Moby Dick

Preface: I’m really interested in the characterization of Captain Ahab through rumors both before and after chapter 28, and how he is depicted as a mystery and a legend. In reading Ishmael’s first full description of the man I became particularly interested in the phrase “barbaric white leg” when our narrator first notices the whale jaw peg leg. I thought it had a bit of an interesting connection to race in the novel, so here I am, trying to combine race and characterization.

When the surreptitious Captain Ahab finally appears before the crew of the Pequod, his grim air overwhelms Ishmael — so much so, our narrator tells us, that it took him a moment to realize that much of the grimness came from the captain’s “barbaric white leg” (117).

The phrase struck me because of the juxtaposition between “barbaric” and “white.” Ishmael most often uses the word “barbaric” to describe men of other races, much like his use of the word “savage.” The contrast between the two words sums up Ishmael’s first impression of Captain Ahab quite well. The captain, though a white man, is “wild” (117) and is in many ways depicted as superhuman, even mythical.

Before chapter 28, in which we meet Ahab, we learn about him through what others tell Ishmael. The rumors construct Ahab’s reputation, and the man becomes the subject of a myth. Ahab’s mythical characterization continues in Ishmael’s initial description of the mighty man. When he first lays eyes on his captain, Ishmael notes that “his whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze,” likening the man to a statue (117). Who gets statues made of them? Certainly not whaling captains. Ancient, brave, mythical heroes get made into statues. Ishamel continues to glorify Ahab by comparing him to a “great tree” (117). This further separates Ahab from the other characters, from humans, and makes him more of a god-like figure.

Let’s go back to the phrase “barbaric white leg.” What makes the leg “barbaric” is its inhumanness. The leg, made from the jaw of a Sperm Whale, is by definition not human. While Captain Ahab’s being inhuman is what makes him great, we must note that therefore the use of the word “barbaric” in describing the non-white characters in Moby Dick is racist.

Ishmael often uses the word to describe the harpooneers, as much as he uses the words “savage” and “heathen.” We know, as modern readers, that these terms are politically incorrect and just plain rude. Ishmael’s use of “barbaric” in his description of Ahab reveals why. In Ahab’s characterization, to be inhuman is to be different from everyone else. However, that does not mean that to be different is to be inhuman. Regardless, Ishmael uses the same adjective to describe both the inhuman Ahab and the different harpooneers.

“Barbaric” and “white” is a suitable description of Ahab, the mysterious, wild captain. He is the least human character of the novel. But the presence of the word “barbaric” and its synonymity to “inhuman” makes us reflect on its use in other parts of the work, and its racist implications.

The chapters in which we are introduced to Captain Ahab remind me of J.M. Barrie’s similar character, Captain Hook from Peter Pan (1904). Both are fearless, rough men of the sea, providing a source of treachery and deceit as the antagonists in their respective plots.  Hook’s loss of his hand to a crocodile parallels Ahab’s loss of his leg to a whale.  Both men choose inanimate objects in attempts to make themselves whole—a hook for a hand, and an ivory peg leg.  The destruction of these limbs compels the two captains to obtain revenge upon the monsters that caused physical as well as mental damage.

As a narrator, Ishmael speculates on the underlying psychological motives Ahab has for pursuing Moby-Dick:

…Ever since that fateful encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations.  The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them… All evil to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. (Melville, 179)

Consumed by the humility and tangible loss of a part of himself, Ahab focuses all his mental powers and energy into exacting revenge upon the whale to regain a sense of his authority, not only over the sea, but over nature itself.  I can’t help but speculate that Ahab will meet a similar end as that of Captain Hook—he will ultimately be defeated by the creature that crippled him in the beginning.

Emily Dickinson’s poem 11,

MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.	5
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

without the funky font of “UCH,” though more obviously applicable to Ahab, (except, I suppose, that Ahab has authority over his ship and can “run” with his madness) can also be applied to the minor character, Pip, the slight slave-boy driven to madness.  In the saddest part of the book thus far for me, Pip jumps from the boat to catch a whale and is left floundering in the ocean for what is beyond a mere scare tactic after Stubb warns Pip that he won’t save him a second time because “a whale would sell thirty more times than [Pip] would in Alabama,” and is not worth the trouble or energy (400).  

In “The Doubloon,” every major character gives his thought on the doubloon while looking at it, and ends up, as Ahab said during his soliloquy, “mirror[ing] back his own mysterious self” (416). Indeed, the men, supposedly probing the doubloon, really just reveal themselves, their philosophical and personal essences. All except Pip. He offers the gem, “I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look,” capturing the truth in that everyone sees what they want to see, believes what they want to believe, and acts accordingly.

Pip, however, is not always of “divinest sense;” just after he offers his profound insight, he squawks like a crow, reinforcement of the fragile, unpredictable nature that defines madness. And it is no coincidence that Pip calls himself a crow, a mean bird: in Ishmael’s philosophical break with Ahab in “The Try-Works” when he says “There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness,” conceding that while woe has the potential, through the deepest, darkest plumbings of the soul, to bring forth genius, it may also give way to a dead-end existence of futility, he uses an eagle to demonstrate this possibility of attaining genius. Even though crows soar, eagles, on high mountains from the star, will always be higher. Ahab and Pip both may be mad ultimately, but they do soar occasionally, as evident by Pip’s judgment of “The Doubloon” scene.

What strikes me as most interesting in the chapter The Advocate is the way in which Melville portrays whaling as a flawless and almost royal pursuit. He challenges every conceivable argument against the profession, and he does so in a very convincing way.  His most bold and interesting claim, in my opinion, is his defense of whaling against the argument that it simply a business of butchering, by comparing the profession of whaling with that of a soldier.  He claims that if it is in fact true the whaling is an uncleanly business, that does not mean that it cannot still be honorable, as is the profession of a soldier. To make this comparison he asks “what disordered slippery decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those battle-fields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies’ plaudits?” (Melville 103).  He then goes even further than simply defending the business of whaling, to state that it is in fact more noble than going to war. This struck me as a kind of daring claim, but I’ll admit that the logic of his argument is somewhat convincing.

He argues that if it is the fear of war that earns the soldier his admiration, that what one faces on the battle field cannot compare to the terror of encountering a whale when he says:

And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit of the soldier’s profession; let me assure ye that many a veteran who has freely marched up to battery, would quickly recoil at the apparition of the Sperm Whale’s vast tail fanning into eddies the air over his head.  For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God! (Melville 103)

He goes on the argue that if it is the benefits derived from their services that earn soldiers their respect, then the benefits of whaling are just as great. Not only do we reap material benefits from a dead whale, including the highly valued oil it produces, but we have also discovered much of the world through the adventures of whaling ships. He speaks of Australia claiming that “The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony”(Melville 105).

Finally, at the end of the chapter, he states his claim that whaling is in fact more noble than going to battle by saying  “I know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more honorable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns.” (Melville 106)

The reason that I find these seemingly outlandish arguments so compelling is that they are true. When you think about it logically, it is true that whaling and battle are similar in many ways.  The soldier goes out with intention to kill, not an adversary in the form of a whale, but other human beings. While Ishmael argues that this is less perilous and frightening, should killing a human not be more abhorrent then killing a whale? And yes, wars are fought for a purpose, usually to conquer land, so it could be argued that the soldiers are helping to expand, or defend, the land of their country.  However, Ishmael makes the argument that whaling ships have discovered new land for their country. It could be argued that the founding of these new colonies is just as beneficial. In these regards Ishmael’s arguments are compelling to me, however, I still don’t think that whaling seems to be equivalent to going to war, and I think that the important distinction lies in the intention of the soldier to defend his country, which is not a claim that whalers can make.  I was, however, struck by the power of Ishmael’s argument to almost convince me otherwise.

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.

…any man unaccustomed to such sights…would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.

The sharks which accompany the whalers on their hunts and in the butchering of their whales embody the mystical, savage energy Melville ascribes to the sea.  The image of sharks in the sea as maggots in cheese is a particularly revealing metaphor.  When Melville was writing, many people believed that maggots and other small vermin arose to life spontaneously from inanimate matter.  “Spontaneous generation” was conclusively disproved later in the century, but in the beginning of the 19th century it didn’t seem so obvious.  Life was thought to arise in all sorts of places as a more animated form of the matter from which it came.  In this sense, the sharks that infest the waters around the Pequod are literally the physical incarnation of the sea’s uncontrollable, irrational force.  The water teems with its deadly progeny, both incredible and terrifying to behold.

They viciously snapped, not only at each other’s disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound…A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual life had departed.  Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, one of these sharkss almost took poor Queequeg’s hand off, when he tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.

The sharks do not possess any sense of self-preservation beyond their all-consuming desire to eat, which drives them even to eat themselves when wounded by the whaling spades.  In this respect, their manic drive mirrors that of Ahab.  To the sharks, the whaling spades might as well be a force of nature, unfathomable and unassailable.  Ahab was also wounded by a force of nature, but unlike the sharks, he has the ability to envision the being which “demasted” him.  His thirst for revenge is not unlike the sharks’ thirst for blood which causes them to gorge on their own entrails, and in his quest he eventually consumes himself.  Taking the Ahab-as-shark metaphor to the next level, Ahab might be interpreted as already dead.  Without any reason or understanding, he, like the dead shark, can only snap out compulsively at whatever draws near him.  Unfortunately for the crew of the Pequod, their fates are inextricably linked to that of their mad captain.

The Brutality of the Pequod’s Fated Pariahs

‘Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals – morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, soofficered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge.’  (Melville 180)

All the men under Ahab’s mad quest, the so-called mongrel renegades, castaways, and cannibals, share what Ishmael recognizes as a certain status of pariahdom. Outcast from the security of land and thrown into the danger of the seas, they participate in the particularly inelegant activity of whaling, reinforcing their outsider status.

Melville’s brilliance lies in his subtle indictment of the savageries of whaling and of Ahab’s monomania, the subtlety inhering in the device of using beautiful prose to ameliorate violent scenes. The description of the demise of the whale Stubb kills in Chapter 61 is evocative of this device. As the whale bled, ‘the slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men.’ (Melville 278) The violence visited upon the whale is projected back to the whalers themselves, exposing their iniquities, at least as seen through the eyes of Ishmael. When the whale finally dies, the bloody scene is deceptively rendered in seemingly pleasant language; ‘At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frightened air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea.’ (Melville 279) Melville’s descriptive powers perhaps make these scenes palatable to the reader, but in conveying this false sense of tranquility, they paradoxically foreshadow portents (the calm before the storm, so to speak)

It is important to note that Ahab’s physicality and his vindictive quest is not euphemized. Perhaps we are supposed to maintain some modicum of sympathy for the ship’s subalterns, while focusing on Ahab’s monomania, which is amplified by the contrast in prose.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Signet Classic, 1998.

Throughout the middle section of this novel, Melville seems to finally address the femininity that he left out of the earlier pages of the novel; but he uses whales to fill this void.  This causes a sharp distinction to emerge between the masculine life aboard the whaling ship and the feminine world that they hunt.

Melville gives to women the stereotypical characteristics of docility, gentleness, grace, and beauty, and compares these feminine virtues to whales.  In chapter 85, “The Tail,” Melville describes the “delicacy” of the sweeping motion of the tail as having a “maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of the sea.” (337)  Later on, in chapter 92, “Ambergris,” Melville says that “the motion of a Sperm Whale’s flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor.”  (368)  In both of these  instances, whales are compared to genteel ladies — a stark contrast to the sweaty, dirty, hard-working men aboard the Pequod.  In chapter 77, Melville describes Tashtego’s escape from the whale’s head as “the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego.” (308)  (This also reminds me of the story in Greek mythology of Athena springing from the head of Zeus.)  Here the whale becomes feminized through the depiction of birth.

In chapter 89, “Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish,” Melville directly says, in the context of describing a trial that “the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.” (355)  Melville clearly wants the reader to see the whale as containing the feminine characteristics that have barely appeared in the rest of the novel.  (I find it curious and slightly suspicious, however, that Melville chose to use the above words in a chapter whose title uses the words “fast” and “loose,” since those two words also mean “promiscuous.”)

Through his comparisons, Melville has set up the whaling world to mirror the society of the time — men chase women.  But does this mean that Melville thinks women should be given more freedom?  Does a man’s control over his wife stifle and even kill her spirit?  His attitude towards women confuses me; I’d like to think that he was a forward thinking man, but I don’t think he could entirely escape the attitudes of his society.  In chapter 85, “The Tail,” Melville describes the whale’s power as similar to Jesus’; the pictures of him do not show his power, but instead show “the mere negative, feminine [traits] of submission and endurance, which…form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.” (336)  So does Melville believe that the docile, feminine exterior can hide power underneath?  Does he believe that women can be powerful in their femininity?  Three chapters later in “Schools and Schoolmasters,” Melville says that the old whale “will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets.  (353)  Something wild, who in the fact of her secret keeping holds some form of power, makes the best wife.  This is hardly the quiet gentlewoman desired by so many men back on the mainland.

But later on in that chapter, Melville seems to revert back to the society-backed ideal of women when Ishmael says that he has “perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country.” (373)  Here Melville, or at least Ishmael, shows his desire for the typical life of a man — to live with a loving wife who has has his supper on the table when he returns home from work.

How did Melville view women?  Maybe, as we discussed in class, it wasn’t so much the woman as the binding contract of marriage that disturbed Melville; after his marriage he was bound to a father-in-law that he disagreed with.  Perhaps Melville wanted to marry the freedom that the ocean presented instead of marrying a future that would keep him strapped down in one place.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1988, reissued 2008. Print.

As the chapters discussing whaling pile up in the novel, Melville reveals the unrelenting nature of whaling and the constant work involved to make the ship sail and the whaling operation run. Many of these middle chapters examine minute parts of the whaling or sailing operation in great detail, conveying the massive amount of work intrinsic to whaling and the various knowledge needed by each seaman in order to be a successful whaler. It is a job requiring round-the-clock readiness, as each man is somewhat of an indentured servant to the whims of a whale. The sighting of the whale that Stubb eventually kills springs everyone into compulsive and complete response:

“As if struck by some enchanter’s wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry” (255)

Once the whale is hauled in (a grueling process for which they must “toil hour after hour” (262)) the sailors have a few hours rest before the morning, when they will take apart the whale, but even their rest is interrupted by “anchor-watches,” which “shall be kept; that is, two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck to see that all goes well” (271).

Even without considering the grueling, slave-like devotion that the sailors must show towards the whaling operation, regardless of any personal need or problem (witness the harpooneer, who must paddle hard with the company and then try to harpoon the whale, who have been driven to ‘”burst their blood-vessels in the boat” (260)), the sailor’s life on the ship is a constant need to work. The long chapter “The Town-Ho’s Story” examines the labor hierarchy and the consequences of an overworked company. Ishmael alludes many times to the workload on board and the captain and mates’ penchant to overwork their men, but for the time being, at least, the labor hierarchy is balanced enough to keep all the men content in their position (at least content enough not to mutiny). “The Town-Ho’s Story” finds the seamen under pressure from the constant work attending to the leaking ship. The mate Radney directly contradicts the labor hierarchy aboard the ship, demanding that Steelkilt sweep the deck, the “broom business” which is the “prescriptive province of the boys” (222). Labor is divided amongst the equal-ranking men according to ability:

“it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical duties” (222-3).

In a space that always demands work, work itself must be hierarchized; everything else is dropped once a whale is sighted, and after that ship duties, according to capability, involve keeping the ship afloat first and foremost, and then the other duties that involve general cleaning and maintenance. When Radney violates the hierarchy of labor on a ship, it becomes violent. The length of this chapter stresses the importance of preserving the hierarchy of work and the workers in order for the voyage to remain successful. Perhaps Ishmael is foreshadowing the problems the Pequod will face as their voyage grows longer and Ahab abandons convention in his maniacal pursuit.

I apologize for this post coming so late, but I wanted to look back at the first scenes in the novel in which Ishmael and Queequeg interact, in chapters 3 and 4. As other blog posts in this topic have already mentioned, the lack of female characters in Moby Dick leaves us readers with no choice but to closely examine the homosocial and pseudo-homosexual relationships that take place in the realm of Melville’s imagination. The first communication between Ishmael and Queequeg is odd, amusing, and revealing.

Ishmael admits being terrified of the tattooed cannibal but then acknowledges that his fear is unfounded and born out of ignorance: “What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself–the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” (22). Ishmael describes his night of sleep with the foreigner as the best of his life, but upon waking he discovers “Queequeg’s arm thrown over [him] in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought [he] had been his wife” (22). But this “pagan,” tattooed arm is not any ordinary arm; Ishmael compares it to the patchwork quilt on the bed they share. (Perhaps irrelevant, but I couldn’t help but think of Freudian discussions of fetishes in the early twentieth century.) Queequeg’s gender role is confused by conflicting, contradictory character traits and habits – for instance, “the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style” (as if Ishmael is his wife) contrasts with his appearance, tattoos, snoring, grunting, harpoon shaving, etc.

I believe Melville wrote this humorous exchange with the intent to make readers laugh. In fact the scene is hysterical in its awkwardness. Besides serving as a moment of a comedy in a largely dark, romantic novel, this scene might also be Melville’s way of exploring “the Other.” Ishmael the narrator seems to mimic Melville the author in many ways, and Ishmael’s struggling to work through and understand the exotic foreigner’s habits, customs, and intentions parallels Melville’s struggling to accept and trust the foreigners of the Pacific and the Caribbean in his own travels. Ishmael is ignorant of Queequeg’s background and thus these few pages in the novel serve as a cultural exploration: how might gender roles and expectations be different for Queequeg, an unknown and unpredictable force, than typical Americans in the nineteenth century? Queequeg is “off” in that he does not satisfy our culture’s understanding of gender divisions, as is revealed in his loving clutch of Ishmael in bed. He walks the line between masculinity and femininity. This further sets him apart as an outsider and clarifies that he is very different from Ishmael and the other American-born and raised men on the Pequod who abide by typical gender roles. Queequeg is “otherized” even more greatly. On page 25, Ishmael uses two different metaphors to assert Queequeg’s differentness and his transitioning into a person who fits more naturally and fluidly into normal society: “But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition stage—neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner. His education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate” (25).