Moby Dick

So far no one has written about Chapter 64, “Stubb’s Supper”, which I find surprising because it contains the character who is more like a slave than any other in the novel—Fleece. Not only does Fleece sound like Buckwheat, making him sound stereotypically ignorant, but his behavior reflects this as well, as most of the chapter is Fleece indulging Stubb’s every whim. Often, this is a humiliating experience:

There are those sharks now over the side, don’t you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to ‘em; tell ‘em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and deliver my message. [Herman Melville, Moby Dick]

Fleece proceeds to deliver a “sermon” to the sharks, first accepting them as his fellow creatures, but in the end damning them for making a racket. All the while Stubb is standing over his shoulder, laughingly goading the poor old man on. For instance, Stubb tells Fleece “you mustn’t swear that way when you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert sinners, cook!” Though usually jovial, if not magnanimous, here Stubb acts quite viciously. Perhaps he thinks he is just having fun, but to toy with a man half-a-century your senior is highly out of line and blatantly disrespectful. In short, it’s the kind of thing that is only socially acceptable in an exchange between a master and his slave, for only in this relationship does the victimized party have no recourse.

When Stubb tires of this game, he proceeds to his original purpose of criticizing Fleece’s whale-cooking abilities. After all, he didn’t wake Fleece in the middle of the night  for nothing. Rather than simply saying “my steak is overdone, Fleece”, Stubb impulsively toys with Fleece beforehand:

“Well,” said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; “I shall now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, cook?””,

“What dat do wid de ‘teak,” said the old black, testily.

“Silence! How old are you, cook?”

“’Bout ninety, dey say,” he gloomily muttered.

“Silence!” is ordered, and a reluctant answer given. Are we so sure there are no slaves on board the Pequod? This exchange continues until Stubb reveals his sadism:

Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don’t you?

Not only did Stubb rudely awake Fleece just to complain about his cooking, but he actually enjoyed the cooking! No wait, he hated it so much that he had to eat it as quickly as possible. After all, when I’m presented with a nice, big plate of Brussels sprouts, I am so repulsed by the sight of them that I panic and eat them all very rapidly, forgetting that I can simply compost the little cabbages. I believe that these quotes speak for themselves, and I hope that my peers will in turn weigh in on the question of whether or not Fleece is a slave.

Ishmael’s farewell to Queequeg in “Queequeg in His Coffin” is fascinating and revealing in our studying of their specific relationship and the relationships between men in Moby Dick. Melville’s writing in this chapter is beautiful, stirring, and emotional. Ishmael goes well beyond feeling mere sympathy for Queequeg in his weakened, feverish state, as he acknowledges the connection that has formed between him and his “poor pagan companion, and bosom friend, Queequeg” (425). I find Ishmael’s use of the expression “bosom friend” unusual, because, while fairly common in the nineteenth century, it was more traditionally applied to friendships between women. For instance, I recall Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables being a particular fan of the saying when she spoke of her relationship with Diana Barry. Then again, the dynamic between Ishmael and Queequeg has always defied traditional gender roles, as we can remember from their nights of sleeping together as if man and wife before even boarding the Pequod.

Yet, despite Ishmael’s undeniable closeness to and affection for Queequeg, he continues to describe his companion as a pagan, as a savage, as an “Other.” He again emphasizes the tattoos that cover the harpooner’s body; as his body shrinks away, Ishmael claims that “there seemed to be little left of him, but his frame and tattooing” (425). Going even further to Orientalize his friend and cast him outside traditional white culture, Ishmael compares the dying Queequeg to a slimy lizard!: “The tattooed savage was crawling about amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom of a well” (425). However, as we have come to expect, Ishmael is often full of contradictions. He observes the softness and mildness that Queequeg exudes in his sickened state. Also, while some of these passages indicate that Ishmael continues to view his culture as superior, he exhibits at least some respect and reverence for the culture of the Other a bit deeper into the chapter: “[Queequeg] had learned that all whaleman who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form the white breakers of the milk way” (426). This is easily one of the most beautifully worded images in the entire novel. It proves that Ishmael does have it in him, perhaps more so than a typical white American, to treat the traditions and practices of a foreign culture with delicateness and understanding. He even bridges the cultures by correlating a custom held for dead whalers in Queequeg’s world and a custom held for dead whalers in Nantucket. Considering the intimacy of Ishmael and Queequeg, I would have expected more of this language from our narrator by this point in the novel. Despite the bonds of male-to-male friendship, some judgment, ignorance, and racism inevitably remain.

I also found it fitting that Queequeg wants to be buried alongside his harpoon in his coffin-like canoe. Even though the fever weakens him and brings him within an inch of death, he demands that it not emasculate him. Being buried with his weapon honors his hard work during life as a whaling harpooner and reaffirms his masculinity. This is interesting considering that Queequeg is often feminized and portrayed as crossing the typical gender divide more so than the other sailors on the Pequod. But again asserting his manliness, the harpooner immediately calls for his weapon when he recovers (out of nowhere, seemingly) from his fever. He practically returns from the dead and wants to rejoin the battle within seconds: “He suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms and legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then springing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself fit for a fit” (429). The harpooner is back!

I posted to the environment, nature category on the Spirit Spout. My post was entiteled “which is worse?”

Similar to rymosser, I noticed quite clearly the strange power of the sea in the Spirit Spout chapter but in a different place;  while they remarked early in their post on the incredible danger and uncontrollable power of nature and of the sea rendering the men silent, for me, I found it fascinating that the absence of activity and the silence in this chapter create both extreme calm and extreme apprehension:

“These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which…there lurked a devilish charm…all space seemed vacating itself of life before our…prow. But, at last…the Cape winds began howling around us…then all this vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before.” (p. 226)

This passage in my mind mirrors the narrators thought from earlier: “…there reigned…a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treachorously beckoning us on…in order that the monster might turn round upon us.” In both of these, there is such a bizarre relationship with nature and the peace of the sea. With the spirit spout, the crew feels perpetually led on, teased; they appear to WANT to reach this spout which they beleive must belong to Moby Dick. Yet the prospect of being suddenly right by the whale’s side and its aggression is not only frightening, it collapses time and space so that one minute the spout is blowing by the horizon, the next we have the image of a fierce attacking whale right at the ship’s side. In a way this upholds the idea of something inhuman and divine about the spirit spout which even at a distance seems to play with space and time. This fear of the whale suddenly bearing down upon the Peqoud is the darker element of the whale’s godly power. But at a distance or within reach- which is worse? This is the same question with the weather. The calm, serene emptiness, the vacuity of sea stretching before them is a torment, it seems almost unbearable, yet when the storm comes and we beleive it will be a releif, that it mimght fill the crushing void for these men, the narrator/Ishmael suggests it is only more “dismal than before”. In this way, our sense of balance and even of reality is shifted: rather than ‘good’ and ‘bad’ existing in contrast to each other, the levels of despair and misfortune only extend downward. And this, again, in my opinion, can be interpreted back in the spatial relationship of ship and whale: with Moby Dick at a distance and the expanse of calm sea in between, the men are caught in a perpetual, terrifying and frustrating purgatory, yet the alternative appears perhaps far worse.

“… I struck my first whale- a boy-harpooner of eighteen! Forty-forty-forty years ago! –ago! Forty years of continual whaling! Forty years of privation, and peril, and stormtime! Forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore.” (519)

This touching monologue by Ahab presents several questions.  Should “work” just be a job or lifetime passion? And how much should one sacrifice for that passion and work?  Is there a point when work devours the individual and leaves nothing behind?  Obviously Ahab is reflecting upon his life and asks himself if his time at sea has been worth all of the sacrifices or if it has been a waste.  He states, “…bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs…” (519) It is as though, until this point, he watched his life sail by without taking notice of all the things he forsook for the sea and now feels depressed about everything that could have been if he had been a little more aware.  He has given up hope, on life, on this voyage.  Virtually he sacrificed his youth, his family, his peaceful and his leg for the sea.  He begs to ask himself, “How the richer or better is Ahab now?” (519) Now at the end of his days, was it all worth it?

Perhaps part of the monologue is for the benefit of Starbuck, who is the only one witnessing Ahab’s emotional break down.  Ahab must see Starbuck as a younger, less crazed, version of himself.  Starbuck has a wife and a child.  Ahab is thus demonstrating what could possibly happen to Starbuck if he forsook his family for the sea.  It is a warning of a life lost, a life spent wandering the sea in search of meaning that very well could be found on land.

But even though Ahab recognizes all the failures of his life (his virtually widowed wife and fatherless child), he is unwilling to give up on the search for the white whale.  Starbuck offers him the opportunity to head home, to see his family, to experience a peaceful life ashore.  If Ahab abandons the search for Moby Dick now, it possibly be seen as yet another failure in his life.  He must finish and accomplish this one goal.  But I believe that Ahab acknowledges that the voyage and the whale may be his end.  Thus is his passion for the sea, his passion for whaling, were they worth everything that he gave up? Or is part of Ahab’s madness due to the fact that his life is so singular, so focused on the hunt for whales?

I have already spent two posts attempting to reconcile Melville’s ostensibly racist language with the belief that he was not at all racist, and the more I delve into the subject, the more I ask, “What the hell, Herman?” He writes chapter after chapter about how wonderful Queequeg and the other savages are, and then this kind of thing happens once again:

You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea… [Herman Melville, Moby Dick]

Somehow the harpooners are paragons of moral character and physical strength, and yet Queequeg is a dancing-ape? Now I grant that the rope is called a monkey-rope no matter who is tied to the business end, but this analogy deserves a look-see. The problem I have with this passage is that Queequeg is the one in control. Ishmael states that “should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honour demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake.” Should Ishmael not be the ape? The one whose life lies in the hands of another’s actions? But no, Queequeg is the ape. I find it all too plausible that Melville simply thought that comparing a white man to an ape would be unrealistic when there’s a perfectly good savage you can use in his stead.

The irony of this is realized in the very next paragraph, where Ishmael states that he is both “wedded” and the “twin brother” of Queequeg. Further, there is not even a whiff of resentment on Ishmael’s part that he is connected to a black man. Pretend for a moment that one of the racist townspeople from To Kill A Mockingbird was transposed into Ishmael’s place. All one would hear is a stream of bigoted expletives at Starbuck or Stubbs about how it is most unnatural to tie together the fates of a white man and a lowly negro. Thus, while portraying black people as simian, Melville also implies that there is no difference in the value of a black person’s and white person’s life. This point is evidenced by Ishmael’s train of thought on the following pages. Rather than complain about the injustice of his situation, he instead discusses the tenuousness of life. To Ishmael, the relevant fact is that his life is in someone else’s hands; the color of those hands is irrelevant.

“The Forge” makes for an intriguing chapter regardless of the critical lens being used to analyze the text. When thinking about the narration in the story it is important to pay very careful attention to Melville’s choice of words as this gives us insight into how the given narrative voice feels about the scene. Through this, if the reader takes the description of the scene in “The Forge” seriously and analyzes specific word choices there can be seen indicators of where Melville intends to take the plot of the story and how he feels about the characters involved.

It is interesting to note the adjectives Ahab uses to describe the intended quality of this harpoon. Ahab wants to “…make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the icy sea”, which conjures up interesting images. Though the scene of the forge is fiery and dark, the weapon itself is to be forged to be as powerful as the cold. I feel that in this word choice Melville is hinting at many possible conclusions to be drawn about the text. In Dante’s “Inferno” Satan himself sits in the lowest circle of hell encased not in flames like the rest of hell, but instead in ice. It is possible that Melville is hinting at the fact that Moby Dick is Satan himself because he resides in the icy sea, and Ahab’s madness has caused him to sell his soul and is using the power of evil in an attempt to fight another evil. Equally likely, and just as ominous, is that Ahab is actually intended to be the personification of Satan, and through the use of his cold weaponry he intends to do battle with God, Moby Dick.

When the reader takes into consideration that there is a quote from Paradise Lost inserted into the novel by Melville it makes the possibility of Ahab being linked to Satan even more likely. But then what can the reader make of the harpooners’ involvement in the scene? We have no reason to think that Queequeg is satanic, and even though he clearly does not follow the church Melville goes out of his way to present Queequeg in such a positive way throughout the whole novel that one should certainly be more inclined to associate him with the holy than the satanic. In light of this I would like to make a claim that I understand will be rather controversial. I believe that Melville inserted the harpooners into the scene to show that their association with Paganism did not make them unholy, but instead to show that a faith other than Christian Protestantism lends itself to having a greater chance of unintentional corruption. Notice that Ahab offers a benediction over the baptized harpoon in Latin, a language associated with Catholicism as opposed to Protestantism. This action seems to “other” the people involved in the scene by showing that while those involved may be similar to the others on the ship, gathered in this room are the people that reject determinism. Dagoo, Tashtego, Queequeg, Ahab, and Pip. While these characters all fall on different ends of the “good and evil” spectrum it is undeniable that there is something not Protestant about all of them for their own unique reasons.

I am fascinated by the possibility of this being Melville’s intent in writing this section of “The Forge”. What could this possibly mean for the rest of the novel? I frankly can not sort out in my mind what Melville is trying to say about determinism when we see both good and evil characters coming together sharing in this aspect of non-protestant faith. Perhaps this is what Melville wants the reaction of the reader to be. After all, is determinism a good thing or a bad thing? Free will is kind of a burden isn’t it? Would a loving God place the weight of free will on the shoulders of believers? That is definitely something I can’t answer in two pages!

The title of our last lecture, “The Beginning of the End,” got me thinking of The Doors’ epic song “The End,” which lays the chilling soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, which – lo and behold – is about the mission of a ship and crew, and one man’s path to insanity.  Coppola’s interpretation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) is one of my favorite films, and his portrayal of insanity one of the most intriguing I have seen on screen.  So I got to thinking about just how good the 2010 movie Moby Dick could be with the strikingly similar Apocalypse Now serving as inspiration.

It would undoubtedly star Daniel Day Lewis as Captain Ahab.  Lewis’s performance in There Will Be Blood (2007) as the monomaniacal oil tycoon Daniel Plainview seemed almost like a tryout for this historic role.  His character even sported a limp after a leg injury early in the movie (sound familiar?), rejected religion while likening himself to God, and severed his ties to his family (see the video below).

As for the rest of the crew, Coppola’s 1979 cast starring Martin Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, and Dennis Hopper among others would be hard to beat.  But with Edward Norton (Fight Club, The Illusionist) playing the philosophical Ishmael and Djimon Hounsou (Gladiator, Blood Diamond) as Queequeg, this cast would find its sea legs soon enough.

The object of the mission in Apocalypse Now is to kill Walter Kurtz, a former U.S. Green Beret who has been driven insane and is in the middle of the Vietnam jungle, the heart of darkness.  In what you might call the “beginning of the end” of the film, Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) says:

I’ve seen horrors… horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that… but you have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror… Horror has a face… and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends.

In Moby Dick, similarly just before the end, Ahab spouts:

What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it, what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? (564)

In both Apocalypse Now and Moby Dick, the insane character is killed at the end.  In the former, Kurtz’s death represents a mission accomplished by the crew, while in the latter, Ahab takes everyone but Ishmael down with him.  After seeing some clips from prior film versions of Moby Dick and knowing how performative Melville’s text can be (as displayed by Ahab’s dramatic monologue above), I can only imagine what Francis Ford Coppola and Daniel Day Lewis could do with it.

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

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/

At last! After 132 chapters of talking about and endlessly searching for him, we finally have encountered Moby Dick in the flesh. Up to this point, Melville has not really provided us with a lengthy description or compared Moby Dick to a mythological figure or concrete object as he has with so many other characters; the whale is simply an unknowable god-like entity. But in the first chase chapter, Melville finally provides us with a description of the white whale. He writes,

A gentle joyousness—a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam. (Melville 596).

Melville likens Moby Dick to the king of gods, Jupiter, but in the form of a “white bull.” Melville is referencing the story of Europa, a beautiful Phoenician princess who was abducted by Jupiter. Jupiter fell in love with Europa and disguised himself as bull; he convinced her to get onto his back and then proceeded into the sea and swam to the island of Crete. I think that Melville references this story, not simply to imbue Moby Dick with a god-like aura and divine qualities, but also because it emphasizes the whale’s seductive powers over Ahab. While the story of Europa and Jupiter is not indistinguishable from Ahab and Moby Dick, there are certain parallels between the two. Much like the white bull, Moby Dick has this intriguing and irresistible quality that Ahab can not ignore; he has been consumed by this whale for the past year and has so to speak, climbed onto Moby Dick’s back and followed him half way around the world.

“Faith, sir, I’ve –”

“Faith?  What’s that?”

“Why faith, sir, it’s only a sort of exclamation-like–that’s all, sir.”

(Melville, 467)

In chapter 127, “The Deck,” the carpenter is working on caulking the new life buoy.  While he and Ahab are talking, the carpenter starts answering Ahab’s question with “faith,” and Ahab reacts by picking apart the carpenter’s words.   Then the carpenter tries to backpedal by saying that it was simply a meaningless expression.  I feel that Melville didn’t include this passage just to have an amusing joke about language.  All of the characters, especially Ahab, have had crises of faith, and this moment briefly highlights their struggles.

For many of the sailors, Starbuck in particular, Christian faith is a simple, natural thing.  Even the non-Christian sailors had faith:  the most prominent is Queequeg with his little black god.  And if they had not had any kind of faith before seeing Moby Dick, by the second day of the chase they have faith in “Ahab, their one lord” (492) — “the hand of Fate had snatched all their souls” and they faithfully follow orders.  (491)

For Ahab, his faith has been redirected several times.  He probably started out as a devout Christian, but then he changed focus to Moby Dick and to fate.  By the second day he proclaims, “I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act under orders.” (497)  He relinquishes all authority and control of his actions, simply bowing to what he calls “the Fates.”

The only character who does not consistently have faith in something is Ishmael.  He starts on land as a Christian, but after his meeting with Queequeg and his experiences on the Pequod, he beings to question his beliefs about religion, race, and gender.  By the end of the novel, I think Ishmael is as confused about “the truth” as the reader is.

The only character who has no faith is the character who survives.  I think that besides needing a plausible way for Ishmael to be able to tell this story, Melville wants to show that blind faith is a bad guide.  Ahab has blind faith in fate, and that ends up killing almost everyone on the ship.  But the crew also has blind faith in (or at least are blind followers of) Ahab.  A mutiny would have saved their lives, even if it had meant committing murder; but the crew just follows orders.  Ishmael is able to save himself because he does not have faith in anyone but himself.

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