Moby Dick

And I only am escaped alone to tell thee”
–Job

The epilogue of Moby Dick is one of the most famous in all literature. And for good reason. It packs over the moral of 500 pages of dense, winding, veiled prose into nigh over a half a page. This bit of writing at the back of the novel is, I feel, the best the book has to offer.

So, floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex.  When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy pool.

This is Ishmael’s role in life, not only this scene.  An educated man, on the Peaquod Ishmael is perpetually “on the margin of the ensuing scene.”  A introverted philosopher, it takes a lot more for Ishmael to be “drawn towards the closing vortex” of Ahab’s infectious madness.  It is only as the story finds winds it’s way to a close that Ishmael actually even begins to reach his shipmates.  By then, the story has “subsided into a creamy pool” and Ishmael is left swirling, alone again, in the sea.

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