Feb 21 2010
Strange lands
Chapter 87. “The Grand Armada” begins with a description of the Pequod’s surroundings, namely the straits of Sunda, a known whaling haven that contains not only the danger of the seas but also of the local inhabitants. Melville clearly delineates an East vs. West binary, where the actual physical landscape “should bear the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping western world.” While he dismisses the Western tradition of homage in sailing past foreign land, and credits the locals in Southeast Asia with ignoring this idea, he presents the culture as one of savagery and piracy. However, his anti-Western rhetoric suggests that their actions are in some ways valid, though they still serve as an additional danger to the crew of the Pequod.
Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they have received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.
In the context of these external pressures, Melville describes how a whaling ship, devoid of cargo and singleminded in its pursuit of leviathons, manages such a long trip among hostile conditions.
She has a whole lake’s contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with utilities… She carries years’ water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which, when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafter off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may have gone to China from New York and back again, touching at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like themselves.
The sea dominates the novel, but as a source of water it is utterly useless. With the dangers inherent in landing for supplies, it makes more sense to carry a massive amount of water from your home port. On one hand, this adds to both the community of the ship as well as the pressure on that community to coexist without taking breaks from constant travel on the sea. On the other hand, this reference to Nantucket and the home port somewhat contradicts the nature of those on board. The water may be palatable and the preference while at sea, but many in the crew are aboard because of the escape that whaling provides and the unique motivations that drive them away from the safety of land. In their most basic needs, however, they do rely exclusively on Nantucket water. These background passages by Melville serve to further define the community of the whale-ship, and its relationship to one place in particular when “the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world.”
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Ryan, this is a truly interesting post, as it takes up two very big, but related, ideas: the East-West binary (or, American, non-American binary), and the issue of water. Your attention to the passage about how the water aboard ship is from the homeport, thereby sealing the sailors into their vessel completely without any need for stopping on non-American soil, is good, and suggests a connection between the sailors reaching the straits of Sunda (with the inherent dangers of “cannibals” and “corsairs” and the perceived safety of the ship. This is good because it makes the reader think about the falsity of the insularity of the ship — it IS a floating nation, complete with its own American water store, but it is NOT invincible or invulnerable to attack from the outside. Like any nation, it cannot exist in a vacuum, relying upon itself exclusively. We like to think that we, in the 21st century, are global thinkers living in a global world — but Melville knew full well that America was part of a global economy, and that the worst political mistake a nation could make was to think of itself as truly exceptional to the point of exclusion.