Moby Dick

I would like to again focus a post on a single chapter. Specifically, I would like to compare the monkey-rope in chapter 72 to a climbing rope. I am moving away from my usual category of gender to the umbrella of labor, work, and slavery, as the monkey-rope is used for labor and involves, as Ishmael says, a mortal wound to one’s free will, like slavery. Thus, allow me to compare chapter 72 of Moby Dick to one of the most astounding pieces of mountaineering lore: the true story, Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson.

Interested in mountaineering for much of my life, it was hard to miss Joe Simpson’s story of his own survival, but I brushed up my details with a sup-par article from Wikipedia, which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touching_the_Void

First, the short version of Simpson’s story: Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, set out to make the first ascent of a 21,000 foot peak. They made it to the top, but on the way down Simpson fell and broke his leg. Since the two were low on food and fuel, they needed to make a quick descent to their base camp, so the two tied a pair of ropes together and Yates began to lower Simpson down the mountain in 300 foot intervals. However, at one point, Yates accidentally lowered Simpson off a cliff, and with the belay seat he cut into the snow crumbling, rather than allow them both to slide down the slope and fall off a cliff to their deaths, Yates cut the rope, resulting in Simpson’s fall off the cliff and into a crevasse. Yates figured his buddy was dead and down-climbed to base camp to save himself. Meanwhile Simpson didn’t die and managed to craw out the side of the crevasse and all the way back to base camp in one of the most impressive mountaineering survival stories ever told (which I do no justice).

Let’s begin now with a Footnote from Melville, describing the monkey-rope situation (337, Bantam Ed.):

The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This improvement on the original usage was introduced by no less a man than Stubb, in order to afford to the imperilled harpooner the strongest guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his monkey-rope holder.

However, Yates bypassed the fails-safes designed by that noble man Stubb, by severing his 300 feet of kernmantle money-rope; thereby saving himself while most likely dropping his friend to his death.

So here we have the dilemma of the monkey-rope and the climbing rope. As Ishmael points out, the situation of belaying another man, who in his imperiled state also endangers the belayer, is often a, “humorously perilous business” (336, Bantam Ed.). There is much inherent danger in summiting a high peak or being lowered onto a dead whale inundated in shark-infested water, but these are nonetheless humorous endeavor’s, in part to share a laugh to forget about one’s mortality, and simply in the sense that these can be seen as absurd practices. Why would any sane man ever allow himself to take the working end of the monkey-rope, or the sharp end (the leader’s end) of a climbing rope?

Though the monkey-rope is of hemp, and a climbing rope of nylon, and though the monkey-rope is found only at sea, only on a whaler, and in this technique, only on the Pequod, the situation of Ishmael and Queequeg, and the situation of Yates and Simpson can be found to be very similar. As Ishmael observes, being tied together for safety in a hazardous situation is very much a partnership, almost a marriage of sorts:

…for better or worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake.” (336, Bantam Ed.)

“…my free will, had received a mortal wound; and another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death.” (337, Bantam Ed.)

These passages seem to make a strong case for the viewpoint that severing one of those lifelines is never the thing to do, and breaking that code of honor is worse than your own potential death. But on the other hand, though the assurance of death for the belayer gives insurance to the monkey, why should a mishap or misfortune take two lives when one can be spared?

However a pair of deaths cannot always be avoided, and that is why the agreement between these two people–the monkey and the monkey-holder, the climber and the belayer–is so important, as well as the selection of a capable partner in imperilment. Each of you must rely on the skill and vigilance of the other and each must hold up his end of the bargain if you each want to make it back on deck or back at base camp in one piece. But you have no other choice than to trust your partner. A monkey rope is no use without someone holding the other end. And of course, these safety measures–these lifelines–are far from a guarantee. Your partner at the other end of the rope can only do so much to protect you, and can just as easily endanger you.

Simpson did manage to survive his ordeal, and had Yates not cut the rope, they both may have fallen to their deaths, but would that make it acceptable for Ishmael to sever his monkey-rope to save himself, even if Queequeg was able to swim through the shark-infested sea to safety? That’s not a call for me to make. But it is too much to ask that Ishmael tie himself to the ship? I admire Stubb’s logic, but if you were to slip into the drink, wouldn’t you rather have your belayer pulling you out of the water than foundering in it along with you? Perhaps we can apply the same logic to our mountaineering story and say that, however dishonorable of Yates, it would be better for Simpson to have Yates come looking for him (dead or alive) than to have him lying dead next to Simpson at the bottom of a crevasse.