Moby Dick

A while back I marked a quote (we might have looked at it in class) that struck me at the time, but it wasn’t until I just returned to it that I realized how significant and meaningful this quote really is. It comes to us from Ishmael, in a seemingly unremarkable part of the novel, just after we meet the crew of the Pequod. Chapter 57: Of Whales in Paint; In Teeth, In Wood; In Sheet-Iron; In Stone; In Mountains; In Stars, page two of the chapter (289 in my Bantam Classics Edition):

Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e., what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.

What a remarkable and revealing statement of Melville’s feelings on race (and more). You’ll notice I posed this blog to race, but I may just as well posted it to a half dozen other categories. Ishmael portrays these savage whalers as a different race–a group of men restored to that condition in which God placed them. Melville views these savage whalers as a somewhat divine and natural race, men not of civilization and Christendom, but of God, nature, and the environment.

How can Ishmael characterize a whale-hunter as as much of a savage as an Iroquois? Because a whaler, though bound by the rules and regulations of the ship, is otherwise a wholly free and simple man. A man–at least temporarily–without allegiance to a nation, religion, or profession other than hunting–taking what he needs for himself from the earth.

Ishmael almost (or does he?) goes as far as to call himself a cannibal, a lawless animal without principle, as one would have taken the term to mean in the 19th century. But even to this he would be ready to rebel at any moment, because like a cannibal he has no allegiance to anyone or any institution and would devour his own brother or leader if need be (a stretch, but stay with me).

With this insight into the nature of these savage whalers, it is now no wonder to me that the savages have always had pratical control of the ship, because in essence all of the crew are savages. Compared to a landlubber, the whitest man among them may as well be a tattooed, bloodthirsty cannibal. But what I do wonder at, what now seems so impressive to me, is how Ahab could have gained the allegiance and cooperation of a ship of 35 savages. What a feat he pulled off on the quarter-deck to manage to guide the focus of all these free natives towards a doomed plot to kill an albino monster. Perhaps Ahab is this King of Cannibals, the only man who could ever hope to gain the imprudent obedience of a crew of seafaring barbarians.

In my first post I noted that Captain Ahab shared his name with the notorious King Ahab from the Book of Kings (1 Kings 16). Though it seemed apparent that Captain Ahab had the flaw of hubris, it was still not clear if he would follow the path of King Ahab. While overseeing the production of the harpoon that will be used to kill Moby Dick, Ahab seems to transform into someone entirely different. He uses the blood of the pagan “savages” in the making of the harpoon and exclaims:

Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli! (471)

Translated from Latin, Ahab’s cry becomes clear: “I baptize you not in the name of the father, but in the name of the devil!” With these words, Ahab seems to revoke his faith in God and monotheism by invoking the name of the devil and using pagan blood in the making of the harpoon. Ahab’s faith in God to help him succeed in his mission has been lost; he appears to have turned against God. This parallels nicely with King Ahab, who gave up monotheism to worship the pagan god Baal.

Now that Captain Ahab has begun to fulfill his destiny that came with his name, what is Melville trying to say? There is, no doubt, something unsettling about the unholy baptism that Ahab performs. It is no longer just about Moby Dick anymore. I can’t help but think of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which (from what I know about it) details Satan’s attempt to wage war in Heaven and his ultimate banishment to Hell. Captain Ahab, too, seems to be a “hell-raiser,” an individual who is not afraid to stir up a little trouble. Ahab is saying, “No!” to God by purposefully corrupting the Sacrament of Baptism and continuing on his pursuit to destroy the whale. If Ahab sees Moby Dick as God, or at least an agent of God, then it appears that he is in fact trying to overcome and metaphorically kill God. Thus he is no longer only Captain Ahab and “King Ahab,” but also Satan himself.

This side of Ahab, the part of him that relentlessly seeks the whale and willingly “blasphemes” against God, is only one part of him. To complicate matters further, Melville gives the reader a glimpse into who could be the “real” Captain Ahab in Chapter 132 “The Symphony.” I will discuss this chapter in my next blog post and how it gives some clues as to what exactly drives Ahab in his crazed pursuit of the whale (beyond simple revenge).

Sources:

1. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Kings+16&version=NIV (1 Kings 16:29-34)