Feb 06 2010
The Brutality of the Pequod’s Fated Pariahs
The Brutality of the Pequod’s Fated Pariahs
‘Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals – morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, soofficered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge.’ (Melville 180)
All the men under Ahab’s mad quest, the so-called mongrel renegades, castaways, and cannibals, share what Ishmael recognizes as a certain status of pariahdom. Outcast from the security of land and thrown into the danger of the seas, they participate in the particularly inelegant activity of whaling, reinforcing their outsider status.
Melville’s brilliance lies in his subtle indictment of the savageries of whaling and of Ahab’s monomania, the subtlety inhering in the device of using beautiful prose to ameliorate violent scenes. The description of the demise of the whale Stubb kills in Chapter 61 is evocative of this device. As the whale bled, ‘the slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men.’ (Melville 278) The violence visited upon the whale is projected back to the whalers themselves, exposing their iniquities, at least as seen through the eyes of Ishmael. When the whale finally dies, the bloody scene is deceptively rendered in seemingly pleasant language; ‘At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frightened air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea.’ (Melville 279) Melville’s descriptive powers perhaps make these scenes palatable to the reader, but in conveying this false sense of tranquility, they paradoxically foreshadow portents (the calm before the storm, so to speak)
It is important to note that Ahab’s physicality and his vindictive quest is not euphemized. Perhaps we are supposed to maintain some modicum of sympathy for the ship’s subalterns, while focusing on Ahab’s monomania, which is amplified by the contrast in prose.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Signet Classic, 1998.
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Reading this post, I was reminded of the post under Whaling, The Merits of Whaling by anrobinson. That post discusses Melville’s defense of the whaling profession, how he compares it to soldiers. How does that compare to this description of a ragtag group of men, misfits committing acts of unpleasant violence? Perhaps the description of the whale’s death (‘At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frightened air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea.’ (Melville 279)) that you reference gives a hint. In comparing gore to wine, Melville seems to glorify it, and perhaps then connect it to the glorious bloodiness of being a soldier. This tension between the noble whalers and the savagery of their task is really interesting in this book, and I like how this post looks at the odd outcast crew next to the violence they commit, connecting the men to the deed.