Moby Dick

As I was reading, a section of the text that stood out to me was chapter 115, “The Pequod meets the Bachelor”, and the two preceding ones, “The Forge” and “The Gilder.” Together, these chapters present the paradoxes in the crew’s relationship with the sea and with Ahab, demonstrating the depths of Ahab’s madness and the particular nature of the community on board. In “The Forge”, Ahab baptizes the three harpooners in the name of the devil, using the harpoon reserved for Moby Dick. Once again Melville clarifies the obsession and the crew’s entanglement with Ahab. After this brief but intense scene, chapter 114, “The Gilder”, is quiet and meditative, focused on the sea. As the Pequod settles into a rhythm, even though they are unsuccessful Ishmael notes that these are the times that whalers relax and enjoy the majesty of the ocean.

… These are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brillancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie…”

This introspective chapter focuses on the idea that to the whalers, the sea becomes like land to most people. It feels like home, a natural environment full of beauty. The danger that is often so close can seem so distant, and the mystical feeling that it inspires in the crew helps to partially explain why they were drawn to whaling. Starbuck and Stubb both also comment on the sea, Starbuck exclaiming, “Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s eye!- Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.” Stubb, for his part, claims that “I am stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!” For Stubb and even the rational Starbuck, the sea is a powerful influence that they cannot hate regardless of the danger, for on some level being out at sea fulfills them.

At this point, the Pequod meets the Bachelor. The Bachelor, essentially a foil to the Pequod, has had remarkable luck resulting in a ridiculous amount of sperm on board, which translates directly into money and success at home.  Nantucket is also home for the Bachelor, and the crew and ship were exuberantly heading directly there. After the intensity of “The Forge” and the melencholy of “The Gilder”,

This glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge try-pots… On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat, firmly secured aloft between the fore-mast and main-mast, three Long Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious jig.

During this brief chapter, Melville tears down the massive edifice of the Pequod’s internal dynamics by offering such a stark contrast. There are even girls on the ship, opening up the omnipresent theme of masculinity on the Pequod. Ahab, of course, asks the captain about the White Whale. “‘No; only heard of him; but don’t believe in him at all,’ said the other good-humoredly. ‘Come aboard.'” Melville presents Ahab and his crew with a very clear alternative: forget about Moby Dick, embrace life, do your job, and go home. Ahab refuses, and Melville describes the “grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor” of the crew, which stands against the proclaimed love for the sea by those in the previous chapter. Even Ahab is revealed to still have a connection to Nantucket, for he carries a vial of sand with him. However, it appears that for Ahab at least that vial is enough to sustain his need for land and home. For the crew, these are moments of extreme conflict, as they are confronted by Ahab’s obsession, their draw to the sea, and their draw towards home. The Bachelor, as a chance encounter in the open sea, demonstrates that things are not necessarily fated towards disaster, but that men ultimately determine their own fate.

The disembodied and elusive spirit-spout might be seen as a metaphor for the elusive Moby Dick. It may also be viewed as the spirit of Moby Dick keeping tabs on the Pequod or trying to lead, misguide, or test the crew.

The spirit-spout may be seen as a malevolent, superstitious sign of the disappointment to come, and can be seen as especially mysterious or mystical because it is the mysterious, devilish Fedallah who first descried this jet.

As Ishmael describes the feelings and emotions with which the men behold this spirit-spout, we get an image of Ahab’s face one night, in which, “two different things were warring.” And there proceeds my favorite lines of the chapter when Ahab walks about the deck: “While his one live made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked” (249). Ahab is depicted to be an already half-dead man on a half-doomed mission. Like most mysterious observations, “Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.”

Do you know what the spirit-spout is? It is a tease. It is a false lead. It is that thing that keeps you going in your irrational direction. It is Moby Dick leading you to your doom. It is the reason you make up in your head to keep going. It keeps your mind off of the ridiculousness of what your doing, of where you’re going and what your are pursuing. It is what keeps you awake at night and makes you sick to your stomach when you look out across the sea to the horizon. It is captain Ahab’s insanity. It is Ishmael’s melancholy. It is Queequeg’s idol—his tiny black God. It is whatever drives your monomania and your manic depression. It is whatever guides your harpoon, your lance, your feet, your bow, your pen.

That is what the Spirit-Spout is, a figment of the imagination, though at relevant and real as the Pequod itself. That is why Ahab and his men follow it but will never find it. You see it once and never again. But once is enough to keep you on your compass course towards your unfortunate, untimely, death—your fate, as they so call it.

I previously posted about an instance in which Melville uses a footnote to describe the migratory patterns of sperm whales.   Stylistically this had struck me, as it was an interesting device to find used sparingly in the middle of the novel.  I noticed too how the narrator’s voice changed between the footnote and the rest of the text.  He sounded more authoritative on the nature of whales, referring to a scientific publication that appeared to be fictionalized.

Much later on in the book, there is notably another example of Melville’s use of a footnote to describe the habits of whales.  In the middle of the The Chase – First Day chapter (the bottom of page 537 in the Signet book), the narrator illustrates a maneuver of the whale in which the whale leaps into the air, as if to obtain a better vantage point of the area around him. I wonder how certain Melville himself felt about this reason for the whale’s breaching, or rather, if  people in his time commonly believed this.  One web page I’ve found lists other plausible explanations for breaching, and says that scientists are still speculative as to an exact reasoning.

Interestingly, the narrator says this is “peculiar” to sperm whales, which does not seem to be the case, as other types of whales, especially the humpback, are known to breach.

Here is a video of  a humpback’s impressive breaching:

You can see the great ocean swells that come after the whale hits the water, which Melville describes in the line before the footnote mentioned.

Of note, Melville does not refer to the whale’s leaping as “breaching,” but rather as “pitchpoling,” which is a dangerous type of capsizing, and is nicely illustrated here:

http://www.answers.com/topic/pitchpoling

“Pitchpoling” is the title of Chapter 84 in the book, but  is actually referring to the ship and not the whale.

In Chapter 132, The Symphony, Captain Ahab and his crew look out to the sky, which is filled with flying birds and a clear blue sky.  This view of the sky is depicted as peaceful and serene.  However, below the ocean lies the trouble and true danger.  The sharks, “mighty Leviathans” and swordfish lie there (page 774).  Also at this time, Captain Ahab begins to grow weary and fearful on his journey to kill the White Whale.  This fear from Captain Ahab goes against Christian faith because Christian faith states that one must not fear anything and one must have faith in their most dire and tiresome journeys.   Captain Ahab begins to lose his faith and therefore is losing his Christian faith as well.  “Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side, and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul” (775).  This quote shows how Captain Ahab begins to lose his strength and faith as it figuratively begins to sink into the abyss of the sea.  However, Captain Ahab also maintains some little faith as he enjoys smelling the scents in the air out on sea and this lovely scent purges that lack of faith from him. Interestingly enough he is both religious and irreligious because he struggles to completely maintain Christian faith and to relinquish Christian faith.  Captain Ahab even beings to cry into the sea.  Captain Ahab converses with Starbuck regarding his feelings and emotions.  Ahab says, “Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep.  … But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise” (page 777).  This quotation reinforces the fact that Captain Ahab is truly feeling drained and exhausted from his long journey and quest to kill the White Whale.  Ahab also feels weary of this quest and begins to question whether or not he can fulfill his desire to exact revenge on the White Whale or to fulfill his desire of attaining peace and serenity.  The fact that Captain Ahab wavers between these two opposing sides shows that he is religiously duplicitous.

In Chapter 85, The Fountain, Ishmael explains the Sperm Whale’s spout, and proceeds to explain how the Sperm Whale has many features he admires, further elevating his opinion of the Sperm Whale and perhaps hinting at conservation, as we discussed in class.

As Ishmael explains, the Sperm Whale spouts when he surfaces to breathe. In a way, the whale’s spout is his achilles heel; the way whalers spot whales is usually by their spouts, and if a whale hadn’t surfaced whalers couldn’t harpoon them. Ishmael comments on this when he says “Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee!” (359). This sentence humbles whalers. You are indebted to the whale and his anatomy, Ishmael seems to say, for if he didn’t need to surface you would never catch him at all.

Ishmael continues to tick off the features of the whale that he admires. He likes that whales don’t talk: “Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living” (360). His admiration culminates in his admiration of the whales as great thinkers, and he compares the whale spout to the “visible steam” above the heads of Plato, Pyrrho, etc. that comes from the activity of thinking hard, similar to the way his hair was wet because he had drank six cups of hot tea in August. This last comparison sounds ironic, but it is by his exagerration that Ishmael makes it clear how much he respects the Sperm Whales.

In terms of conservation, Ishmael includes how the whale’s spout is believed to be acidic and poisonous, and says that “the wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let this deadly spout alone” (361). This seems to  refer to Ahab’s stubborn pursuit of that which he knows to be harmful, with Ishmael suggesting that the wisest thing Ahab can to is to leave Moby Dick alone. I think that Ishmael also meant it as a conservationist message.  Even though Ishmael must kill the whales, he by no means thinks of himself as superior to them because he pursues them. He does not eve think of himself  as their equals. Rather, he is humbled by them, recognizing that it is only in their need to spout that he can hunt them, and furthermore, only in their existance that he can even define himself as a “whaler.”

Throughout “The Fountain,” Ishmael tells readers how they should be amazed and humbled the way he is by a beautiful and majestic creature. Reading this chapter after we discussed Melville’s desire to “save the whales,” or at least some of them, I feel that this was one chapter where Melville had conservation on his mind.

Great Sperm Whale Video

In chapter 74 Ishmael discusses the sperm whale’s head.  As with many other discussions of cetology and the business of whaling in this book, Ishmael uses scientific fact to produce insightful metaphors.  He opens this chapter: “Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us join them, and lay together our own” (295).  Ishmael and the reader join their heads together, and the lessons of Moby-Dick are imparted to those who are willing to subtilize their minds.

Ishmael first gives us a sense of general appearance.  This is not the awe-inspiring white emptiness of Moby Dick, with elements of divinity and innocence, but rather a dignified old “grey-headed whale.”  It is a proper subject for study.

Ishmael goes on to a fascinating discussion of the sperm whale’s eyes as compared to a human’s.  At first, the whale, with the darkness in between its two windows, seems to be at a disadvantage.  But then Ishmael makes an interesting point:

“…anyone’s experience will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examine two things—however large or however small—at one and the same instant of time…” (297)

This reminds of the old Indian story of the blind men and the elephant.  It has been reproduced many times elsewhere.   Wikipedia provides a few versions of the story, this one the most succinct:

A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that it was an elephant. The blind men asked, ‘What is the elephant like?’ and they began to touch its body. One of them said: ‘It is like a pillar.’ This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, ‘The elephant is like a husking basket.’ This person had only touched its ears. Similarly, he who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it differently.

This tale can be read as a parable on Moby-Dick and many great literary works for that matter.  The book is too large a mass to take in as a whole.  The maelstrom of Moby-Dick can only be understood by observing one object at a time.

If this is the case, Ishmael’s description of the whale’s sense of sight has haunting implications:

True, both his eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man’s, that he can at the same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction?” (297)

Oh, what a loathsome lot, to be born such a lesser creature than the fearsome Leviathan!

Ishmael, in his discussion of the size of the whale’s sensory organs, gives the readers a hint to understanding life with their limited ability of sight.  He says that enlarging a whale’s eyes or ears is totally unnecessary, considering its proposed superiority to humans in that regard.  He tells us: “Why then do you try to ‘enlarge’ your mind?  Subtilize it” (298).   Melville, in studying whales and whales only, discovered themes, characters, and drama that seem to refer to all of human experience.  He is a perfect example for us.

Each man sees a different creature.

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)

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

At first glance, chapter 57 (“Of Whales in Paint […]”) appears to be mainly about pictures and carvings of whales. However, Melville is actually making a much larger comment about nature and man’s role (and whale’s role) in it. Although there are many sections in the text in which Melville seems to address environmental concerns, this chapter makes several interesting connections between man and whales/nature. Melville describes how whales (in various forms) are found “cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea warwood,” and “[a]t some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung by the tail for knockers to the roadside door” (245). These whale portrayals have also been seen in “bony, ribby regions of the earth” and “in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights” (245). Melville seems to be pointing out how whales are a vital part of nature and the world, and their influence can be felt everywhere (even in landlocked mountainous regions). In this way, whales are not of vital concern only to the whalers or sailors, but rather to humanity. Clearly this text can be viewed as a struggle of humanity to overcome nature (Ahab comes to mind), yet Melville might be suggesting that humans should (and sometimes do) have a closer relationship to nature instead of merely attempting to conquer it. Melville even goes on to say that whales can be found in the stars:

Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish (246).

This passage is fascinating to me because it appears to provide a complicated account of whales and man’s relation to them. By seeing whales among the stars, Ishmael adds a mystical and mythical association to whales and places them in relation to ancient Greek myths about gods and battles in the skies. However, it is also implied that Ishmael sees these whales among the stars because he is so preoccupied with whaling and the search for Moby Dick. There is also an implication that Ishmael (and perhaps Melville) views whaling as a battle that has been waged for as long as man has set to sea. This makes it appear that whaling could be viewed as part of the natural cycle of the Earth and the heavens (a great circle and cycle that provides balance in nature). Could Melville be providing this passage as a way of showing that whaling has begun to spiral out of control, that this great natural balance is beginning to be lost? If whales can be found and seen almost everywhere on Earth (either alive or artfully represented), what does it mean for man to hunt them (perhaps to the brink of extinction)? Is Melville commenting on how humans have gone from being a part of nature to attempting to conquer and destroy it?

What drives a man to give up a normal life on land to pursue a whale at sea? Is it revenge? A power struggle? An insane madness that does not cease? Or perhaps it is something else entirely different, something divine. For Captain Ahab, the desire to destroy the white whale does not seem to come solely from revenge; it also comes from God. In Chapter 132 “The Symphony,” Ahab reveals what he believes is the real source of his quest to kill the whale:

Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, or God, that lifts this arm? If the great sun moves not of himself, but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I (521).

In what seems to be a radical departure from the confident Captain of previous chapters, Ahab shows a side of him that seems uncertain of his own free will. Is Ahab fighting God because God makes Ahab do it, or is this God fighting Himself? Ahab paints God as a sort of puppet master, a being that plays an active role in the lives of its creations and makes them do what it wants. This type of Christian God seems to derive from Calvinism, a branch of Christianity that did not believe that people could have a personal relationship with the divine. Calvinists also believed in predestination — God controlled their lives and ordained before a person’s birth whether or not he or she was to be saved or damned. It is interesting that throughout the novel, Ahab seems to be fighting against God by forging his own destiny, but now he questions whether it was Ahab or God who controlled his fate.

This depiction of God as a puppet master is not entirely surprising, however. Given the time period and Melville’s own religious beliefs, this image of God is almost to be expected. The fact that it appears so late in the novel is, however, of interest. Perhaps Melville does this to show that we can never truly escape God no matter how hard we may try. We are all simply puppets on God’s strings. Still, there is something to be said about Ahab’s humbling speech; the idea of a God that literally controls every aspect of one’s life (from breathing to thinking) is a disturbing yet comforting thought. On the one hand, to imagine a being that directs your life, that “lifts your arm,” suggests that one literally has no control whatsoever over one’s life. On the other hand, it also means that one is not accountable for one’s actions, which could be an excuse for otherwise inexcusable or unexplainable behavior.

Ahab’s statement also raises a thought: if Ahab is pursuing the white whale (which could be viewed as God or a symbol of God) and he is doing this because God wills it, does this mean that God is fighting Himself? And if this is so, then why? To be honest I don’t have answers to these questions; I can only speculate that Melville is challenging his readers to consider all possibilities. One thing is certain: Ahab commits completely to his cause to destroy Moby Dick, no matter how foolish he believes it to be in the end. Whether this is an act of God or out of Ahab’s free remains a mystery.

A more detailed discussion of Jonah is in order.  We first hear of him in Father Mapple’s sermon.  Jonah is the prophet in the apocryphal Bible story who refuses his calling and escapes to sea.  He brings trouble to the ship, is tossed overboard, and then God sends a whale to swallow him.  He begs God to save his life, and he is returned to dry land to fulfill his duties as a prophet.  Jonah is usually a model for repentance.  Father Mapple says: “Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you as a model for repentance.  Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah” (41).

The story of Jonah ends strangely.  Jonah returns to land to tell the city of Nineveh of the punishment its people will receive from God for being wicked.  The people repent and refuse food and water, hoping to appeal to God’s compassionate nature.  This convinces God to have mercy on the city.

After this, Jonah becomes angry.  He tells God: “was not this my saying, when I was yet in mine own country? Therefore I fled beforehand unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious G-d, and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil.”  I take him to mean: “I knew you were compassionate and you would spare Nineveh.  Why did you need me?”  After this, Jonah begs for death.  God simply asks him how angry he is.  Jonah escapes to the desert and again begs for his death.

I think this story is much more mysterious than traditional interpretations allow.  While Father Mapple’s vision of repentance is beautiful in its way, I cannot read it like that.  Jonah is angry with God for the life he was given, and he asks him to take it away.  Ahab, then—and I think the rest of the Pequod crew by extension—is another Jonah, but he does not share the prophet’s passivity.  He is a rewrite of Jonah with an intense drive for rebellion.

The death-wish is worth mentioning again.  Ishmael confesses his suicidal nature at the beginning of the book, calling his trips to the ocean a “substitute for pistol and ball.” All of the whalers of the Pequod, in the carelessness in the face of death, seem to have these feelings.  All of them are rebelling against the place that has been given to them.  This becomes particularly relevant to the non-white harpooneers.

In the end, Ahab is struck down by the whale.  God was willing to tolerate passive Jonah, but not a man such as Ahab.

The Hebrew Bible Online, Book of Jonah Chapter 4: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Bible/Jonah4.html

Thrusting his head halfway into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost seemed to stagger.  Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West.

But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, “I have it!  It has happened before.  Mr. Starbuck, last night’s thunder turned our compasses – that’s all.  Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it.”

“Aye, but never before has it happened to me, sir,” said the pale mate, gloomily.

The storm that set upon the Pequod was a terrifying, quasi-supernatural event in the eyes of the crew.  The lightning which struck the masthead was a very bad omen, as was the burning harpoon and the stove boat.  Just in case the readers weren’t getting the symbolism, Fedallah even prays to the lightning which holds the ship in its grip.  To find the ship’s compasses turned in the opposite direction the next morning, against the natural and obvious dictates of the sun, serves as yet another warning that the Pequod is sailing straight into the jaws of doom.

The connection between magnetism and electricity was discovered in Europe several decades before Moby Dick was written, but it seems unlikely that many whalers (beyond the educated Ishmael) would have been well-informed of these developments.  For most people at the time, magnetism was a mysterious force which probably seemed supernatural.  The compass, in particular, was heavy with allegories which made it particularly well-adapted to superstition.  On the open ocean, with only the sun, stars, and compass to guide the ship, the calculations and instruments of navigation took on a mystical aura.  The steering of a ship can be easily seen akin to the steering of a soul, and the methods of steering therefore take on divine significance.  When Ahab first smashes his sextant and is then confronted with the turned compasses, it seems that the ship has been doomed to go both ethically and literally adrift.  Ahab’s solution, demonstrates his mastery of theater and a special sort of mad confidence in his ability to forge his own fate.

“Men,” said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him the things he had demanded, “my men, the thunder turned old Ahab’s needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point a true a way as any.”

Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow.  But Starbuck looked away.

Ahab recognizes all of the potential for despair that the turned needles might provoke among the crew, and by magnetizing a new needle he also takes control of the men.  He symbolically rejects the judgement of fate placed upon the Pequod during the storm, and chooses his own path.  Starbuck is not convinced, however, and sees Ahab’s actions as a blasphemous attempt to challenge what should not be questioned.  In the final sentence of the chapter, Ishmael seems to agree:

In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride.