Moby Dick

At first glance, chapter 57 (“Of Whales in Paint […]”) appears to be mainly about pictures and carvings of whales. However, Melville is actually making a much larger comment about nature and man’s role (and whale’s role) in it. Although there are many sections in the text in which Melville seems to address environmental concerns, this chapter makes several interesting connections between man and whales/nature. Melville describes how whales (in various forms) are found “cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea warwood,” and “[a]t some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung by the tail for knockers to the roadside door” (245). These whale portrayals have also been seen in “bony, ribby regions of the earth” and “in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights” (245). Melville seems to be pointing out how whales are a vital part of nature and the world, and their influence can be felt everywhere (even in landlocked mountainous regions). In this way, whales are not of vital concern only to the whalers or sailors, but rather to humanity. Clearly this text can be viewed as a struggle of humanity to overcome nature (Ahab comes to mind), yet Melville might be suggesting that humans should (and sometimes do) have a closer relationship to nature instead of merely attempting to conquer it. Melville even goes on to say that whales can be found in the stars:

Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish (246).

This passage is fascinating to me because it appears to provide a complicated account of whales and man’s relation to them. By seeing whales among the stars, Ishmael adds a mystical and mythical association to whales and places them in relation to ancient Greek myths about gods and battles in the skies. However, it is also implied that Ishmael sees these whales among the stars because he is so preoccupied with whaling and the search for Moby Dick. There is also an implication that Ishmael (and perhaps Melville) views whaling as a battle that has been waged for as long as man has set to sea. This makes it appear that whaling could be viewed as part of the natural cycle of the Earth and the heavens (a great circle and cycle that provides balance in nature). Could Melville be providing this passage as a way of showing that whaling has begun to spiral out of control, that this great natural balance is beginning to be lost? If whales can be found and seen almost everywhere on Earth (either alive or artfully represented), what does it mean for man to hunt them (perhaps to the brink of extinction)? Is Melville commenting on how humans have gone from being a part of nature to attempting to conquer and destroy it?

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