Moby Dick

After spending today’s class talking about Melville’s ecocentricism (or lack thereof), I would like to point out some religious connections with his love of nature. I personally believe that Melville did “worship” all living things under the sun. It is for this reason that Ishmael spends so much time analyzing the ferocity and grandeur of the whale by describing the shape of it’s head and other anatomically symbolic attributes. This love for all nature, to me, is part of Ishmael’s religious perspective because he believes all creatures were created by God and we are as menacing to nature as nature is to us.

In chapter 66, The Shark Massacre, this sentiment is evident. In the first few lines, Ishmael describes such violent and ferocious creatures as “wondrous” and “vigorous” (271). When Queequeg and Stubb begin killing the sharks with whaling spades, Ishmael refers to it as a murder. He slightly humanizes the sharks even though they are menacing, violent, and eating the whale attached to the ship. The language Ishmael uses is also very unsure. When he describes the sharks being stabbed in the skulls, he calls the brains the “seemingly only vital part,” “entrails seemed swallowed,” and “a generic vitality seemed to lurk in what might be called the individual life” (272). Ishmael’s uncertainty proves that he, or Melville, believes nature should not be tampered with, and humans do not know as much as we think about other species. This connects to our discussion on global warming as well: since we are the “dominant and most developed” species on the planet, we think we can conquer and understand everything that is foreign to us.

From this passage I infer that Melville believes men should stick to what they know and leave alone what is out of their hands. God created all creatures to peacefully coexist, and he did not intend for men to disrupt the system as Queequeg and Stubb did. Ishmael has faith that God made all of nature with equal intent, and Ishmael trusts God’s decision. Queequeg, on the other hand, does not. At the end of the chapter he acknowledges this sentiment: “Queequeg no care what god made him shark, wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one damn Ingin” (272).

In class we also brought up the common sentiment, especially present in Ahab, that nature is malevolent to humans. Ishmael/Melville clearly do not believe this if Ishmael is personifying sharks. In this regard the narrator thinks that it is selfish for men to claim such a high status in a world of things created equally. God made the sharks just as he made us, therefore the sharks find us just as malevolent toward them as we think they are toward us. This view of creation is very philosophical and very optimistic, but it is not surprising considering Ishmael’s tendency to philosophize everything. For once, his religious perspectives are happy and trustworthy.

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