Moby Dick

In Chapter 90, “Heads or Tails,” the issue of labor and just rewards comes up in a conversation between “a very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman” and some mariners who have successfully hunted down a whale. The mariners, naturally, believe the whale to be theirs, as they did all the work in catching and killing it. However, the aforementioned “charitable gentleman” claims that the whale belongs to the Lord Warden, or the Duke, as the whale was caught in his territory. In the conversation that ensues, to every question that the mariners ask about such an apparently unjust seizure, the charitable gentleman replies simply, “It is his” (“his” referring to the Lord Warden). The mariners cannot possibly argue with this repeated response. There is no room for logical discussion where such talk is employed.
The charitable gentleman’s “logic” does, however, line up with the kind used to justify slavery. Why must a man toil in the fields all day and reap not the benefits of his labors? Because he belongs to another man. Why must this man, if he escapes his unrewarded toil, be brought back to his owner under the penalty of the law? Because he is his. To most Americans at the time of Melville’s composing of Moby Dick, this so-called logic did not seem so ridiculous and unfair. Melville exposes the absurdity of slavery through the mariners who work so hard to secure a whale and have to give it up to someone much better off right after, as if they had simply plucked the fish out of the water on a whim. After reaching Chapter 90 in Moby Dick, readers are well acquainted with just how difficult it is to trap a whale. Melville has prepared them to receive this story with indignation and disgust.
Melville’s choice of “bad guy” in this anecdote appears counterintuitive. Why would a “very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman” behave so ignorantly, un-Christianly, and uncharitably? Clearly Melville employs some sarcasm, here, as he does often throughout the novel, but at the same time he could have easily believed such a gentleman to behave so poorly. Like I said, most Americans did not question slavery in the time of Moby Dick. In his portrait of the “bad guy,” Melville illustrates that even the most sensible, well-intentioned people are susceptible to cruel institutions. It does not take an obvious villain to enact a crime. Melville also reveals his skepticism of religion, here, showing that “Christian” can be an empty label, as most slave owners of his time were, indeed, “good Christians.”
This passage in the novel further exposes Melville’s idea of bad government/laws in that the mariners do not even know who the Lord Warden is, at first. This guy has the power to take their whale, yet he remains a stranger to them. This removal, like the charitable gentleman’s repeated insistence that the whale is the Lord Warden’s, does not allow for political debate. Melville has got a recurring them going in which problems arise from the lack of communication and cooperation between the “people” and the “government,” which I think I mentioned in my last post. As the Bible tells us and Melville repeats, all Kings do bad things.

Ishmael spends an entire chapter discussing “The Whiteness of the Whale,” which can be analyzed to cast light upon Melville’s thoughts on the white “race”. Ishmael contrasts the purity and beauty of whiteness in man-made settings with its terrible place in nature—on God’s most ferocious animals. These animals—the polar bear, great white shark, and Moby Dick—embody all that is terrible and terrifying about whiteness. These great animals, like the Albino, are too white; they have surpassed purity and beauty of whiteness and have come to represent the terrible power that pure whiteness holds.
Melville (and Ishmael) make the connection between the supremacy of whiteness and its position “giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe” (Melville 181). As discussed in my previous blog post, the white race is built up by subjugating others, including everything from “savages” to slaves. The ultimate power of the white race is compromised in its purity by the things it has to do to to get that power—torture and subjugate those beneath it. The contradictions in whiteness are evident in Ishmael’s association of personal freedom with his own “melancholy.” Ishmael characterizes whiteness as inherently unstable ever-changing, which both gives whiteness its power and makes it terrifying.
Ishmael alleviates this “white guilt” by giving up his freedom and joining the crew as a lowly deckhand, claiming that in so doing, he’s somehow similar to a slave (Melville 4). Not only does this give Ishmael the false idea that he could ever somehow approximate or understand the experience of a slave, but it belittles the experience of slavery for Melville’s white audience—if Ishmael, a free man, is willing to enter into a state of virtual slavery, then the real thing must not be that bad. Melville’s chapter on the whiteness of the whale serves to placate his audience’s white guilt and reassure them as to the rightness of whiteness.

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!

This being my third or so reading of Moby Dick, I was tickled to find that I had not before noted the hilarity found in the relationship between the personalities of Stubb and Flask, and their names.

He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster.  Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair.  What he thought of death itself, there is no telling.  Whether he ever thought of it at all might be a question…

I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his peculiar disposition…

Stubb is clearly a man who lives for the moment, all the while puffing on a stogie.  His actions and attitude are relaxed, calm, uncaring, and often happily oblivious.  Stubb is also is a bit of a jokster, occasionally picking on Flask.  That Melville cast Stubb as a man of the herb is doubtful, but he is certainly characterized as such.

…in his poor opinion, the wonderous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least a water-rat, requiring requiring only a little circumvention, and some small application of time to kill and boil.  This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the mater of whales…

Flask’s primary characteristics are an oppositional attitude, a seemingly foundationless hatred of whales, and rather short temper.  One can also assume he has a bit of a drinking problem.  While marijuana use was not really a salient (or at least public) issue in Melville’s time, alcohol certainly was.  Flask’s personality traits fit with those of a drunk.

Stubb and Flask are often described as representatives of opposing philosophies, and to be sure they are.  However, I see them also as men of two different vices–and examples of the pitfalls of each.  As a pothead, Stubb is happy, carefree, but consequently oblivious to the dangers of whaling; as an alcoholic, Flask is angry, impulsive, and, like Stubb, unaware of the dangers he faces.  The difference is that Stubb has either forgotten the dangers, is too high to care, or has smoked himself into a philosophy of fatalism (the generally accepted philosophy of Stubb), while Flask is blinded by his anger/hatred, or is so mad at the whales he’d die trying to kill one.  Stubb can’t see through the smoke, and Flask’s vision is blurred by the booze.

Might be a stretch, but I had fun writing about it!

Shortly after Ahab’s first appearance to the crew, in which he gives his speech and reveals the true nature of their quest, Starbuck makes an interesting comment regarding his fellow shipmates:

“Oh God! To sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them!  Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea.  The white whale is their demigorgon!” (150)

Of course, the lack of a feminine presence on the ship is a topic which has already been noted several times.  I found it interesting, however, that here Starbuck makes a direct reference to the lack of a mother’s influence on his crewmates, suggesting that they have been somehow tainted by their voyage and made something other than human.  Perhaps it is not surprising that this character, who has been established as a religious and conservative family man, is so opposed to the violent spirit of masculinity that seems to have overrun the ship following Ahab’s speech.  Nevertheless, it is significant that he states his opinion directly to us and continues to condemn his colleagues so thoroughly.

Ahab, in the depths of his genius and his insanity, is not overly subtle in his attempt to manipulate the crew into following him without question.   He uses the speech not only to imbibe a sense of adventure and thrill of the hunt , but also to strengthen the homosocial bonds between the crew, constantly addressing them as “men” or “boys.”   In the chapter immediately preceding Starbuck’s comment Ahab says to himself (or perhaps the reader), “Twas not so hard a task.  I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve” (149).  Even the weary Starbuck will not yet do anything other than quietly mourn for what he believes will prove to be a disastrous turn of events.  If the Pequod is to be interpreted as a nation, it is a nation where the “feminine” values of peace and rational thinking have been thrown to the sea in favor of a group mentality entirely focused on chasing and killing Moby Dick.

Perhaps, to some degree, Melville shares Starbuck’s fear of this dictator who is capable of inspiring fear, awe, and ultimately loyalty in his subjects on the way to a kind of totalitarianism.  In this respect it is not difficult to imagine why some in the 1930s looked back at Moby Dick and thought Melville anticipated this kind of militaristic regime.  One might say that rather than race or religion, the spirit of hypermasculinity has become a critical rallying point for these sailors who completely buy into Ahab’s own agenda.

The thirty-second chapter of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is entitled, “Cetology.” While this chapter can appear to be a somewhat dry breakdown and description of whale phylogeny, the manner in which Ishmael discusses the cetacean order is revealing of him as a character, and therefore of Herman Melville as a designer and director of this character.

Towards the beginning of the chapter, Melville lists and quotes several people who have studied and/or written about whales. The first person he quotes, and several of the people that he lists, are “Captain[s]” (125-126). Melville also states that of the “whale authors” listed, only “one of them was a real professional harpooneer and whaleman” (126). This indicates that he thinks of whalers as having the most authority on the subject of cetology, signifying and emphasizing that he holds whaling in very high regard.

This is further supported by the selection of whales that Melville chooses to include in his description, and how he makes this choice. For example, he states that the sperm whale is the largest of all whales (129), when it is now well known that the blue whale is the largest. After the description of the members of the cetacean order, Melville states that he has listed “the Leviathans of note” (137). He proceeds to give another brief list, among which the blue whale is included, and he says that if any member of this less-detailed list of whales “be caught and marked, then he can readily be incorporated into this System” (137). This suggests that he believes that only whales which have been hunted are important.

The choice to classify the sperm whale as “the largest inhabitant of the globe; the most formidable of all whales to encounter” (Melville, 129), in combination with the knowledge that the crew depicted in the book is on a whaling voyage to hunt the sperm whale, serves to impress the readers and to add a level of daring or excitement to the novel.

Prior to listing and classifying species of whales, there is a discussion as to whether the whale is a fish or not (Melville, 127-128). In the present day, of course, it is widely excepted that the whale is not a fish, but a mammal. Melville states that Linnaeus classifies whales as separate from fish, and includes his reasons for doing so. This passage in the chapter has a slight ironic tone – it seems as if Melville could be supported Linnaeus’s reasoning, but allows Ishmael to directly declare that he takes “the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and [he] call[s] upon holy Jonah to back” him (Melville, 128). This draws a creationism versus evolution, biology versus God and the bible, etc discussion into the novel.

The chapter “Cetology” is ironic in itself. It is about the science of whales, yet Ishmael rejects scientific reasoning, embraces the reasoning of the bible, and uses whalers as his scientists.

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.

While Moby Dick’s narrative is characterized for the most part by Ishmael’s inner monologue and musings, there are several distinct, extreme shifts in narrative that Melville employs. One of the most obvious, and important switches in narrative is when Melville adopts an omniscient narrator, and Ishmael seems to vanish altogether. This omniscient narrator doesn’t emerge until the Pequod is out to sea, as it is used to develop the other characters on the boat, namely Ahab. Because Ishmael’s ability to be everywhere at once is obviously implausible, Melville uses this style of narration because characters such as Ahab, and Starbuck are equally important to the novel.

Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin…you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom…Where thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his head, continually rocked with the momentum of the ship, and for ever threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow (190)

Here we find a vivid description of Ahab in the most inaccessible part of the boat to Ishmael: his cabin. Because of this, it is certain that Ishmael is detached from the narrative altogether. This is employed to diminish Ishmael’s role in the story, thus giving the reader a sense that Ishmael is not in control of the narrative, the boat, or his destiny. Melville uses shifting narrative to establish and emphasize the power hierarchy on the ship. Ahab is quite often the object of omniscient narrative, however Melville also devotes a similar style chapter to the thoughts of Starbuck. In both cases, Melville provides inner monologues, as well as intimate glimpses into the characters’ lives.

It is also important to note how Melville frames these chapters with stage directions, akin to a Shakespearean tragedy. I think that this was done on purpose to present the novel as such, establish fatal flaws, and foreshadow the catastrophe that is to come.

In chapter 44, The Chart, Ishmael describes the intriguing migratory patterns of the sperm whale, which he claims, were they studied and displayed in a chart, “would be found to correspond in invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the flights of swallows (191).”  He says that attempts have been made at composing such charts, likely disappointed that documented proof doesn’t exist yet.

However, he includes a footnote on that page, in which he mentions that such a chart was near completion, parts of which had been included in “an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory, Washington, April 16, 1851,” apparently published after Ishmael’s telling of the Moby-Dick epic.  This narrative situation is rather confusing, given that the actual book was published in 1851 and that Melville was synthesizing all of these components.  It does make it much more dimensional written this way; Melville could have simply had Ishmael state that sperm whales travel in interesting patterns, but he chose to be circuitous, complicating things by having Ishmael claim something, then pretending that that Ishmael later found scientific evidence of that claim.

Points like this in the text, I think, spark the epic tale and protect it from being dull.  It is also funny how Melville – although he did have some experience whaling – was no scientist himself, but cited natural phenomenon, like whale migrations, as if he was one.  I would not be surprised if, like Ishmael seems to do here, Melville himself obsessively read scientific literature in effort to sound authoritative.

I decided to analyze Melville’s description of Daggoo and his subsequent commentary on slavery during the 19^th century. A passage from Chapter 27 on page 114 provides an in depth description of Daggoo and his role as an African on the whaling ship.

“Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black negro-savage, … with a lion-like tread – an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called them ring-bolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler…Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man beside him.”

There is a lot to say about this description of Daggoo, but I want to highlight that, as an African tribesman who “voluntarily shipped” Daggoo functions in the novel as the symbolic replacement for much more common figures who don’t actually show up in the novel. These figures who Melville is alluding to are African-American slaves or descendant of slaves who were kidnapped from Africa and brought to the American South. Ironically, Daggoo is portrayed as both powerful and barbaric in this passage. Melville uses derogatory and somewhat racist descriptors such as ‘coal-black negro-savage’ as well as fear invoking terms that somehow induce a certain level of respect such as ‘imperial negro’.

Ironically, when Melville entertains the idea of Daggoo’s position in comparison to white men, Daggoo prevails as a powerful ‘fortress’.  In doing so, Melville is challenging the idea of slavery and submission of the Africans to white men. By describing Flask as a chess-man strongly invokes a reversal of roles and addresses society’s contemporary understanding of racial dynamics. Despite this reversal of roles it is important to point out the fact that Daggoo is still diminished by Melville’s initial description and forever defined by his ‘savage’ ways, such as the ‘ring bolts’ suspended from his ears. Melville provides a unique insight into the blatant divide between the ‘white men’ and the ‘savages’ both within the hierarchical dynamics of the whaling ship and within 19^th century society.

Considering that Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851, when slavery was a major issue in America, and that the novel reveals signs of thoughtfully considering race, it is interesting that there aren’t any slaves in the story at all – just different types of stand-ins for them.