Moby Dick

In this post I decided to recall the class discussion of race as an ideology in Moby Dick. After finishing the novel I am still left with numerous overarching questions regarding Melville’s stance on race and how he intended to portray and critique the racism of his time, but in looking through the various posts and in trying to sort through my personal interpretations, I have come to the conclusion that Melville is not a racist. He frequently makes the point to give the ‘non white’ races positions of power and influence and in this may very well be trying to use Moby Dick to communicate anti-slavery sentiments.

More specifically I wanted to examine Toni Morrison’s assertions in her essay, ‘Unspeakable Things Unspoken’ regarding Melville’ s race related intent in Moby Dick. As highlighted in class, Morrison is claiming that Melville isn’t merely anti-slavery or supportive of slave revolts, but trying to overthrow the existing ideology of whiteness. Morrison states that

“he [Melville] was overwhelmed by the philosophical and metaphysical inconsistencies of an extraordinary and unprecedented idea that had its fullest manifestation in his on time in his on country, and that that idea as the successful assertion of whiteness as ideology” (Morrison 22).

In reading more of Morrison’s analysis of Moby Dick, her arguments became increasingly convincing. She explores Ahab’s character and his madness in his quest to destroy Moby Dick. I found her analytical viewpoint very interesting and persuasive and have come to agree that Melville very probably could’ve intended for the white whale, Moby Dick, to represent the ideology of race. Morrison makes numerous intriguing points involving this metaphor and how it plays out with Ahab’s psychosis and the concept of whiteness vs. savagery, or rather, the “white racial ideology that is savage” (Morrison 21).

Although I find Morrison’s discussion of Moby Dick very convincing, I think that Moby Dick, being a complex novel with countless symbols, metaphors, themes, and social commentaries, I don’t think it can be read purely as a racial narrative. Perhaps where Morrison loses me is in her analysis of Ahab’s psychosis and how in fact, his racism as represented by his intent to triumph over Moby Dick, has caused and perpetuated his madness.

With no surprise, Morrison highlights a few sections in the chapter, The Whiteness of the Whale, in order to bolster her argument. I definitely agree with her analysis in that Melville is not exploring white people, but whiteness idealized. I don’t want to go into analyzing this chapter too much because it has obviously been done repeatedly in class and on the blog. However, in my reevaluation of the novel it continues to resurface as one of the most powerful and intellectually challenging and confusing chapters. I think that in discussing both beautiful and dangerous sinister images of whiteness Melville is attempting to explore the evolution of whiteness as an ideology. But, to openly question the very notion of white racial superiority would have been very bold and risky in his time, so Melville indirectly critiques and questions whiteness and in the end leaves it to the readers to extrapolate their own conclusions. This is made obvious in the last sentence of the chapter, “…and of all these things the Albino Whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?” (Melville 189).

Works Cited

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

Morrison, Toni. “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature.” The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. 07 Oct 1988. Lecture.