Feb 24 2010
School at sea
Chapter 88, Schools and Schoolmasters is another good example of a chapter where Melville uses whales to comment on humanity. At first what struck me about this chapter was that it is one of the only instances where Melville mentions love. Of course, this is whale love, not human love, but his language frames this whale love in human terms: “As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love” (380).
However, as the chapter continues, it appears to focus more on ideas of learning and growing up. The male whale will cavort with a harem of female whales while he is young. But as he matures, he will instead choose solitude and leave the harem and “he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets” (381). For men in this book, the sea is also a source of “moody secrets.” They often contemplate her vastness and her beauty. Yet, for men, land is more likely to be the place where they settle down. Melville settled down to a life on land with a wife and children after he spent years traveling the world in ships.
Though we as readers will not get to follow Ishmael past his time on the Pequod, it would be interesting to see how much longer he spends quieting his restlessness by going out to sea. He obviously sees the sea as a “school” of sorts, as he relates chapters and chapters worth of scientific and philosophical information that he has learned while whaling. But most likely eventually he, and men like him, will feel they have learned enough, and will return to land permanently.