Moby Dick

As I was reading, a section of the text that stood out to me was chapter 115, “The Pequod meets the Bachelor”, and the two preceding ones, “The Forge” and “The Gilder.” Together, these chapters present the paradoxes in the crew’s relationship with the sea and with Ahab, demonstrating the depths of Ahab’s madness and the particular nature of the community on board. In “The Forge”, Ahab baptizes the three harpooners in the name of the devil, using the harpoon reserved for Moby Dick. Once again Melville clarifies the obsession and the crew’s entanglement with Ahab. After this brief but intense scene, chapter 114, “The Gilder”, is quiet and meditative, focused on the sea. As the Pequod settles into a rhythm, even though they are unsuccessful Ishmael notes that these are the times that whalers relax and enjoy the majesty of the ocean.

… These are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brillancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie…”

This introspective chapter focuses on the idea that to the whalers, the sea becomes like land to most people. It feels like home, a natural environment full of beauty. The danger that is often so close can seem so distant, and the mystical feeling that it inspires in the crew helps to partially explain why they were drawn to whaling. Starbuck and Stubb both also comment on the sea, Starbuck exclaiming, “Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s eye!- Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.” Stubb, for his part, claims that “I am stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!” For Stubb and even the rational Starbuck, the sea is a powerful influence that they cannot hate regardless of the danger, for on some level being out at sea fulfills them.

At this point, the Pequod meets the Bachelor. The Bachelor, essentially a foil to the Pequod, has had remarkable luck resulting in a ridiculous amount of sperm on board, which translates directly into money and success at home.  Nantucket is also home for the Bachelor, and the crew and ship were exuberantly heading directly there. After the intensity of “The Forge” and the melencholy of “The Gilder”,

This glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge try-pots… On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat, firmly secured aloft between the fore-mast and main-mast, three Long Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious jig.

During this brief chapter, Melville tears down the massive edifice of the Pequod’s internal dynamics by offering such a stark contrast. There are even girls on the ship, opening up the omnipresent theme of masculinity on the Pequod. Ahab, of course, asks the captain about the White Whale. “‘No; only heard of him; but don’t believe in him at all,’ said the other good-humoredly. ‘Come aboard.'” Melville presents Ahab and his crew with a very clear alternative: forget about Moby Dick, embrace life, do your job, and go home. Ahab refuses, and Melville describes the “grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor” of the crew, which stands against the proclaimed love for the sea by those in the previous chapter. Even Ahab is revealed to still have a connection to Nantucket, for he carries a vial of sand with him. However, it appears that for Ahab at least that vial is enough to sustain his need for land and home. For the crew, these are moments of extreme conflict, as they are confronted by Ahab’s obsession, their draw to the sea, and their draw towards home. The Bachelor, as a chance encounter in the open sea, demonstrates that things are not necessarily fated towards disaster, but that men ultimately determine their own fate.

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