Moby Dick

Why does Ishmael seem invisible?  He is always narrating, and yet he never seems to arrive in front of us.  We learn of his personal history only through vague allusions, such as Cornelia’s example below.  He can be equated with Melville, and the openness of his character equates him with the reader as well.  He uses “I”, “one”, and “you” equivalently, actively switching between them.  Chapter 3 begins: “Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft” (9).  It is the reader who enters the room, the “everyman” (“one”) who is reminded of a ship, but it is Ishmael’s own memory which resonates.  He is a non-entity, an empty-filled tour guide of the country of the whale.

Yet for all his invisibility of self, Ishmael is omnipresent in the novel.  His voice is highly idiosyncratic, and it controls all observations and digressions.  He steers the ship; he points the spotlight.  How can we explain this?  How can Ishmael be invisible and also everywhere?  I found interesting answers in Harold Bloom and Gnosticism.  From www.gnosis.org:

a second characteristic of Gnosticism…says Bloom, “is a knowing, by and of an uncreated self, or self-within-the self, and [this] knowledge leads to freedom….” Primary among all the revelatory perceptions a Gnostic might reach was the profound awakening that came with knowledge that something within him was uncreated. The Gnostics called this “uncreated self” the divine seed, the pearl, the spark of knowing: consciousness, intelligence, light. And this seed of intellect was the self-same substance of God…There was always a paradoxical cognizance of duality in experiencing this “self-within-a-self”. How could it not be paradoxical: By all rational perception, man clearly was not God, and yet in essential truth, was Godly.

From this we can define Melville/Ishmael’s journey as one of Gnostic self-knowledge, or gnosis.  Having witnessed traces of the uncreated self, he abandoned his life of affluence and comfort for a quest into the watery wastes, in search of a deeper knowing, of a more sensible emptiness.

Harold Bloom considers Gnosticism the religion of literature.  Here’s more illumination from the previous source:

Gnostic experience was mythopoetic: in story and metaphor, and perhaps also in ritual enactments, Gnosticism sought expression of subtle, visionary insights inexpressible by rational proposition or dogmatic affirmation. For the Gnostics, revelation was the nature of Gnosis.

Use this now to  read the apocryphal story of Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said, `I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out….He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.’

Jesus is Melville/Ishmael. His drink is the mythopoetic revelation called Moby-Dick, and, by engaging in his quest for knowing, hidden things are revealed to us. The character of Ishmael is, then, one that serves in the quest of self-knowledge.  He is a tool of the unification that is central to Gnostic teaching.

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)

All other quotes from: the Nag Hammadi Library

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

Upon first opening Melville’s Moby Dick, I was immediately struck by the etymology and quotation pages.  Although seemingly unimportant even after reading, once I began to delve into the pages of the actual novel, the pages began to gain more sense.  I was interested to see that almost all of the excerpts and much of the actual text refer to the whale as “leviathan”, rather than “whale” or any other descriptive word.  Interested, I did more research into the meaning and etymology of the word, and found that “leviathain” has a highly biblical background, stemming from the Hebrew word “levyatan” meaning twisted or coiled (ExperienceFestival.com).  Although it has many common uses, religiously the word has come to equal the ideas of Satan (mankind’s opposition to God) and more importantly, chaos: Psalm 74: 13-14 states

“It was You who drove back the sea with Your might, who smashed the heads of the monsters in the waters; it was You who crushed the heads of Leviathan, who left him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.” (OpenBible.info)

This general idea being that God defeated the Leviathan of the deep in order to create the earth according to his will (ExperienceFestival.com), I began to see references to attempted order in the text of Moby Dick itself; as if to combat the chaos of the whale itself, whalers create order where order does not inherently exist, both on land and by sea.

An interesting example of this forced order on land can be seen in the empty whalers’ graves in the New Bedford church:

 “Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among the flowers can say-here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these…. What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave.” (Melville 41)

            As these men have been lost ambiguously to the sea, their bodies were never recovered and given a proper Christian burial.  The families of these men attempt at closure and healing with these empty stones to signify the death of their loved ones, although as Ishmael so solemnly observes, “…In [the widows’] unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh” (Melville 41).  Thus, although there is little to do to prevent or eventually cope with the loss of a loved one at sea, these people try their best to make order.

            Although many small steps are taken to assure the most physical order at sea (exhaustive cataloging, skill ranking above race, the knight/squire relationships, etc.), the First Mate, Starbuck, makes the first announced attempt at mental order.  Se he says, “‘I will have no man in my boat…who is not afraid of a whale’” (Melville 125).  What he is saying, Ishmael observes, is that “the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril” (125), while “an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward” (125).  No order can be made from thoughtlessly barging into the dangerous situations that the crew is sure to encounter-thus, although the peril is inevitable, Starbuck hopes that his men will take his advice to heart, and approach the whale with reverent and controlled fear rather than an overconfident, passionate war cry.  

One of the ship owners, Captain Peleg, balances Starbuck by saying “No time to think about death [when the ship is sinking].  Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking of; and how to save all hands” (99).  So, between Starbuck and Peleg, a mental balance can be forged: calm reverence to avoid needless death, and quick thinking and bravery when death cannot be avoided.

 Works Cited:

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Northwestern University Press, 1988. Reissued 2003. Print.

“Leviathan.” Global Oneness. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. <http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Leviathan/id/515120>

“Whales: Related Bible Verses.” OpenBible.Info. Wed. 31 Jan. 2010. <http://www.openbible.info/topics/whales>

Melville courageously and yet tactfully utilizes the adventures of Ishmael to insert his own commentary regarding issues surrounding race in the 19^th century. He highlights common racial divides, scrutinizes widely accepted racial prejudices of the time, and proposes a renewed meaning of racial coexistence. However, Melville’s seemingly modern perception of race doesn’t fully escape the grasp of numerous race related social constructions.

Within the first 21 chapters of Moby Dick, Melville focuses his racial commentary around the budding friendship between Ishmael and his ‘peddler of heads’ bedfellow, Queequeg. A passage on page 48 from the chapter ‘A Bosom Friend’ in which Ishmael consciously commits to befriending Queequeg, highlights Ishmael’s ironic acceptance and to a certain extent curious appraisal of Queequeg as a racially dissimilar friend.

“Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face—at least to my taste—his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart…”

This passage exemplifies the fact that Melville’s notion of racial serenity doesn’t come without burdensome obstacles. In this passage Ishmael recognizes Queequeg as something beyond the color of his skin. He is able to identify ‘traces of a simple honest heart’ among other commendable traits. However, Ishmael persistently uses prejudicial labels such as ‘savage’, ‘unearthly’, and ‘pagan’ that prevent him from leveling with Queequeg as a human being. It is in this way that Melville conveys a conflicted message in terms of promoting racial equality.

The most interesting component of this passage is the surprising comparison Ishmael makes between Queequeg and George Washington.

“…but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington’s head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.”

As a reader, the reference to George Washington came as a surprise to me. I didn’t expect Ishmael to be willing to liken a ‘savage’ such as Queequeg to a man of such great historical and symbolic importance. However, this comparison remains confined to a physical similarity and not one that functions to elevate Queequeg to George Washington’s level of fame or respect. Additionally, Melville allows Ishmael to revert to his prejudicial tendencies by using the term ‘cannibalistically developed’, whatever that means, to define Queequeg.

As the book progresses and Ishmael and Queequeg’s friendship blossoms it will be interesting to see if Ishmael will be influenced to shed his seemingly natural racial discriminations and fully embrace Queequeg as a companion at sea.

Works Cited

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

Upon entering the exposition of Moby Dick with race in mind, the problem immediately presents itself of how to situate myself in relationship with the book. How do I navigate my reading of a novel that presents such a complex depiction of race? Which racist ideas to I attribute to Ishmael, and which to Melville, and how can I delineate between the two? It seems likely that in certain cases Melville gives Ishmael an overly prejudiced mindset in order to illuminate and strengthen the realization and rejection of these prejudices through Ishmael’s burgeoning friendship with Queequeg. Even so, what from my perspective may seem steeped in racism may in Melville’s have been highly progressive. Without endeavoring some kind of historically driven psychological reconstructivism, the best I can do seems to be to examine the novel through the words of Ishmael as Melville chose to tell it, making myself aware of the ideas communicated within their context when possible.

The glaring obstacle to straightforwardly applauding Melville’s forward thinking, is that Ishmael’s treatment of his great friend Queequeg, though certainly well intended and one of admiration, is one of objectification and dominance. Ishmael reconstructs Queequeg’s “broken” and implicitly inadequate telling of his story through his own frame

When a new hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two” (49)

In reading this we first of all must remember that within the narrative Ishmael heard this story quite some time ago, his relationship with Queequeg has already played out completely and this therefore reflects his feelings towards him not just at the time of its first telling but the sum of their interactions, and also that Ishmael presents it as a somewhat objective retelling. In the opening sentences Ishmael once again refers to Queequeg as a “savage”, repeatedly comparing him to animals, and even a plant. Overall we get the sense that Ishmael controls the power, specifically the power of language as he is retelling what he deemed Queequeg could not, a motif repeated often throughout the novel when Ishmael translates for Queequeg (with good intentions). The noble and redeeming ambition attributed to Queequeg that eventually leads to giving up his previous “cannibalistic” lifestyle is the ambition to see more of “Christendom” which I interpret both strictly as the Christian world, and also more widely as any part of the world worth really learning about, any part of the world with allying Christian morals. This desire shares an intimate connection with whaling, an early harbinger of Queequeg and Ishmael’s coming relationship as ‘partners of fate’ that is developed later in the novel.

I know I’m giving Ishmael a hard time, certainly Melville and his character are products of a different time, and they continually demonstrate an unhappiness with and wish to change the current state of race relations. I thought that Queequeg’s story about the mistaken finger bowl, and his noble act on the passage to Nantucket were two especially powerful sections supporting this by indicating (very loosely)a kind of cultural equality Queequeg’s individual goodness and ability to win over even the close-minded, ultimately giving Ishmael a healing faith in humanity. The mode through which this is communicated, (subjecting Queequeg to humor at his expense, multiple object-referential definitions, broad generalizations of all non-western peoples etc… ) remains problematic, but the tension between the wonderful progressive attitude, and deeply racist mindset of Melville and Ishmael gives us a singular reading from the modern perspective in which we are forced to examine psychological, historical, and linguistic forces, and the perspective through which we read is thrown into sharp relief. We read this novel with a varied awareness of influences on the author, text, and ourselves, are unable to read it otherwise, and the hermeneutics of the reading experience is brought to our attention in the process.

Descartes decided that “I think, therefore I am.” Ishmael believes that in order to think, one must first be, and in order to think well, one must be well as well. By examining the tradition of fasting, Melville connects ideas that are spiritual (religion) with a basis in the physical world, suggesting that the mind has a physical place in the body and treating the idea of the “mind” in a scientific way.

After Queequeg has spent days and nights fasting, Ishmael tries to discourage him from partaking in an activity which he perceives to be “stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense”(83). (I thought it was intersting that Hygiene was capitalized here, as if Melville would like to emphasize the hygiene is just as important as the religions that get capitalized.) Melville writes that

fasting makes the body cave in; hence the spirit caves in; and all thoughts must necessarily be half starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, says I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. (83)

Melville writing is suggestive, and he makes makes use of the idea of cause and effect, which is scientific in nature. If the body caves in, he writes, then the spirit caves in as well, implying that the body and spirit exist together, and that the state of one affects the state of the other. Melville recognizes that our existance has a physical, scientific basis in addition to a spiritual one.

 Melville’s tone funny and sarcastic here (“hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling.” ) He suggests that the mind and body are connected, that the spirit has a physical manifestation, and that our physical states also affect the mind. In this way, he adds science to religion; there would be no religion if we are not in a condition to believe in it, he suggests.

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

After the lecture last class, I found it interesting, looking back through the text, to notice how Melville includes bits of his own personal experience and outlook through the guise of Ishmael.  For instance, when Ishmael describes some impressions of Queepeg, he says,

“It was now quite plain that he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country.  I quaked to think of it.  A peddler of heads too – perhaps the heads of his own brothers.  He might take a fancy to mine – heaven!  look at that tomahawk! (21-22)”

This quote particularly strikes me because of the narrator’s absurdity, but importantly, I remembered learning how in 1841 during one of his voyages to the Pacific – possibly it was to the Marquesa islands – Melville himself feared being the victim of a cannibalistic attack.  It is rather interesting then to see how even though the author had suffered from this specific paranoia, he chooses an almost mocking tone in narrating Ishmael’s thoughts on the subject.   Perhaps by the time he was writing this book – about 10 years later – he had overcome this fear, or maybe it was through being humorous that he became more comfortable about it.

It was mentioned in class too that Melville’s first novel, Typee, written in 1845, was based on his trip to the Marquesa islands.  I find this interesting that he was able to create, or tell, so many stories from his few experiences at sea.  Surely they were of great returns.  This intrigues me as I sometimes think about how authors, whether they aim to write fictionally or autobiographically, are able  to reinvent through text their personal experiences.  I wonder what intentions Melville had of writing his experiences before he took his voyages.  He must have known he would be seeing and experiencing places and people that would be wholly new to him, but what’s fascinating to me is how his ruminations and observations are still being read and discussed today.

In the opening paragraph of the Moby Dick, Ishmael’s cherished relationship with the ocean is established. In the mysterious, and ominous introduction, our narrator invokes the sea as a healer of land-induced woes. When Ishmael feels grimness in his soul he retreats to the sea for solace and rejuvenation. The “watery part of the world” offers Ishmael a “substitute for pistol and ball” (Melville 1). The free-flowing movement of the sea seems to lull our narrator back into a more peaceful and quiet frame of mind.

His suicidal thoughts (or potentially murderous tendencies) are not attributed to anything specific, so it’s difficult to say if Ishmael believes the physical land to be at the root of his darkness, or whether he just finds the sea to be a retreat from his own personal demons (not in relation to the land itself). Regardless, his ocean solution is not commonplace, yet Ishmael speaks as if it is a very normal way to deal with depression. In fact, so normal that he feels “almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean…” (1).

Melville’s attempts to normalize the lifestyle of taking “to the ship” functions to alert readers to the important role the sea is going to play in the rest of the novel. In order for readers to access the tale they must adopt those feelings as well. Ishmael is looking to get out on the open water “as soon as [he] can,” but it’s not until the 22nd chapter that Melville finally takes us aboard the ship. This extended time spent on land offers readers a foundation for the inevitable ensuing contrast of life at sea.

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