Moby Dick

Ishmael makes it clear in the beginning of the novel that he is suffering from a sense of melancholy that is leading him towards thoughts involving a gun, whether this is a statement of suicidal or homicidal intent is up for debate, but what is certain is that Ishmael is experiencing deep despair. He hopes to remedy his feelings of sadness by giving himself fully to back breaking work upon a whaling vessel. This is not an uncommon means of dealing with internal struggle. I cannot help but be reminded of Levin from Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” when the issue of escaping internal conflict through labor is discussed. I feel that Ishmael’s attempt to escape melancholy through means of labor is in contrast to Levin even though their actions are outwardly similar.

When looking to Ishmael’s statements in Chapter 35 “The Mast Head” we see that Ishmael is not able to escape from his internal demons as he spends all of the time he has to himself in deep contemplation. Levin feels deep despair and attempts to deal with his feelings by retreating to the countryside and working along with his serfs. Once Levin is out in nature he is able to focus all of his energy on mowing grass and he feels a great weight lifted from his shoulders because he finds a simple purity in manual labor that lets him escape the inner turmoil he cannot deal with otherwise. Ishmael responds to despair in a similar way, but it is inwardly very different. Ishmael goes on a whaling ship to partake in physical labor, but he does so in hopes that he can hand over his will and actions to the captain of the ship, losing himself of the responsibility he has over his life. As a result his mind feels no weight lifted from it. Instead when he has long periods of time to himself he finds the same melancholy that had plagued him on land. This is because Ishmael seeks a different kind of freedom in labor, and this is freedom from determining what he is to do with his physical self. The whaling vessel does nothing to lift stress from his mind. Ishmael lives in a society where there is a heavy feeling of fate that permeates all he does. In giving his body over to an outside source he likely hopes he can trick himself into feeling like he is going through the actions that are determined for him without needing to waste his mental energies on deciding what those actions should be. As a result Ishmael’s method of escaping his despair is one that forces him to dwell in his sadness and perhaps is a way for him to try to sort everything out from within.

We therefore see that Levin and Ishmael deal with stress differently because of their cultures. Levin hopes to use labor to focus his mind on something that is physically draining but not stressful, and Ishmael hopes to use labor to save his mind for thinking about the things that make him sad and to try to deal with these things since his mind is not needed for menial tasks. Ishmael feels that he must act this way because as far as he is concerned he has a fate looming over him of which he cannot predict, and it is this fate that he hopes to understand more about through inward meditation. For Ishmael this meditation can only be achieved with work.

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