Moby Dick

Pervasive throughout Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick are references to religion, particularly Catholicism.   As the concepts of Heaven and Hell are central to this religion, it only makes sense for references of them to be prolific in this novel.

An epitomizing example of Heaven-on-Earth occurs in the chapter “A Squeeze of the Hand”.  In it, the protagonist Ishmael describes the experience of tempering and preparing the spermaceti while aboard the whaling ship the Pequod:

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma,–literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that expressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it…while bathing in that bath, I felt free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.

It is impossible to say that this is an inaccurate description of what the bliss of Heaven must feel like.  Ishmael’s mind is at ease and wholly content.  His physical sensations are pleasant and easy.  Even the surrounding sea, which is so often described as tumultuous, is calm and serene.  Ishmael even goes so far as to say that he feels “divinely free” from any malevolent sentiment whatsoever.  Melville makes it clear that Ishmael’s experience is perhaps next to Godly it is so positive.

Contrastingly, Ishmael is undoubtedly describing a secular Hell when he describes the try-works of the ship, which are used to boil the oil out of whales’ blubber:

Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body.  Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time.  It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funeral pyres.  It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit.

This passage is absolutely steeped in Hellish references.  The description of the fiery burning of the whale can be very easily equated to Hell-fire.  Not only is it fire, but even its smoke is absolutely unbearable to inhale, but when around it “inhale it you must”, as one in Hell is forcibly subjected to Hell’s miseries.  Furthermore, Melville makes clear the nearness of death in this passage, mentioning that the smoke smells like the smoke one would smell from a funeral pyre.  This is an unbearably graphic image, the smell of human bodies burning, and once again, an image very reminiscent of Hell.  Furthermore, Melville assigns a Hindoo-like quality to the smell, suggesting its sacreligious (to Catholicism, anyway) and thus Hell-like nature.  Finally, Melville makes a very direct reference to Catholicism, mentioning that the try-works have a smell similar to the smell one would encounter on Judgment Day, and undoubtedly such an unpleasant smell would not be issued for anyone traveling to Heaven.

This presentation of dualities by Melville, particularly in chapters so close to another (there is only one very short chapter between them), reminds the reader that Heaven and Hell are not so far apart.  Both are experienced by Ishmael on the Pequod within a very short time span in the novel.  Perhaps this is echoing Melville’s ideas of a Calvinist fate, and is his way of showing to his audience that Heaven and Hell are both possible for any of us, and not only that, but that our mortality is inevitable and the afterlife is not far away.

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