Moby Dick

There have been many interpretations of “The Spirit-Spout,” and I’d like to offer mine.  This chapter is, in fact, an indication of the crew of The Pequod slipping into something close to delirium. Ahab has infected them all with his dream of capturing Moby Dick, and now each man dreams of the white whale.  In the icy purgatory of this chapter, a dream-like feeling slips over everyone.  Ahab’s face seems to have “two different things warring” (209). He is between his two natures: the broken man and the ungodly divine ideal man, who would strike  the sun if it insulted him–and he is in complete control of the ship’s crew, in control of their imaginations.  Ishmael is inspired like the rest, perhaps the most inspired:

And had you watched Ahab’s face that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring.  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.  But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night.  Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.

A folklore native to the ship rapidly develops around this spout–every man sees it but once.  This is further evidence of Ahab’s capture of the crew’s imagination.

I think this contains larger implications about Ahab as a man and perhaps about genius itself.  Ahab does not appear in the novel for a long time, and yet he is a strong presence before that.  He is manifested through the stories that people have told to Ishmael about him.  Peleg, Bildad, and strange Elijah all show Ishmael a picture of Ahab before we meet him.  Without these stories, Ahab would be just another crazy old man.  It is necessary for his crew to believe in him and his wild quest in order for the voyage to succeed.  I think this is the case for all storytellers who’d like us to believe in them.  So, in the end, all genius is metaphorical, and, here, Starbuck is the only skeptic.

This reminds me of Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello.  Iago is similar to Ahab.  He speaks in his soliloquys about “pouring his pestilence” into Othello’s ear, and he watches the Moor change throughout the play as he infects his imagination.  Iago must gain the trust of the other characters in the play if he is to have his revenge.  That trust is a belief in the story he presents them, which is a complete takeover of their imaginations.  This happens, I think, every time we read a book.  We could do with more benign artists than these men!

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