing primarily about harpooning the whale, as he doesn’t actually mention breaching or capsizing at all.  Melville might have conceived a third complication of the term, literally referring to “pitching,” or throwing, a “pole,” as a harpooner does.

After looking at several online dictionaries, the only formal definition I could find for “pitchpoling” was to somersault, or to capsize a ship.  In conclusion, it appears to me that Melville has taken it upon himself to create mixed meanings for the term, using it to describe several different things.  Surely, it is evident that Melville likes to have fun with language.

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