Moby Dick

“The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth? – Because one did survive the wreck” (509).

Ishmael remains alive at the end of the wreck, presumably the only means through which this text is produced. As everyone else is killed on way or another by Moby Dick, Ishmael is “dropped astern,” where he spends the rest of the battle “floating on the margin of the ensuing scene” but, of course, “in full sight of it” (509). This last picture, Ishmael sort of passively experiencing everything that happens on the ship, is a good manner in which to examine the novel. Ishmael’s rational for whaling is not that of Ahab’s, who finds an even more compelling reason to continue his life’s obsession, or any of the mates, also whaling lifers, or that of the harpooneers; he goes as a “substitute for the pistol and ball” (1). He ruminates on his own melancholic existence while aboard the boat, and it seems like he probably spends a lot of time alone. However, sine this novel is his ‘story,’ he must be privy to situations and conversations in which he does not take part and for which he cannot seem to be in the same place. I get this sense of Ishmael sort of lurking around, a non-offensive type with whom the other men on the ship are unconcerned about him overhearing what they say. However, Ishmael senses a story building beyond the usual whaling enterprise, and a set of complex characters whose fate centers on the decisions of a brutal antagonist. Ishmael seems to have very few direct conversations with any of his superiors, yet his knowledge of them seems based on having spent much personal time with them. He neglects to mention the names of almost anyone else aboard- all we have is Ahab, the mates, the harpooneers, the mysterious Fedallah, Pip, and a random name dropped here and there; this seems odd in such a long narrative in which these other men are constantly present. It is almost as if Ishmael senses who will be the key players in the story, and in the interest of producing a more gripping narrative, he gives the men on the ship a treatment not even close to the minutely descriptive one he gives the whale. As the story progresses, Ishmael is relatively mute on his feelings about chasing Moby Dick, instead locating the Ahab-Starbuck conflict drama play out without trying to influence the reader too much. He wants them to find Moby Dick, for the sake of the story.

I was reading a comment in which someone said they would like to see Johnny Depp as Ishmael in an imagined film version, the only concern being that his dynamism would steal the screen. I agree- Ishmael would need to better be able to disappear into the background, as he does so often in the novel. He certainly spends all of his time thinking, and whether or not he does the research for the more ‘informational’ portions of his narrative on the ship or after reaching shore, we get the sense that he is eternally plotting how this work will look- he certainly is smart enough to know that this chase will end in disaster, and has made himself passive enough to escape the literal need for his death.

Besides having a completely different subject, I found that Bartleby the Scrivener also differed from Moby Dick in its narration style.  Ishmael is very present at the beginning of Moby Dick, but his voice becomes increasingly disembodied as the novel continues.  The unnamed lawyer narrator remains present throughout Bartleby, and readers follow him through all his various interactions with other characters.

Ishmael does not interact much with other characters after he arrives on the Pequod.  While his voice continues to inform the reader of what is happening on the ship, we rarely get an actual glimpse of him.  He appears briefly in such chapters as The Monkey-Rope and A Squeeze of the Hand.  Yet he still does not enter into dialogue with anyone aboard the ship.  The most dialogue that Ishmael engages in during the part of the book that he is on the ship happens when he is having a flash forward to later describing the Town-Ho’s story to friends in Lima.  Ishmael as a body aboard the ship seems to disappear from the story entirely until the Epilogue.  He does not even alert the reader that he was one of the men on Ahab’s boat until after the ship has sunk.

The narrator of Bartleby has conversations with numerous other people in the text, and often uses the pronoun “I” to describe his personal thoughts and feelings.  His constant flow of opinions and theories regarding Bartleby’s condition contrasts sharply with the reader’s lack of insight into Bartleby’s mind.

I enjoyed reading a piece by Melville where the narrator remained consistent for the duration of the plot.  The narrator was as reliable as Bartleby was unreliable as an employee.

In the assigned reading, Ishmael and the narrator slowly zoom in on the whale. The reader enjoys a holistic picture to begin. Chapter 32 is all about Cetology, which takes a detached, scientific and impersonal view of the whale. Ishmael leaves his discussion of Cetology unfinished: “even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower.” (128) He gives some excuse about great things being left unfinished such as architectural masterpieces. This rang somewhat sarcastic to me though, as his primitive treatment of whale taxonomy (despite the existence of the Linnaean system) could hardly be compared to the likes of the Sagrada Familia.

In chapters 55 and 56, Ishmael zooms in from the scientific to a more feelings-oriented perspective on whale understanding. He discusses first the bad pictures of whales and then “of the less erroneous pictures of whales, and the true pictures of whaling scenes.” (241) Chapter 57 is all about “whales in paint; in teeth; in wood; in sheet iron; in stone; in mountains; in stars.” (244)

In his scientific and philosophical study of the whale, Ishmael is not content with visual descriptions alone. Chapter 65 is dedicated to “the whale as a dish.” (269)

Just a few pages later, Ishmael ponders “what and where is the skin of the whale?” (274) In chapter 68, the crew is cutting open a whale and Ishmael takes to intense observation. He looks at the “infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the whale,” (275) and calls this “the skin of the skin,” referring to the blubber as the primary layer of skin. This could potentially be a metaphor for the fact that despite people (such as sailors on the Pequod) claiming and appearing to have thick skin, they all have a sensitive layer (skin of the skin), which may be more exposed than they think.

Zooming in further, Ishmael observes the sperm whale’s head in chapter 74 and the head of a right whale in 75. This is where the subtle anthropomorphism becomes far more overt. About the sperm whale, Ishmael makes comments like, “there is more character in the Sperm Whale’s head,” (295) and “pepper and salt color of his head at the summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience.” (295) He even asks, after pondering the distance between the sperm whale’s eyes, “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) His musings become even more philosophical and anthropomorphic by the end of chapter 75. For instance:

“Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale’s there? It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head’s expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel’s side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.” (301)

As Ishmael and the narrator move from the scientific to the artistic and culinary and eventually consider the body and head of the whale, the commentary becomes increasingly human-related and philosophical. The flow from one of these chapters mentioned above to the next feels punctuated and dramatic. One possible interpretation is that the sailors and man itself is not so different from what it hunts. This could either be a means to diminish the significance of man or to elevate the status of whales, which given Melville’s obsessions and the respect that most of the sailors have for nature and Moby Dick, seems the more likely alternative.

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

Moby Dick, at least through the first 21 chapters, is primarily concerned with masculinity. To demonstrate, leafing through a Google image search of “Moby Dick,” one will find completely unrelated images of cars and narcotics before coming across an image invoking any feeling of femininity, let alone one of a female character. Significant characters in these chapters are almost entirely male, themes addressed are traditionally masculine ones, and allusions are to still more male characters for masculine works. Melville was also influenced, first and foremost, by male authors; stylistically by Sir Thomas Browne, the 17th century prose writer, by Shakespeare, especially for his characters, and of course, by his contemporary, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom the novel is dedicated.

In the opening paragraph, Ishmael tells us that, “If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.” Though Melville does not mean men in the sense of humanity, he means only men, and excluding women. Ishmael holds that men go to sea and does not leave any interpretation that women too may be drawn to the sea and take up the lives of whalewomen alongside their husbands. He is a sexist and selfish narrator for our story, and when he goes on in chapter 1 to discuss his interest in going to sea as a sailor, rather than a passenger, he seems to imply that real men live as active, paid sailors, and women and the rest, go as the paying passengers.

Under the masculine perspective of our narrator, there lie some homosocial, if not homosexual themes in these opening chapters. The character interactions are primarily homosocial and may touch on a possible homosexual undertone when Ishmael must go to bed with Queequeg, though Melville heteronormatively points out that, “No man prefers to sleep two in a bed.”

However masculine, no story can be completely devoid of feminine influences. As Ishmael duly points out when describing the warmth of his and Queequeg’s bed, “…there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.” Among these touches of the other gender, we see work here fulfilled in very traditional male-female roles: The sailors are all men, while the women remain at shore to tend the the sailors, their families, and their (husbands’) businesses, as this was a sexist society. And then of course, the good old Pequot is portrayed as a female vessel, referred to as “she” as most all ships are.

Melville may have been concerned with issues of race and equality when writing his great work, but through the reading of these introductory chapters, one may doubt that he held any similar views of gender equality or the importance of the feminine perspective.

Posts from this group will focus on the tricky concept of narration — at times, Ishmael seems to be in full control of the narrative (he IS the narrator). At other times, he seems to disappear behind an all-seeing, omniscient form of narration that seems out of place with the first-person narrative. Focus on passages or aspects of the novel where the narration is important, either because it calls attention to itself loudly (for example, there are moments in the novel where the narration resembles a play or telescript), or where the narrator seems biased, unreliable, etc. Notice what you can about disparities between what Ishmael-the-narrator might be thinking and what Melville-the-author may have intended or meant to hide behind Ishmael’s narration.