Moby Dick

From chapters 109 to 127, science is losing the battle against Ahab, faith, and insanity. In chapter 118, the quadrant, a navigational device, fails. With time, Ahab begins to gain confidence, lose perspective, and turn to his own intuition over time-tested methods of navigation based on reason and science. Some of the crew, such as Starbuck, notice this transformation but do little to materially stop its progression.

“Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things that cast man’s eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O sun!… Curse thee, thou quadrant!… No longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship’s compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye… thus I trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!” (444)

But even the log and the line fail to guide Ahab, as we see after the compass fails in chapter 124. In chapter 125, Ahab says, “I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles [of the compass], and now the mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all.” (461)

The systematic failure of the three navigational instruments shows how Ahab and his focused insanity begins filling the gaps when science or reason even begin to falter. In this instance, Melville seems to be showing how it is easy to let emotion, faith, or ego take the place of science when convenient. The general sense of foreboding (much of which is communicated by Starbuck) makes me think Melville is trying to say that despite the temptation, science should be respected and used as the primary tool for navigation. This could be seen as a metaphor for navigation in life for anyone – that people should embrace reason when making important decisions over faith, emotion, and other alternatives. Given Melville’s Calvinist upbringing, he probably did not fully subscribe to the above philosophy but most would agree that Ahab has taken his power seizure too far and that a healthy, brave step backwards and appeal to reason would do the Pequod’s crew and Ahab a world of good.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008

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