Moby Dick

It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. (181)

What struck me about this quote was that it was not the size or ferociousness of the whale, Moby Dick, that terrified Ishmael but the whale’s “whiteness”. It was as if this was the first time in his life that whiteness was not purely innocent.  Instead the idea of whiteness held a foreboding and almost evil connotation.  Ishmael continues by stating, “Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty; as if imparting some special virtue of its own.” (181) Thus if whiteness is all that “enhances beauty”, what is darkness? Furthermore, if whiteness is associated with all that is noble and innocent, is it not a rationalization and justification of the enslavement of men who are not white but instead another color?  Personally, I do not believe that that was what Melville was attempting to convey. Rather, Ishmael’s realization that whiteness could possibly be corrupted is frightening awakening.  He writes,

But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous – why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay the very veil of the Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind. (188)

Especially, Ishmael’s recognition, that “whiteness” could be an “agent in things the most appalling to mankind”. (188) Clearly, that is a direct reference to slavery.  Whiteness and white men had committed one of the most horrific crimes of mankind by enslaving fellow men merely based on the color of their skin.  Thus whiteness was not an “emblem of many touching, noble things” but that of immoral customs and practices.  (181)  Is the great white whale a symbol of America’s strength and perverted morality?  Are we supposed to see through the majestic “whiteness” of the whale and realize all the horrors it has committed, as seen with Ahab’s missing leg?

Perhaps what is most terrifying to Ishmael is the realization that he has sworn an oath to his captain that he at all costs will hunt and execute the white whale.  He writes,

I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul…With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge. (171)

Thus it is the realization that all he has believed to be pure and innocent, due to its “whiteness”, perhaps is evil and must be slain.  In the same light, did Melville not have the same realization about his own whiteness in relation to the horrors of slavery? Was he not appalled that his fellow man could not see through the immoral business of human trafficking? Finally, is the white whale a symbol of American greed?

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