Moby Dick

Let me start by saying I don’t get Bartleby. At all – similar to the narrator. But what I do know is that trying to figure him out, an almost un-human human in any social sense, with the emotions more normal people experience will fail to hit the mark. The few glimpses we get of Bartleby’s interactions are intepreted by the narrator and in them he ascribes his own his own ideas of what he would intend in a given situation to what Bartleby did in the given situation. This is most apparent when the narrator attempts to analyze Bartleby’s actions. Reacting to Bartleby staying in the office after he was fired,

Turning the man out by an actual thrusting I could not; to drive him away by calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police was an unpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumph over me, – this too I could not think of.

The last part of the sentence is most important. If Bartleby really is cadaverous, it is hard for me to believe that he enjoys some perverse pleasure in subverting his boss’s authority. Even if there is a lurking desire and motive under his show of indifference, it seems to be self-interested. Bartleby did not come to the office, I think, a different person, and takes up the agenda of not doing anything there; he would have always been who he is – quiet, strange, and keeping everything to himself.

What seems to happen, then, is a projection by the narrator of what his motive would be if he were to say something like that to him. What this tells us, then, is that the narrator would be looking to subvert his authority if he were working for himself (I am trying to have this example without trippy self-subversion symbolic possibilities), revealing his own psyche. And I suppose now that I am just unpacking what a projection does.

This reminds me of one of my favorite parts of Paradise Lost. When Satan first sees the unthinkably beautiful Garden of Eden, while he marvels at its wondrousness, the scene is also described with a sadness. Trees, though gorgeous, cry. It would be an incorrect reading, I believe, for the reader to just assume that the Garden of Eden has this sadness in it. I don’t think it does. Adam and Eve have not fallen yet, and, excepting Satan’s presence, the world is perfect. It is Satan that projects the sadness onto the landscape. And because the reader identifies with Satan, we too can project this same sadness. After all, we are the descendants of fallen people, we are a fallen race. Similarly, the narrator of Bartleby projects onto Bartleby, and we can do the same. We share a more normal psyche and interpretation of events and words. And, moreover, while trying to ascertain what Bartleby means, and who he is drives a significant amount of interest in the book, this element of projection encourages readers to look into the narrator to understand the work more completely.

Chapter 51, The Spirit-Spout, provides an interesting event in this novel. This phantom-like eruption of water serves to tempt and taunt Ahab, as it appears to be unattached and unaccompanied by a whale. Ishmael recounts its appearance,

“…on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea…But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his [Fedallah] unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew.”(224-5)

Its enigmatic, teasing presence suggests that a whale is close by, but just out of reach.  Alluding to the depth of the ocean, the spirit spout in larger ways represents the innumerable ways in which the sea’s  infinite volume can hold and hide the mysteries and creatures of the deep.  The spout in a way acts as a symbol or metaphor for the somewhat unattainable goals and objects they desire of each of the sailors of the Pequod.  For Ahab, it further intensifies the chase of Moby-Dick, frustrating the captain in his pursuit to gain revenge for the loss of his leg and sense of his masculinity.  For Ishmael, the introspective narrator, the sea represents his desire for freedom.  He believes escape is possible on the ocean, and that it can provide a place to remove himself from the confines of society and alleviate his mind from the grasp of depression and melancholy. What he finds on board the Pequod, however, is a highly organized and stratified system of a hierarchy and dictatorship ruled by Ahab. Starbuck’s only wish is to return home safely to his wife and children as quickly as possible. However, his goal is thwarted by the obsessive demands of the captain. In a way, the spirit-spout symbolizes the unfulfilled goals and dissatisfaction of the Pequod sailors, as a limitation of each ones’ perceived destiny or fate.

I really enjoyed reading this short story. Bartleby’s indifference and passivity reminded me somewhat of Mersault’s from Albert Camus’s The Stranger, as well as Peter Gibbons’s from the movie Office Space. Being assigned to the “Literary Allusions and Other Moments of Literature” category of our Moby Dick blog, I was intrigued by Melville’s reference to Cicero and why the narrator has a plaster-of-paris bust of the Roman philosopher in his office. In addition to being a philosopher, Cicero was also a lawyer and politician. Despite his opposition to the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, his political positions were inconsistent and tended to shift in response to changes in the political climate. While this may be a very subtle reference, I feel that Melville makes it to draw a parallel between Cicero and the narrator, as well as emphasize the narrator’s inability to take a firm position on how to handle the strange character of Bartleby. In addition to this allusion, Melville sums up the narrator’s character in the third paragraph of the story; he writes,

I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best… I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause… All who know me, consider me an eminently safe man. (Melville 5)

Melville characterizes the narrator as a “safe man” who always takes the path of least resistance. While the narrator tries to learn about Bartleby and does seem to ponder about his situation, he finds it much easier to leave Bartleby behind and fend for himself. He would like to be charitable and selfless, but he never goes out on a limb to help Bartleby. He never actually asks Bartleby if there is anything that he can do for him; he can only ask Bartleby to do things for him.

References:

Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.”http://www.enotes.com/bartleby-scrivener-text/bartleby-scrivener-1

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

As one of the most explicitly gendered chapters in the entire novel, “The Symphony” provides a host of opportunities for interpretation.  Neither does Melville seem entirely consistent with what he describes as “feminine” or “masculine,” within this chapter or throughout the text as a whole.  The “masculine sea” in “The Symphony” has been decidedly feminine and even maternal in the past, and other female descriptions of the natural world in the chapter seem to conflict with this masculinized sea that is a part of it.  In fact, the “strong, troubled murderous thinkings” of the sea creatures seem to describe Ahab more than anything – furthering the idea that he is somehow apart from the rest of the world, and also foreshadowing the violent nature of what is to come.  I was especially surprised to hear the (feminine and natural) world called a “step-mother” for Ahab, “cruel – and forbidding” in the past but which actually “now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck” (479).  Reading this I was curious if by 1850 the “cruel step-mother” stereotype that has been so reinforced in modern culture had yet taken root.

Nevertheless, if Ahab has indeed lost his humanity, as we have discussed several times in class, then it makes sense for the feminized world encompassing humanity and nature to be only indirectly related to him – thus a stepmother rather than a biological mother.  As this chapter is all about making the reader sympathize with the grizzled old captain, that he is again distanced from this world by some “cruel” force even as he describes his desire to return to his family and the world of normalcy is very bittersweet.  In fact, the thing that holds him back again and again seems to be himself, “the cantankerous thing in his soul” (478).  Perhaps Mother Nature herself is responsible for putting this “thing” there and driving him to these lengths; and yet, even if he would now be welcome into this other world represented by his “stepmother,” it is too late for Ahab to turn back.  What began as a chapter with some margin of hope that Ahab could accept the embrace of the world at large and abandon his suicidal search for Moby Dick ends with bleak resignation that Ahab is doomed, unable to shake off the cruel binds of his calling.

I find myself very interested in thinking about the purpose of the chapter “Cetology”. Considered problematic at the time of publication, the Cetology chapter has been puzzling to many readers and has posed problems for some of the critical readings that scholars have brought to the table in order to analyze the novel. I believe however that the Cetology chapter is an important part of the early stages of the novel and I do not feel that its inclusion is problematic. If one looks at this chapter as a strong display of Ishmael’s voice in the text then one can draw a few possible conclusions about Ishmael and hopefully understand him better.

Ishmael seems to have a case of “whale-mania”, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Cetology chapter. The reader is given a very accurate look at the inner workings of Ishmael’s mind. I feel as if the Cetology chapter is a strong example of Ishmael’s depression. I would wager that classifying whales in a self-created taxonomy was a pastime as infrequent at the time of the novel’s publication as it is today! Ishmael is not your average man; he has strange pastimes and an obsession with whales that is almost psychotic. Could Ishmael be drowning his sorrow in scientific thinking? This certainly seems plausible seeing as he was looking for a whaling vessel so that he could escape the depression he found on land. Ishmael’s Cetology could easily be an avenue for escaping thinking about his life on land, acting as a vehicle to escaping his introspective thoughts.

But does Ishmael do a good job of escaping his introspection by thinking of nothing but whales? The answer seems to be a resounding “no”. Ishmael’s most insightful philosophic moments come when describing whaling, an activity that he supposedly is doing to avoid his introspection. Arguably the chapters that anthropomorphize whales are actually the moments in the novel most telling about how Ishmael feels about people. This is not to say that Ishmael is putting on an act when he says he is going to talk to us about whales and whales alone, but it is definitely an indicator that try as he might Ishmael can not avoid thinking about the relations of people with each other, their government, and with their God regardless of where he is located.

The fact that Ishmael has put as much thought into whale classification as he has does suggest that he is a somewhat learned person, and I feel that this is another contributing factor to his depression. Think for a moment of the restricting force that is determinism. If Ishmael is going through the motions in a preordained life he has many things to be troubled by. Is his intelligence his own? Is his depression a punishment from God because he is damned? Is it possible for him to escape that depression by sailing on a ship? Jonah set sail in an attempt to escape the destiny that God had given him, but of course as any New England Protestant would know, you cannot sail away from an omnipresent God.

Ishmael certainly reflects Jonah in this early stage of the novel, and the Cetology chapter definitely suggests that Ishmael is trying his very best to not think about the possible predestination that God has in store for him. Again, Ishmael seems to be no good at escaping these thoughts as all of his talk about whales and whaling amounts to philosophic monologues on the human experience, but the reader could’ve called this given the story of Jonah now, couldn’t they?

So far no one has written about Chapter 64, “Stubb’s Supper”, which I find surprising because it contains the character who is more like a slave than any other in the novel—Fleece. Not only does Fleece sound like Buckwheat, making him sound stereotypically ignorant, but his behavior reflects this as well, as most of the chapter is Fleece indulging Stubb’s every whim. Often, this is a humiliating experience:

There are those sharks now over the side, don’t you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to ‘em; tell ‘em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and deliver my message. [Herman Melville, Moby Dick]

Fleece proceeds to deliver a “sermon” to the sharks, first accepting them as his fellow creatures, but in the end damning them for making a racket. All the while Stubb is standing over his shoulder, laughingly goading the poor old man on. For instance, Stubb tells Fleece “you mustn’t swear that way when you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert sinners, cook!” Though usually jovial, if not magnanimous, here Stubb acts quite viciously. Perhaps he thinks he is just having fun, but to toy with a man half-a-century your senior is highly out of line and blatantly disrespectful. In short, it’s the kind of thing that is only socially acceptable in an exchange between a master and his slave, for only in this relationship does the victimized party have no recourse.

When Stubb tires of this game, he proceeds to his original purpose of criticizing Fleece’s whale-cooking abilities. After all, he didn’t wake Fleece in the middle of the night  for nothing. Rather than simply saying “my steak is overdone, Fleece”, Stubb impulsively toys with Fleece beforehand:

“Well,” said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; “I shall now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, cook?””,

“What dat do wid de ‘teak,” said the old black, testily.

“Silence! How old are you, cook?”

“’Bout ninety, dey say,” he gloomily muttered.

“Silence!” is ordered, and a reluctant answer given. Are we so sure there are no slaves on board the Pequod? This exchange continues until Stubb reveals his sadism:

Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don’t you?

Not only did Stubb rudely awake Fleece just to complain about his cooking, but he actually enjoyed the cooking! No wait, he hated it so much that he had to eat it as quickly as possible. After all, when I’m presented with a nice, big plate of Brussels sprouts, I am so repulsed by the sight of them that I panic and eat them all very rapidly, forgetting that I can simply compost the little cabbages. I believe that these quotes speak for themselves, and I hope that my peers will in turn weigh in on the question of whether or not Fleece is a slave.

Ishmael’s farewell to Queequeg in “Queequeg in His Coffin” is fascinating and revealing in our studying of their specific relationship and the relationships between men in Moby Dick. Melville’s writing in this chapter is beautiful, stirring, and emotional. Ishmael goes well beyond feeling mere sympathy for Queequeg in his weakened, feverish state, as he acknowledges the connection that has formed between him and his “poor pagan companion, and bosom friend, Queequeg” (425). I find Ishmael’s use of the expression “bosom friend” unusual, because, while fairly common in the nineteenth century, it was more traditionally applied to friendships between women. For instance, I recall Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables being a particular fan of the saying when she spoke of her relationship with Diana Barry. Then again, the dynamic between Ishmael and Queequeg has always defied traditional gender roles, as we can remember from their nights of sleeping together as if man and wife before even boarding the Pequod.

Yet, despite Ishmael’s undeniable closeness to and affection for Queequeg, he continues to describe his companion as a pagan, as a savage, as an “Other.” He again emphasizes the tattoos that cover the harpooner’s body; as his body shrinks away, Ishmael claims that “there seemed to be little left of him, but his frame and tattooing” (425). Going even further to Orientalize his friend and cast him outside traditional white culture, Ishmael compares the dying Queequeg to a slimy lizard!: “The tattooed savage was crawling about amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom of a well” (425). However, as we have come to expect, Ishmael is often full of contradictions. He observes the softness and mildness that Queequeg exudes in his sickened state. Also, while some of these passages indicate that Ishmael continues to view his culture as superior, he exhibits at least some respect and reverence for the culture of the Other a bit deeper into the chapter: “[Queequeg] had learned that all whaleman who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form the white breakers of the milk way” (426). This is easily one of the most beautifully worded images in the entire novel. It proves that Ishmael does have it in him, perhaps more so than a typical white American, to treat the traditions and practices of a foreign culture with delicateness and understanding. He even bridges the cultures by correlating a custom held for dead whalers in Queequeg’s world and a custom held for dead whalers in Nantucket. Considering the intimacy of Ishmael and Queequeg, I would have expected more of this language from our narrator by this point in the novel. Despite the bonds of male-to-male friendship, some judgment, ignorance, and racism inevitably remain.

I also found it fitting that Queequeg wants to be buried alongside his harpoon in his coffin-like canoe. Even though the fever weakens him and brings him within an inch of death, he demands that it not emasculate him. Being buried with his weapon honors his hard work during life as a whaling harpooner and reaffirms his masculinity. This is interesting considering that Queequeg is often feminized and portrayed as crossing the typical gender divide more so than the other sailors on the Pequod. But again asserting his manliness, the harpooner immediately calls for his weapon when he recovers (out of nowhere, seemingly) from his fever. He practically returns from the dead and wants to rejoin the battle within seconds: “He suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms and legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then springing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself fit for a fit” (429). The harpooner is back!

I posted to the environment, nature category on the Spirit Spout. My post was entiteled “which is worse?”

Similar to rymosser, I noticed quite clearly the strange power of the sea in the Spirit Spout chapter but in a different place;  while they remarked early in their post on the incredible danger and uncontrollable power of nature and of the sea rendering the men silent, for me, I found it fascinating that the absence of activity and the silence in this chapter create both extreme calm and extreme apprehension:

“These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which…there lurked a devilish charm…all space seemed vacating itself of life before our…prow. But, at last…the Cape winds began howling around us…then all this vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before.” (p. 226)

This passage in my mind mirrors the narrators thought from earlier: “…there reigned…a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treachorously beckoning us on…in order that the monster might turn round upon us.” In both of these, there is such a bizarre relationship with nature and the peace of the sea. With the spirit spout, the crew feels perpetually led on, teased; they appear to WANT to reach this spout which they beleive must belong to Moby Dick. Yet the prospect of being suddenly right by the whale’s side and its aggression is not only frightening, it collapses time and space so that one minute the spout is blowing by the horizon, the next we have the image of a fierce attacking whale right at the ship’s side. In a way this upholds the idea of something inhuman and divine about the spirit spout which even at a distance seems to play with space and time. This fear of the whale suddenly bearing down upon the Peqoud is the darker element of the whale’s godly power. But at a distance or within reach- which is worse? This is the same question with the weather. The calm, serene emptiness, the vacuity of sea stretching before them is a torment, it seems almost unbearable, yet when the storm comes and we beleive it will be a releif, that it mimght fill the crushing void for these men, the narrator/Ishmael suggests it is only more “dismal than before”. In this way, our sense of balance and even of reality is shifted: rather than ‘good’ and ‘bad’ existing in contrast to each other, the levels of despair and misfortune only extend downward. And this, again, in my opinion, can be interpreted back in the spatial relationship of ship and whale: with Moby Dick at a distance and the expanse of calm sea in between, the men are caught in a perpetual, terrifying and frustrating purgatory, yet the alternative appears perhaps far worse.

“… I struck my first whale- a boy-harpooner of eighteen! Forty-forty-forty years ago! –ago! Forty years of continual whaling! Forty years of privation, and peril, and stormtime! Forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore.” (519)

This touching monologue by Ahab presents several questions.  Should “work” just be a job or lifetime passion? And how much should one sacrifice for that passion and work?  Is there a point when work devours the individual and leaves nothing behind?  Obviously Ahab is reflecting upon his life and asks himself if his time at sea has been worth all of the sacrifices or if it has been a waste.  He states, “…bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs…” (519) It is as though, until this point, he watched his life sail by without taking notice of all the things he forsook for the sea and now feels depressed about everything that could have been if he had been a little more aware.  He has given up hope, on life, on this voyage.  Virtually he sacrificed his youth, his family, his peaceful and his leg for the sea.  He begs to ask himself, “How the richer or better is Ahab now?” (519) Now at the end of his days, was it all worth it?

Perhaps part of the monologue is for the benefit of Starbuck, who is the only one witnessing Ahab’s emotional break down.  Ahab must see Starbuck as a younger, less crazed, version of himself.  Starbuck has a wife and a child.  Ahab is thus demonstrating what could possibly happen to Starbuck if he forsook his family for the sea.  It is a warning of a life lost, a life spent wandering the sea in search of meaning that very well could be found on land.

But even though Ahab recognizes all the failures of his life (his virtually widowed wife and fatherless child), he is unwilling to give up on the search for the white whale.  Starbuck offers him the opportunity to head home, to see his family, to experience a peaceful life ashore.  If Ahab abandons the search for Moby Dick now, it possibly be seen as yet another failure in his life.  He must finish and accomplish this one goal.  But I believe that Ahab acknowledges that the voyage and the whale may be his end.  Thus is his passion for the sea, his passion for whaling, were they worth everything that he gave up? Or is part of Ahab’s madness due to the fact that his life is so singular, so focused on the hunt for whales?