Moby Dick

Here’s the resource I mentioned in class that lets you look at a bunch of different translations of the Bible:

http://bible.cc/

enjoy!

In Chapter CVI, “Ahab’s Leg,” we see Captain Ahab requesting repairs on his artificial leg, since he splintered it.  I interpret Captain Ahab’s request as him wanting to be seen as a god, perfect, unscathed, unhurt and still ready for more adventure and action.  We, as readers, also get to see much of Captain Ahab’s character, as he wants to be completely independent, and wants to be free of his physical limitations; Captain Ahab becomes irate, livid and frustrated when he remembers that he is physically ill and wounded.  In addition, I noticed other religious allusions as the novel states, “[it] shall be followed by the joy-childlessness of all hell’s despair; whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave; not all to hint of this…” (667).  Nevertheless, Captain Ahab still tries to be left alone and did not want to be disturbed.  He even insists on getting the ship checked for repairs.

Furthermore, in Chapter CIX, “Ahab and Starbuck In the Cabin,” we see Starbuck and Ahab converse about the acquisition of oil to help continue their journey on the seas.  However, there is some misunderstanding between the two.  Starbuck assumed that they were looking for more oil, but apparently Ahab is so monomaniacal that he only wants to get the White Whale.  Ahab even dares to say, “Let it leak! I’m all aleak myself.”  This shows how obsessive and careless Captain Ahab can be.  We also see Captain Ahab saying to Starbuck that, “There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod.—-On deck!” (682).  This quote shows Captain Ahab’s imperious nature and how controlling and ordering he can be.  He quite simply proclaims himself to be the “lord over the Pequod” (682).  Apparently, Captain Ahab has an obsession with keeping his power over everything.  Captain Ahab prepares to receive a well-shaped, powerful harpoon.  This reminds me of how David prepared to finally overcome the monolithic Goliath.  In this sense, Goliath is the Biblical allusion to the White Whale in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Captain Ahab represents David.

In Chapter 36 of Moby Dick, Captain Ahab reveals the secondary purpose of the Pequod’s voyage to his crew: Ahab seeks revenge against Moby Dick, the white whale that took Ahab’s leg, sanity, and pride. When a crewmember suggests that Ahab’s desire for revenge is ludicrous, Ahab responds with a speech reminiscent of a Shakespearean monologue.

I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein. Jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? (157)

With these words, Ahab reveals his hubris, a flaw that will no doubt cause harm to him later in the novel. His question of “Who’s over me?” seems more of a challenge than a matter of doubt; in his mind he is both willing and able to sail around the world until his revenge his complete, an act that he must consider impossible for others but not for him. As captain of the Pequod, Ahab already exerts a great deal of control over his crew which is further illustrated by his “change of plans” for the whaling voyage. Ahab’s madness seems to have driven him on a larger power trip in attempting to kill the white whale. This could be seen as a man versus nature conflict. It could be argued, however, that this in turn is part of man versus the unknown (or in this case God).

Ahab’s journey could also be compared and contrasted to Jonah’s from the Book of Jonah in the Bible. Jonah tried to run away from God by escaping to the sea and was swallowed up by a whale. Only when Jonah repented and prayed to God did the whale finally set him free after three days. Similarly, Ahab has gone to sea but instead of simply running away from God, Ahab is attempting to destroy the whale and establish himself as a being greater than God’s creations. Ahab could view the whale’s attack on him as something done by God through the whale (as an agent) which would put Ahab’s revenge against God. In this way Ahab would be seeking a status greater than the divine’s and his question of “Who’s over me?” would be answered with, “No one and nothing.”

Who exactly is above Ahab? Certainly no one in his crew and, in Ahab’s mind, certainly not Moby Dick. Whether Ahab will be successful in his revenge is yet to be seen, but if the story of Jonah serves as a model, it seems that Ahab too might be swallowed up by his pride and the whale. This would ultimately prove that humans cannot overcome nature and cannot, in turn, overcome the divine.

We spoke the first day of class about Melville’s Protestant background contributing to the book’s religious themes.  Moby Dick is greatly concerned, my notes say, with the individual and his/her relation to fate.  In “The Monkey Rope,” the chapter concerned with the cutting up of the now-deceased sperm whale, Ishmael supports Queequeg, who must balance on top of the whale, his feet in and out of the shark-filled bloody water, dissecting the beast.  The monkey rope, tied around the waist of both Queequeg and Ishmael, is the support system; if one falls, the other will too.  Ishmael notices at this moment that his fate is completely dependent on an outside source.

I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of the two: that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have sanctioned so gross an injustice. (341)

Ishmael’s sudden discomfort with his lack of control – to him, a “gross injustice” – should really lead him down a slippery slope of realization that the monkey rope should be the least of his worries.  After all, his most trusted friend on the ship, Queequeg, is attached on the other end.  Ishmael’s fate truly lays in the hands of Ahab, the crazed captain of the voyage.  If Ahab’s fate is doomed, there is nothing Ishmael can do to save himself.

And, to this point, there is no reason for Ishmael to trust the divinity of his captain’s fate.  He has already reflected that Ahab is an alien to the Christendom to which he nominally belongs (171).  Ishmael received a mortal wound to his free will the moment he stepped on the ship, sailing with a crazy captain, on a dangerous mission of vengeance, who is probably not guided much by Providence.  This situation, as symbolically exemplified by the monkey rope passage, is not a good one for anyone – especially not a Protestant concerned with his fate.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1991.

The religious themes in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, appear quite often. Captain Ahab appears to be the religious analogue of the bringer of chaos and doom. Ishmael slowly manages to see the true nature of Captain Ahab. Ahab begins to spend less time in the cabin, feeling that he is not getting any work done. Captain Ahab is rarely seen and Elijah appears often to help Ishmael and Queequeg manage their goals for the day. Strangely enough though, Ishmael talks about how he values the whaling profession as a profitable career and how it satisfies kings and queens, due to the value of whale oil.

Interestingly enough, Ishmael delves into cetology, as he converses about the various types of leviathans that exist. The leviathan exists in the Bible as a monstrous sea creature that is nigh invulnerable to all forms of physical attacks. The leviathan is also described as bringing chaos and doom to whoever sails on the sea. The White Whale in Moby Dick is delineated as being legendary, omnipresent, eternal and immortal. On another note, Ahab can be seen as the devil here, as he offers to give the crew a Spanish ounce of gold if they successfully locate the White Whale. I can see Ahab as the devil here because he represents the snake that entices Adam and Eve with the apple, that should bring them happiness and glee, but instead gives them only lots of trouble. Just like the devil dooms both Adam and Eve, Captain Ahab dooms his own crewmen and harpooners. In a similar manner, the crew of the ship will eventually have to deal with the monolithic White Whale. Furthermore, Gabriel thinks that Moby Dick is the incarnation of the Shaker God and one of the seamen hears a peculiar sound, which might in fact be God.

Throughout Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, there is a plethora of religious and

Biblical allusions and references that manifest.  Almost all of the names of the characters

in this novel are religious by nature.  The main character of the story, Ishmael, was an

outcast/drifter, who was dismissed in the Bible.  Elijah is the character who warns both

Queequeg and Ishmael that Ahab is a dangerous man and he is not to be perturbed.

Elijah, in the Bible, was the “Prophet of Doom” (Chapter 19).  Ahab, himself, is

described as a “grand, ungodly, God-like man.”  Ahab, in 1 Kings 18: 18-39 in the Bible,

was the one who provoked the Lord of Israel.  In addition, I find it interesting how

Queequeg is regarded as a savage cannibal because he is a pagan and does not fit into

New Bedford, Massachusetts. This very fact symbolizes the fact that

Captain  Ahab wants to provoke the crew to attack and kill the sperm whale.

Furthermore, Moby Dick, the extremely large whale, is referred to as the Leviathan in the Bible.  The Leviathan has had many

attributes according to Job Chapter 41, Psalm 104: 25, 26 and Isaiah 27:1.  For example, in the Bible, the Leviathan is regarded is

such a manner: “No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up.”  This quote further supports the fact that Moby Dick is greatly

feared by the whole whaling community in New Bedford, Massachussets.  Another great quote that best characterizes Moby Dick is

“Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail; nor does spear, dart, or javelin.  He regards iron as straw, and bronze as rotten

wood.  The arrow cannot make him flee; sling stones become like stubble to him.  Darts are regarded as straw; he laughs at the reat

of javelins” (Psalms 104: 26).  This epic quote shows how Moby Dick is nigh invulnerable to all forms of attacks by harpooners,

sailors and the like.  Furthermore, Moby Dick is regarded as a powerful force to be reckoned with. As you can see, Herman Melville’s

Moby Dick is teeming with religious and biblical implications and allusions that all influence the plot and the deep meaning of the

story.

Sources:

1. http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/dinos.shtml
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan
3. http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/p122.htm
4. Job, Chapter 41.
5. Psalm 104: 25, 26
6. Isaiah 27:1

From the beginning, Herman Melville makes it clear that his novel Moby Dick has a great deal to do with religion, and in many cases, Christianity in particular.   While he does dabble in including references to other religions, most of the references Melville makes, at least in this first portion of the novel, have to do directly with Christianity.  Perhaps this reflects Melville’s own Calvinist upbringing, while also portraying his willingness to question and explore “other-ness”.

The first sentence of the novel, in fact, states simply “Call me Ishmael” (Melville, 1).  This reference to a somewhat contentious character from the Bible is an interesting choice by Melville.  Melville shows that the Bible is so significant to him that the narrator of his epic work refers to himself as a Biblical character, yet it is interesting that this character is not straight forwardly a “good” or a “bad” person in the Bible.  Perhaps Melville is already adding dimension and character development by doing this, refusing to ever let the main character in his novel be simple.

Melville also references the Greek gods in Ishmael’s first tangential description of the power and draw of the sea, in which Ishmael questions, “Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove?” (3).  Ishmael is not only interested in his religion, but in the religions of the past, to the extant that his reference shows some knowledge of the Greek gods’ genealogy.  Perhaps this shows an added element of interest placed by Melville in other religions, and a willingness to take them seriously.

Ishmael later shows the sentiment that being Christian is not the end all and be all of being a good person when he says, “Better sleep with a sober Cannibal than a drunken Christian” (24).  This again shows Melville’s willingness to explore the validity of sentiments other than Christianity, to the extent that he will even consider people who are so uncivilized that they are referred to as cannibals as, in some situations, being better than Christians.

Melville makes it clear that religion is an important subject in this novel, and he does have quite a focus on Christianity and the importance of Christianity.  However, he also shows that he is willing to explore and take seriously the idea that Christianity is not the only valid religion, or that Christians are always the best people.

In only the first 15 chapters of Moby Dick, Melville makes multiple biblical references. The most lengthy is the story of Jonah. Ishmael stumbles into a church and sits through a very lengthy sermon, all about Jonah’s flee from God. Since this passage is so long, I questioned its significance immediately: obviously the story involved a whale but Jonah’s story is important for another reason. Jonah, before getting swallowed by a whale, is running from something. He runs from God because he refuses to carry out God’s will. To escape this responsibility, Jonah leaves land on a ship that will hopefully “carry him into countries where God does not reign” (Melville 37). Almost immediately I connected this attitude of escaping, or running away, with Ishmael’s own description of himself in the beginning of the book.

Just as Jonah is running to sea to escape his religious expectations, Ishmael runs to sea to escape the alienation he often feels on land. Ishmael calls this alienation “a damp, drizzly November in [his] soul” (1). When he falls into spells of boredom and “nothing particular interests [him] on shore” (1), Ishmael takes off. The tendency to run away also parallels the history of Ishmael’s name in the Bible.

Ishmael is the name of Abraham’s first born son, who was born of Hagar, a servant, rather than Sarah, Abraham’s wife. In jealousy, Sarah exiles Ishmael and Hagar. Even though Ishmael is banished, he is still destined to do great things. Granted, Ishmael, in this story, is not running from something. But he is leaving his familiar world and about to embark upon a very enlightening journey, just like Jonah and Ishmael (in Moby Dick).

After assessing the significance of Ishmael’s name and the story of Jonah, I have decided that going to sea replaces religion on Ishmael’s life. When feeling down and without a purpose, a common remedy is faith. When seeking enlightenment, religion is a common path. Ishmael goes to sea for these exact reasons. The reader can tell Ishmael isn’t very satisfied by his religious faith in the way he speaks of the church. He negatively portrays the worshipers as “islands of men and women” that are “purposely sitting apart from the other” and “steadfastly eyeing marble tablets” (30). All of these descriptions make the churchgoers seem empty and emotionless, furthermore separating them from our narrator.

Assuming sailing (and soon whaling) serve as Ishmael’s religious replacement, I expect that the voyage will provide him with very enlightening and adventurous events. In a way, the churchgoing event could serve as a method of foreshadowing, since the sermon is all about Jonah and his flee from land. It helps the reader predict that Ishmael will find something bigger than himself while at sea.

There are three chapters in a row – “The Chapel,” “The Pulpit,” and “The Sermon” – all dedicated to religion and Ishmael’s interaction with faith and church.  We may learn more about Ishmael’s beliefs, however, from his reaction to Queequeg’s religious rituals.  Queequeg is certainly what the white Christian American of the 1850’s would call a savage – his most frequent religious act is to worship a wooden Congo Idol baby.  Ishmael tempers his unexpected affinity for Queequeg by persistently referencing his otherness – he is a “comely looking cannibal” (43), “just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner” (47), and so on.

But instead of using religion as a trope to highlight a savage vs. civilized, pagan vs. Christian paradox that relegates “others” to sub-human status, Ishmael uses his religion to do the opposite.  “I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects” (102).  Not only does he equalize the “savage” Queequeg as a fellow-mortal, he says this is the good Presbyterian thing to do.  This short passage was likely unsettling to readers who considered themselves good Christians and who looked down upon “savages” like Queequeg for their strange, exotic, violent, uncivilized behavior, along with their pagan rituals.  Based on his relationship with a savage that started as his bed-mate, Ishmael rejects any hierarchical view of religion: “Heaven have mercy on us all – Presbyterians and Pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending” (102).

Even before his story has moved to the ship, Melville is making the argument that men of different backgrounds and religions can live as equals, and that “savages” are often not very different at all.

“Call me Ishmael” (1).

From the very moment the reader is introduced to Ishmael, the narrator of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, it is evident that he is no ordinary man-turned-sailor. His request that the reader address him as “Ishmael”  forces the reader to consider why he asks to be called this unique name of biblical fame. Perhaps within the world of Moby Dick it is a name and nothing more, but the recurring references to religion and the Bible within the text suggest that many of the character names — Ishmael, Ahab, and Elijah, to name a few — are chosen with a purpose. By investigating the origin and background of these names and their original owners, one can attempt to understand why Melville specifically chose these names as a connection to the references of the Bible and religion (in general) throughout the novel.

The choice of the name”Ishmael” for the narrator of the story is of particular interest when one considers the biblical character. According to the Old Testament, Ishmael was the son of Abraham, who is considered the father of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths, and Hagar, his servant. Ishmael was conceived because Abraham’s wife Sarah was deemed too old to have a child. Alas, she did become pregnant with Isaac and, out of jealousy, she banished Hagar and Ishmael. As they departed an angel of God comforted them with the news that Ishmael would lead a great nation. Before he was born, however, it was revealed to Hagar that Ishmael would be a “wild donkey of a man” who would constantly be struggling with others. Thus far in the novel, Ishmael remains somewhat of an enigma but does not appear to be in any struggle with human beings. On the contrary, any struggle seems to lie within himself; for example, he notes that he goes to sea whenever he is close to committing suicide. It is hard to say whether or not the character Ishmael will completely adopt the characteristics of his Bible counterpart. What is clear, however, is Ishmael’s different religious attitudes and thoughts on worship; this will be discussed in another blog post, as I believe it is very important in the novel thus far.

Though the reader has not been introduced to Captain Ahab at this point in the novel, perhaps his biblical name will offer some insight as to what he will be like as a character. In the Bible, Ahab ruled the nation of Israel and was regarded as the most evil and wicked of its kings. King Ahab worshipped the “pagan” gods of his wife, Jezebel, which was viewed as completely wrong in the eyes of the Israelites. Perhaps King Ahab was arrogant and believed he could defy the God of Israel by worshipping other false gods. It will be interesting to see if the character Ahab will also possess this same hubris; time (and extensive reading) will tell.

Chapter 19 of Moby Dick, ironically titled “The Prophet,” concerns an encounter Ishmael and fellow sailor Queequeg have with a mysterious stranger who calls himself Elijah. Elijah warns them about Captain Ahab, hinting that their journey will not end well. In the Bible, Elijah was a prophet of God whose second coming was to be a harbinger of God’s wrath. Melville’s use of the name “Elijah” is very fitting for the character as he does warn Ishmael and Queequeg against sailing with Ahab. Whether his hints of doom for the whaling ship Pequod are true or not is yet to be determined.

Thus far in the novel, it is more than clear that Melville is using biblical names with a purpose in mind. So far, Elijah seems to match the role of “prophet.” Ishmael seems to have some characteristics of his Bible counterpart but thus far he doesn’t seem to completely match up with the Bible’s Ishmael. As for Captain Ahab, little can be determined at this point as he hasn’t been “technically” introduced yet. This connection between the Bible and characters’ names is only a small part of the overall importance of religion within the novel. In my next blog post I will explore Ishmael’s relationship and struggle with religion.