Moby Dick

Having gotten to know Ahab thus far as the irreligious, vengeance-driven captain of the Pequod, it is interesting how quickly God comes up when Ahab’s pious first mate, Starbuck, directly questions the captain’s actions.  When an oil leak forms on the ship, a problem normally corrected by “upping the Burtons,” Ahab indifferently refuses to follow the regulatory procedures.  He says the only important goal of the trip is the capture of Moby Dick, and that the oil means nothing to him regardless of the owners’ expectations.

Ahab is infuriated with Starbuck’s dissension: “‘Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me? – On deck!’” And later, “‘There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod’” (494).

Ahab does not often mention Devils or God in any context.  Of course, in this situation, he uses religious rhetoric to paint himself as God, verbally smiting Starbuck for even thinking critically of his methods.  Not exactly a revelation of Ahab’s oft-hidden piety.  But what does this say about Ahab’s perception of God?  If he is serious about his belief that the almighty is not to be questioned, he is treading on thin ice in his quest to kill Moby Dick.  We have seen throughout the text ways in which God could be represented in the traditional sense, by the whale Moby Dick itself, or by the vast power and mysteriousness of nature and the ocean.  In any of these cases, Ahab is doing much more than just “thinking critically” about or against God’s will with his journey.  He is directly challenging the almighty.

Interestingly enough, Ahab eventually relents to Starbuck’s courageous request and orders the upping of the Burtons.  Ishmael wonders if it may have been a “flash of honesty” that caused Ahab’s uncharacteristically rational action.  Does this passage show a sense of deference to a higher being by Ahab?  A shred of a conscience, or honesty, or morality?  Does Ahab reference God to appeal to Starbuck, or is his mind often consumed by religion?  It appears as if all these questions, along with the resolution to a growing rivalry between Starbuck and Ahab, will be further hashed out as the novel continues.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1991.

Despite the temptation to write about the science of squeezing sperm out of whales, I’m choosing to discuss the dismal science. Chapter 97, The Lamp, is less than a page long and describes how whaling ships are always alight underneath the main deck because of the prevalence of lamps and oil. Whalemen enjoy light in dark places when such a possibility is considered expensive and luxurious by the rest of society. Melville makes the point that the whaleman “goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game.” (381)

While this may seem reasonable at first glance, basic economics should indicate that a commodity as valuable as whale oil should still not be used so profligately. Despite its abundance, it still commands a high price outside of whaling vessels. The following quote addresses whale oil’s scarcity, which should correspond to a high price. “In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in the darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot.” (381)

One justification for this profligacy is that these whalers live a dangerous lifestyle and thus discount the future more than people with safer jobs. Such an attitude would cause the crew to live exorbitantly today at the expense of future comfort that could be enjoyed through the proceeds of selling the oil. We should note though that the whalemen do not get to enjoy many other comforts at sea so they may actually value light more highly than we think.

The above two explanations are “rational.” I think in this chapter however, that Melville is making another reference to the devil-may-care attitudes that characterize much of the crew (i.e. Stubb and Flask). These guys already decided to abandon reason when they followed Ahab after he announced his true intentions about the Pequod’s voyage. Ahab did wait to reveal his true intentions but the crew could have mutinied if they thought the mission sufficiently dangerous. Burning the equivalent of money for a small gain doesn’t seem like such a stretch given the crew’s history.

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

Many of the middle chapters of the novel concern work on the ship, the multitude of which Melville/Ishamel detail in order to convey the scope, amount, and difficulty of the labor involved in running the ship. Ishmael also outlines the hierarchies of labor and laborers present on the ship, which I discussed in my last blog post. I wanted to hone in on a specific chapter, “The Monkey-Rope,” which follows Ishmael’s pattern of detailing work on the ship in the context of a philosophical lesson. It depicts one of the most difficult parts of the whaling process, displays hierarchy (or the lack thereof) between workers, and besides that, it is a pretty funny visual. “In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew,” Ishamel begins the chapter. “Now hands are wanted here. And then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene” (286). The consistency with which ‘all hands’ are required in this long, arduous process, the improbable task of piecing apart a mostly-submerged whale merely tied to a ship in the middle of the rolling ocean, is truly a testament to the whalers’ abilities, which Melville clearly admires. The actual use of the monkey-rope sees Ishmael and Queequeg literally joined at the hip by a cord as Queequeg attempts to mount, then strip the whale; Ishamael senses the absurdity of this labor, terming it a “humorously perilous business” (287). After detailing the labor, Ishmael reveals the philosophical ‘point’ he is using it to make.

“So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two: that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me in unmerited disaster and death” (287).

Although he somewhat dehumanizes himself and Queequeg as laborers, Ishmael more importantly recognizes the necessary breakdown of the labor hierarchy in order to get the job done. Lacking free will, the labor itself now governs them, and both lives depend on each other’s skill and commitment to the labor. It is interesting to work in a job in which one literally faces death, which Ishamel recognizes. Also funny (in a dark way) is the scene in which Tashtego and Daggoo thrust their whale-spades into the water after the sharks, which endangers Queequeg’s life with every thrust. In an occupation filled with hazards, this is certainly one of the greatest. Ishmael, though, sees philosophy in labor once again, and even the humor in putting one’s life in peril.

Ahab’s all-consuming monomanical vindictivness is most readily explained by his missing leg. The loss of this appendage has such a devastating effect on the psyche that he ceases to be among others in the world, or can not be in the world, until he captures Moby Dick.  Albeit, general psychology and common sense gives the reader the impression that Ahab’s mad quest is but a symptom of something deeper, a character trait fundamentally more insidious than a generalized insecurity resulting from a lost limb. The lost leg becomes but a symbol of a fallen nature. Speaking to the carpenter tasked to make a new leg, Ahab remarks:

‘Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?’ (Melville 454)

Ahab must be speaking of something else here. Something irretrievably lost but keenly needed for his vitality or redemption. Melville gives us no answers through this part of the story. Captain Boomer, of the Samuel Enderby, also lost a limb to Moby Dick. His take on the matter is decisively different from Ahab’s:

‘No, thank ye, Bunger,’ said the English captain, ‘he’s welcome to the arm he has, since I can’t help it, and didn’t know him then; but not to another one. No more White Whales for me; I’ve lowered for him once, and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he’s best let alone; don’t you think so, Captain?’ – glancing at the ivory leg. (Melville 426)

Of course, Ahab’s disinterestedness in this advice is what will soon doom him and the Pequod to danger and disaster. The plot thickens.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Signet Classic, 1998.

After Monday’s class, I decided to revisit the chapter entitled “Jonah Historically Regarded.”  In this chapter, Melville dives right into a specific discrepancy between science and religion with the story of Jonah.  The character introduced as Sag-Harbor uses his knowledge of whales to cast doubt on Jonah’s sojourn inside of one.  For each of his doubts, however, Ishmael/Melville presents an opposing interpretation that accounts for the scientific fact.  A possible interpretation even goes so far as to suggest that the whale was actually a ship simply named “The Whale.”

Melville uses this chapter to clearly set out the divide between science and religion.  Sag-Harbor is first inspired to question the Jonah story because “He had one of those quaint old fashioned Bibles, embellished with curious, un-scientific plates” (353).  This immediately places science and the Bible in opposition.  Sag-Harbor continues to bring up ways in which science and geography would prevent the Jonah story from occurring as it does in the Bible.  The responses of biblical exegesis are very liberal, as exemplified in the above example of Jonah’s whale being a boat.

The fact that Melville even presents these alternatives shows that he is open to interpretation of religion.  He insists that the Jonah story is true, but he allows that there are discrepancies that need to be accounted for, such as the location of Nineveh regarding its proximity to deep water.

While Melville’s continuous emphasis on science throughout this novel demonstrates his interest, this chapter shows that he has also allowed science to enter into a dialogue with his religious belief.  I think this dialogue has an important bearing on what makes this book so interesting, as it permits Melville to better explore the natural and biblical world.

Trying to catch sight of Ishmael’s narration is like to trying to catch sight of Moby-Dick:  it’s elusive, volatile and unpredictable, emerging and submerging beneath the surface.

From the beginning one can imagine Ishmael disappearing into the narrative as he weaves in and out of the nautical streets of Nantucket.  Yet, now, after his long absence, like the poor wife of Starbuck, we must ask, where has he gone?

Ishmael clearly has some explaining to do.  Appropriately, in the chapter titled Moby Dick, he offers us an explanation for his behavior:

How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire–by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be–what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,–all this to explain would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffle sound of his pick? (180, Signet)

One gets the feeling that Ishmael doesn’t know where his narration is going, akin to an episode of Lost. His admission here complicates the view of him as an omniscient narrator.  He has limits.  There are some thoughts and occurrences that he cannot fully understand or explain. Like the miner he speaks of, he gets lost in the tunnel and begins feeling his way around.

In Ch. 45 he even admits that he’s not much of a narrator, “So far what there may be of a narrative in this book…” (195). Nevertheless, he feels compelled to take on the task; in the chapter The Whiteness of the Whale, he lets the reader for a moment into his subconscious: “…how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught” (181). This is both a confession of weakness and strength by the narrator.

Ishmael is of course neither omnipresent nor omniscient.  The question is whether his narration is; I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that Ishmael ever quits being narrator, so I assume that he is narrating even during the omniscient parts.  His narration is certainly not omnipresent, as we all know too well.

In Chapter 46, humorously titled Surmises, which are thoughts or ideas based on scanty evidence (Merriam-Webster), Ishmael surmises on the thoughts swimming through Ahab’s head: his need for tools (Starbuck being one of them), the reason why he enjoyed going after other whales (it reminded him of Moby Dick), and how anxious he must have been to protect himself (his men would want to be paid after emerging from their euphoric state).

Just a few chapters earlier, in Ch. 44 The Chart, Ishmael appears to shift into an omniscient form of narration, as James mentions in his post.  I think Surmising stands in stark contrast with this chapter, almost like a foil, illustrating Ishmael’s limits as a narrator.

Here, he is not surmising on Ahab’s thought, but describing the scene. This chapter does not attempt to explain Ahab’s psychological motives, which he can only guess at, but his mechanical scheming to catch Moby-Dick, which does have a certain logic to it, as evidenced by the footnote (191).  The ending of the chapter and its emotional depth are based on explosive observations: Ahab rushing out of his cabin and shouting exclamations into the night.

Perhaps, Ishmael, too, cannot explain what is behind the unreasoning mask.

“surmises.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010.

Merriam-Webster Online. 11 February 2010

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surmises>

This post not quite fit under Characters and Characterization, but more under general morality.  I will post it in Characters and Characterization, however, because I feel like it connects to my previous post about Melville’s anthropomorphization of the whale.

In Chapter 61, the mate Stubb kills a whale, as evident by the title.  Ishmael seems to sympathize with this doomed creature.

lazily undulating in the trough of the sea , and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon.  But that pipe, poor whale, was they last. (p. 275)

This whale seems somewhat human to Ishmael, lounging in the sun and smoking a pipe.  In fact, the pipe is important, as Stubb, the avid smoker, deals the death blow to this creature.  In fact, his final act in this chapter is to scatter “the dead ashes” of his own pipe over the water, looking at the whale’s corpse (p. 279).  This act is vastly symbolic.  The whale and Stubb are linked by the human affectation of the pipe, yet one kills the other, with seemingly little remorse.

Several chapters later, in Chapter 66, Ishmael describes the whale as a dish.  This is prompted by Stubbs’ consumption of a steak from the fellow smoker he slaughtered earlier.  Ishmael ponders

who is not a cannibal?  I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provided Fejee, I say, in the day of judgement, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest  on their bloated livers in thy paté-de-fois-gras (p. 292).

Ishmael seems to see eating an animal as a cannibalistic act, the same as eating a human.  However, this seems to be partially based on the civilized, enlightened nature of the gourmand, implying that he should know better.  If that is Ishmael’s stance, it would undoubtedly apply to Stubb, who is relatively educated and from America, a man of some standing on this ship.  Furthermore, he kills and consumes and animal with remarkable similarities to himself, both physically and in actions (the suggestion of smoking).  Is Stubb a cannibal?  It seems that Ishmael may, indirectly, be implying that.  But the bigger issue seems to be one of sympathy for the animals, perhaps even more than sympathy for the “lean missionary.”  Animals, from whales to geese, are seen as human-like by Ishmael, or at least worthy of concern.  One wonders, then, why this man has enlisted on a whaling voyage, or even how he can manage to eat meat.  Perhaps, like many other issues, Ishmael is merely pondering and reflecting, not claiming to develop an answer.

(New York: Signet Classic, 1998)

In the next many chapters we are finally introduced to a real female presence: the whaling ship. The ship is consistently referred to using feminine pronouns and whaling is even referred to as an “Egyptian mother” (p. 104). This is a particularly curious and perhaps problematic element of our interpretation of gender within the realm of whaling for it creates a complex relationship perhaps impossible to fully interpret. On the one hand, we have of course the possibility of a highly misogynistic interpretation in which the men control the female boat, using her and constantly redirecting her in order to accomplish their task. However, there is at the same time the fact that the whale-men respect and value the ship they sail upon, depending on her greatly to guide them and keep them safe out at sea. In addition, we cannot ignore given the rest of this novel thus far the sheer magnitude of this feminine presence: the ship plays an obviously substantial role in the voyage and thus in the entire story and is referred to at times as having its own will, if not personality:

“But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore…” (p. 102)

Nevertheless, the ship remains an object.

This odd tension can be resolved in part, I believe, when we look to the gender of the whale. In the highly recognizeable and widely known exclamation “there she blows!” the whale is considered female. This static phrase, however, is where that gender role begins and ends, for both in describing Moby Dick and the stories and reputations of other famous whales, they are all referred to as “he” and in fact are given each and every one a highly masculine name. In taking these two non-human but highly highly prominent elements of the novel, we can see a complex but also undeniable sexism. The whale, while referred to from a distance as female, is considered not just male but overwhelmingly masculine, almost brutish, when up close revealing its strength, size, and intelligence, e.g. when the battle begins. This seems to indicate the necessity by the whale-men to maintain their pride and masculinity by creating a dominant male threat to fight against.

“Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his brow.  Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig to run at large.” (239-240)

“But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radley had spat in his face.  Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will understand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully comprehended when the mate uttered his command.” (240)

With all the work that must be completed on the ship, especially a whale-ship, there has to be a hierarchy that must be maintained.  That being said, the story of Stellkilt and Radley depicts what occurs with the break down of hierarchy on the boat.  Every man has a duty and place within the ship, whether he is a common sailor like Ishmael, a harpooner like Queequeq, or first mate like Starbuck; there is an order.  Thus when Radley provokes Steelkilt by demanding him to clean up pig filth, for the shear enjoyment of being cruel, he was breaking the natural order.  Not only had Steelkilt just worked furiously at pumping out the ship but it was not his duty to clean and muck the deck.  So when Steelkilt refuses to follow his commanding officer’s demands he was also breaking the hierarchy but he did so because he was defending his honor; that he had just completed backbreaking work and it was unfair for Radley to force him to do such menial chores.  If all order is lost upon the boat, then there is no hope for the voyage.  Within that environment, the success and the failure of the voyage’s future depends on its crew maintaining discipline.

In my mind, the Town-Ho’s story was an allegory warning what would happen if one member of the crew disobeyed the natural order of the ship.  Furthermore, was this story a foreshadowing of the impending doom of the Pequod? By secretly stowing away a separate crew, was Ahab not upsetting the natural balance of the Pequod?  Did he not dishonor the original crew of the Pequod by producing his own? What I find curious is that Radley’s ultimate punishment was death by the white whale, Moby Dick.  It was as if Moby Dick intrinsically knew that Radley had so grievously disobeyed the laws of the ship and the sea that he had to be done away with.  Thus will members of Pequod face the same fate by disobeying the natural order?

“That instant, as he fell on the whale’s slippery back, the boat righted, and was dashed aside by the swell, while Radley was tossed over into the sea, on the other flank of the whale.  He struck out through the spray, and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick.  But the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer between his jaws; and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again, and went down.” (251)

For all its florid prose and general lack of literary discipline, Melville’s writing often resembles some of the most affecting religious rhetoric I’ve ever heard. In the last paragraph of chapter forty-two, when Ishmael seemingly relates whale, God, heathen, color, nature, and philosophy with the unifying principle of whiteness—he preaches. He is sermonizing. One characteristic particular to the sermon (other than religious content) is the invocation of the congregation; the most effective sermons have some kind of central theme on which the speaker will indirectly entreat an audience to meditate, by way of imagery, metaphors, parallels, related scripture, etc. By creating several powerful, beautiful images into which he weaves themes of religion and colorlessness, Melville makes a sermonic plea to his audience through Ishmael to entertain a particular interpretation of the whiteness of the whale.

One of the most overtly religious suggestions in the passage comes in the form of a question addressed by Ishmael to the reader:

Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? (175)

The question itself makes an obvious request of the reader, if not for an answer, for at least a consideration. However, therein lies the problem; Melville here presents the reader with an impossible paradox to digest. The idea of simultaneous color and colorlessness is not something empirically observable in the natural world, and as a result, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine the concept extended visually to an infinite blanket of snow. Thus, the reader’s immediate reaction might be to “shrink” away from such an inherently contradictory image, before the question is even asked. Given the effect of the image, then, the reader is more likely to accept the implication of Ishmael’s rhetorical question: “we” avoid at all costs anything impossibly paradoxical. The mention of atheism after the em-dash seems almost a logical leap, or at least an unqualified parallel. However, it comes across in analysis as an attempt by Ishmael (and, by extension, Melville) to, now that the reader has already been given something he or she can accept, get him or her to agree to something that might indeed be unrelated. Many an effective sermon will follow this same practice: incite fear or confusion by presenting an audience with some grave improbability, win them back with some easily digested and relatable conclusion, and—when their guard is down—slip in something vaguely controversial. Melville sets his audience up for confusion, comforts them for “shrinking” from it, and somehow implies their adversity to atheism.

This passage (paragraph, even) would take me volumes to explore, but my space here is limited, so I’ll stick briefly to one more quotation. Ishmael begins to close his lengthy dissertation on whiteness with something that sounds oddly like a myth or parable:

[L]ike wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him.

Instead of invoking the reader, Ishmael fills out this second snow-related image with several anonymous characters in a bleakly exotic landscape. With this situation-as-metaphor, instead of seeking the reader’s acceptance, Ishmael seems to assume the reader’s total investment in his words. By this point, he makes the religious aspect of his argument clear by casting the “protagonists” of his metaphor as no different from infidels. Ishmael seems to have become more comfortable, by this sentence in the paragraph, with the religious implications of his musings, and so incorporates religion far more liberally into his language.  The image he paints and situation he describes have a clear pro-religious agenda, like that of a Christian parable: simply put, whiteness, like religious infidelity, is something beautifully tempting, but with dire consequences. Why dress up such a simple message? The only answer seems to be form; like any Christian sermon, Ishmael’s words mustn’t say anything about whiteness. Via ornamented metaphors, they have to show it.