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.

Pip, as the only major African-American character in the novel, provides a unique commentary on racial issues of 19^th century America. Melville, or rather, Ishmael presents Pip as “the most insignificant of the Pequod’s crew” who merely serves as the Pequod’s ship-keeper, a sailor who stays on the ship while the whaleboats go out (Melville 398). However, from the moment Pip enters the novel his race plays a significant role in dictating his interactions and relationship with the other crew members.

Pip’s first soliloquy reveals to the reader all of the dangers he faces as a young African American boy on board the ship. Although he is evidently afraid of the storm and the inevitable encounter with Moby Dick, he is also afraid of the actions of the white sailors. It is apparent that his racial difference affects both his relationships with men and, in a larger sense, with God. In chapter 40, Midnight, Forecastle, Melville allows Pip to belittle himself and his race by submitting to the religious customs of the white Americans as an inferior ‘black’ being.

“Oh, though big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no bowels to feel fear!” (Melville 171).

In chapter 93, Castaways, Ishmael highlights Pip’s immense fear of the sea, his unique relationship with the white men on the ship, and his symbolic role as the African American slave. In the beginning of the chapter when Melville compares Pip to the ship’s steward, Dough-Boy, he simultaneously elevates African-Americans while blatantly portraying racial stereotypes.  Ishmael describes Pip as “over tender-hearted, but at the bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe; a tribe which ever enjoys all holidays and festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race” Ishmael goes so far as to instruct the reader: “Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous ebony, paneled in king’s cabinets” (Melville 399). Ishmael’s depiction of Pip represents the 19^th century white man’s skewed view of the black race. Although the recognition of Pip’s ‘brilliance’ and his superiority to Dough-Boy reveals the greater humanity and more developed character of the black man in contrast to his white counterpart, the very nature of Ishamael’s description of Pip’s ‘tribe’  presents an extremely cliché racial representation. For example; the idea that African-Americans are constantly jolly and that they all play the tambourine.

Chapter 93 also contains a critical turning plot piece regarding Pip’s role in the novel. However, I won’t be addressing Pip’s dramatic shift to an integral symbol of insanity as a result of  being left to drift alone in the open sea, but rather his interactions with the other crew members during this fiasco.  In this Chapter Pip has been temporarily reassigned to Stubb’s whaleboat crew. The first time out he jumps from the boat, causing Stubb and Tashtego to lose their already harpooned whale. Upon this discretion Stubb forcefully lectures Pip on the importance of ‘sticking to the boat’. Interestingly, Stubb makes an obvious allusion to slavery in saying that “a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama” (Melville 400).  This reference emphasizes the presence of slavery in 19^th century America and reveals the social acceptance of a statement such as this. After Stubb attempts to use this statement to control Pip’s actions Ishmael interjects with insightful commentary regarding human tendencies of slavery, “Perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal , which propensity too often interferes with is benevolence” (Melville 400). It can be read that Melville intended this segment to be a critique of slavery and a broader commentary on human’s innate tendencies to ignore morality for self gain and, more specifically, monetary profit. This chapter is one of the many in Moby Dick that Melville has utilized to interject his negative feelings towards slavery in America.

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? …Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who aint a slave? … Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about-however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other server in much the same way – either in a physical or metaphysical point of view.

Melville’s words have a meaningful message.  When deciding to become a sailor, one accepts that there will be a break down of their previously unconstrained and entitled life.  They will be at the mercy of their captain, who will abuse them to the greatest extent.  But a sailor knows he is not alone, his fellow shipmates will experience the same mental and physical cruelty.  Thus when Ishmael comments, “Who aint a slave?” (4) is he incorrect? Is a man not a slave to the work he is forced to complete? But is the horrors of slavery lessened when one knows that his fellow men are enslaved as well?  To answer these questions, I think we would need to discuss the definition and terms of slavery.  Understandably, Ishmael is not a slave in the sense that he chose this career for himself, but once he is on the boat with the captain, he cannot escape from him.  Thus is a sailor a slave to the captain or the boat? Or perhaps both?

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.  True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough.  It touches one’s sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes.

Furthermore, is humility not something we should all learn and experience? To live under the control of another individual, does it not teach us who we are or want to be?  To clarify there is a difference between humility and slavery.  They are not one and the same.  But I believe Melville is attempting to articulate is that although a man’s “honor” is taken away when he becomes a sailor because he can no longer live behind his possibly good name; he can create his own respected name through working with his own hands.  Thus hard work teaches humility and respect for one’s superiors but also gives a man honor.  Labor is then not demeaning as some would believe because it gives a man the ability to accomplish something through their own physical force.  And unlike money, these accomplishments cannot be taken away; they belong to that man forever.

Much of this novel is about the work done on or for the ship in the whaling business, but work can be defined in many ways. There are also multiple hierarchies of workers on the ship. Posts for this group will focus on passages where issues of labor seem important or salient — does the passage/event equate labor with slavery? Is the narrator making a commentary about slavery in America? What aspects of labor does the narrator celebrate, and which does he denounce, and why?