Moby Dick

In Chapter 70, entitled The Sphynx, Ishmael describes the process by which the massive head of a sperm whale is decapitated and hung alongside the Pequod, “buoyed up by its native element”, i.e. , floating in the water (249). Ishmael describes, “It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert” (249).  The Sphinx, in Egyptian mythology was looked upon as a guardian of temples and the secrets that lay within them. In Greek mythology the Sphinx was sent to Thebes by the the Gods and would pose a riddle to those who wished to pass by and would kill those who failed to answer correctly. The Sphinx is represented not only as a guardian but also as a bearer of wisdom.

Ahab stares over the side of the ship at the head of the whale. He begins to speak to the decapitated head as if it were “the Sphinx of the Seas”, so to speak, the keeper of some ancient and vast knowledge of the deep, and of the horrors which have unfolded within it. A knowledge which itself reveals real truth. Ahab says:

. . .Speak mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all the divers, thou hast dived the deepest . . . thou hast has been where bell or diver never went . . . Oh head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham . . .” (249).

The whale is conceived as something which has persisted throughout the ages and has come to an understanding of the intricacies of our world’s mechanisms; they have come to see and grasp the way in which the inner-cogs governing the its functioning.  Ahab, representative of mankind, deeply desires and struggles fruitlessly to attain this wisdom, admits that if even the most righteous man (e.g., Abraham) were to ever gain insight into these truths, he would be driven to evil. The attaining of the unattainable would be catastrophic. Although… doesn’t the search itself lead man partake in evil?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx

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