Jan 28 2010
Ishmael’s Invisible Hand
The narrator is at the helm of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. While Captain Ahab may be in charge of the ship, Ishmael is our crazed captain, sailing us through the story. It seems that Melville wrote in 20th century parlance what would have been termed “a romance” through the style of a travel narrative, which was the form that was most familiar to him. Melville has created such a chaotic world, both on land and on “the watery part,” that a narrator just as complex is needed to steer the ship. Melville is not giving us a docked story, but a ship, which must be steered to reach its destination.
Ishmael is the frothy film between the murky depths and us. We are not given the undiluted ocean, the whole truth, the whole, watery body of knowledge. We are told everything through Ishmael’s perspective. There is an arduous attempt to recreate reality through great observational detail, but all we are left with are the lines left in the sand after the waves have receded back into the ocean. Ishmael, as a prophet, is left with a great burden. He must convince us of the reality of the story, despite the fact that the water tastes less salty when it has not touched our lips.
In many ways, we have to take Ishmael on faith. We can call him Ishmael, and we can believe his story—or we can choose not to. In Chapter 18, Captain Peleg of the Pequod tells Ishmael, “Young man, you’d better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast hand; I never heard a better sermon… why Father Mapple himself couldn’t beat it, and he’s reckoned something” (86, Signet ed.).
What is Ishmael’s purpose as a narrator? Is it actually to tell us a story or to tell us a sermon? It is pretty evident from the beginning that he is back-narrating the story, so he could not have remembered much detail, yet he retells such colorful conversations and striking sermons word-for-word. Though I don’t see an omniscient form of narrative emerging yet, I do see a narrator with a God-like memory, or imagination.
In fact, if Ishmael is better at telling sermons than Father Mapple, how do we know that he did not author the sermon in Chapter 9 himself? I think it is likely. It is so rife with whaling references that it would make the sub-sub-librarian blush. I think it also has too many parallels to the unfolding plot of the story, and that Melville, the writer, would not miss a chance like this to make some of the themes of the book explicit.
For instance, when Jonah boards the ship, the priest comments:
“In their gamesome but still serious way one [sailor] whispers to the other—‘Jack, he’s robbed a widow;’ or, ‘Joe, do you mark him; he’s a bigamist;’ or, “Harry lad, I guess he’s the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom” (41).
When Ishmael boards the Pequod, Captain Peleg asks him:
“What makes thee want to go a-whaling, eh?—it looks a little suspicious, don’t it, eh?—Hast not been a pirate, hast thou?—Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?—Dost not think of murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea” (68)?
God (Yahweh in Hebrew) chooses Jonah; “The lot is [his]” (44). Queequeg’s idol, Yojo, selects Ishmael (65).
And another:
“The hard hand of God is upon [Jonah]” (44). Ishmael remembers finding a “supernatural hand” placed in his as a child after waking from a nightmare (25-26).
In class, we heard Melville’s style compared to jazz music, but I’d like to compare it to the music of someone one wouldn’t typically associate it with. Charlie Chaplin once recalled having this discussion with the great Romantic composer Rachmaninoff:
I remember [Vladimir] Horowitz, the pianist… Just before the war [World War II] I dined at his house with his wife, the daughter of Toscanini. Rachmaninoff and Barbirolli were there… It was an intimate dinner, just five of us.
It seems that each time art is discussed I have a different explanation of it. Why not? That evening I said that art was an additional emotion applied to skillful technique. Someone brought the topic round to religion and I confessed I was not a believer. Rachmaninoff quickly interposed: “But how can you have art without religion?”
I was stumped for a moment. “I don’t think we are talking about the same thing,” I said. “My concept of religion is a belief in a dogma–that art is a feeling more than a belief.”
“So is religion,” he answered. After that I shut up.
Rachmaninoff meant religion as a feeling, as an obsession which pervades one’s work. Could religion or obsession also be guiding this narrative? Could Melville be trying to show that aspect of religion, i.e., its very essence? Ishmael is obsessed with the waves, the sea, and ocean life. Are “his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean”(46)?
Throughout the story, it may be Ishmael’s invisible hand that is guiding us.
4 Responses to “Ishmael’s Invisible Hand”
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Julian, a wonderful, wonderful first post! You set the bar high. I love how you describe Ishmael’s imagination as “God-like,” which is apt, given the breadth of his narration (which, as you will see, gets only broader and weirder as the book continues). You are also right to question the Father Mapple sermon — could it be Ishmael feeding us those lines, and framing them as a memory of being in the Chapel? A brilliant reading. And I love the Chaplin/Rachmaninoff conversation — you need to cite where it comes from.
Word, Julian. You made an excellent point about Ishmael’s suspiciously freaky memory, but I don’t think he wrote the sermon. That is not to say it isn’t possible: Ishmael makes no comment post-sermon, a rare occurrence for a narrator who seems to have a last word on most everything, and there is even a close semblance to his catch-phrase in the sermon: Father Mapple says, “And taken with context, this is full of meaning” (Signet, 42). In my opinion, however, whatever biases Ishmael may have, he is not a Calvinist, the sect to which Father Mapple clearly belongs. Mapple’s belief that Jonah’s punishment for disobedience was being swallowed by the whale, and only when “He leaves all his deliverance to God” he is saved is a possible reading of the Bible text, but, at the very least, the Bible does not make that reading explicit (here is a link to the text: http://www.dltk-bible.com/kjv/jonah_chapter1-4.htm). Mapple makes the text conform to his worldview. This may also explain the whaling references; Mapple preaches in a whaling town, it is the way of life he knows, and he caters to his audience. And, again, Ishmael, I believe, is not a Calvinist. Though to diminish Moby Dick’s meaning to one reading would be wrong, his representing Calvinism is a valid interpretation. Ahab professes his tortured philosophy during The Quarter-Deck:
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event – in the living act, the undoubted deed – there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me” (157).
That is, God puts up limits for humans. Killing Moby Dick is one of those limits, and we cannot thwart God’s will to prevent us. Ishmael cannot pinpoint why Ahab’s philosophy is so alluring, but he certainly identifies with his struggle. He writes “Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine” and cites “who does not feel the irresistible arm [of fate] drag?” as his reason (171,180). Recall the beginning: Ishmael needs the ocean to free him from “involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses,” or death (1). The ocean liberates him, makes him feel alive. And if there’s something else, much less something in the ocean, that stops him from liberation, he will fight it.
PS: Sorry I didn’t format well with my big quote or link. I think there may not be an option to do that for comments, though.
Word, giguzick. Thank you for commenting! Sorry, I don’t know your name. Which category do you post under? I appreciate that you took the time to read and engage my post. You made very interesting and observant points. I think you could just as likely be right, though I think it is inevitable that Ishmael would have altered the sermon a little; even if he remembered the main points, he may have filled in the details, especially with later knowledge. Humans tend to interpret their past in light of their current experience and look for signs or similarities.
You made a good point about the whaling town and Father Mapple’s reputation, and I didn’t examine Ishmael’s narration and the sermon for consistency of religious beliefs, which would be very illuminating; I don’t think he’s a Calvinist either. I can think of when he defends Queequeg as belonging to “the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world.” “We all belong to that; only some of us cherish some queer crochets noways touching the grand belief…” (85, Signet).
The part of Captain Ahab’s speech that you quoted is one of my favorites, and I liked the way you interpreted Ishmael’s reaction to it.
-Julian