There have been many interpretations of “The Spirit-Spout,” and I’d like to offer mine.\u00a0 This chapter is, in fact, an indication of the crew of The Pequod slipping into something close to delirium. Ahab has infected them all with his dream of capturing Moby Dick, and now each man dreams of the white whale.\u00a0 In the icy purgatory of this chapter, a dream-like feeling slips over everyone.\u00a0 Ahab’s face seems to have “two different things warring” (209). He is between his two natures: the broken man and the ungodly divine ideal man, who would strike\u00a0 the sun if it insulted him–and he is in complete control of the ship’s crew, in control of their imaginations.\u00a0 Ishmael is inspired like the rest, perhaps the most inspired:<\/p>\n
And had you watched Ahab’s face that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring.\u00a0 While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap.\u00a0 On life and death this old man walked.\u00a0 But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night.\u00a0 Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A folklore native to the ship rapidly develops around this spout–every man sees it but once.\u00a0 This is further evidence of Ahab’s capture of the crew’s imagination.<\/p>\n
I think this contains larger implications about Ahab as a man and perhaps about genius itself.\u00a0 Ahab does not appear in the novel for a long time, and yet he is a strong presence before that.\u00a0 He is manifested through the stories that people have told to Ishmael about him.\u00a0 Peleg, Bildad, and strange Elijah all show Ishmael a picture of Ahab before we meet him.\u00a0 Without these stories, Ahab would be just another crazy old man.\u00a0 It is necessary for his crew to believe in him and his wild quest in order for the voyage to succeed.\u00a0 I think this is the case for all storytellers who’d like us to believe in them.\u00a0 So, in the end, all genius is metaphorical, and, here, Starbuck is the only skeptic.<\/p>\n
This reminds me of Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello<\/em>.\u00a0 Iago is similar to Ahab.\u00a0 He speaks in his soliloquys about “pouring his pestilence” into Othello’s ear, and he watches the Moor change throughout the play as he infects his imagination.\u00a0 Iago must gain the trust of the other characters in the play if he is to have his revenge.\u00a0 That trust is a belief in the story he presents them, which is a complete takeover of their imaginations.\u00a0 This happens, I think, every time we read a book.\u00a0 We could do with more benign artists than these men!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There have been many interpretations of “The Spirit-Spout,” and I’d like to offer mine.\u00a0 This chapter is, in fact, an indication of the crew of The Pequod slipping into something close to delirium. Ahab has infected them all with his dream of capturing Moby Dick, and now each man dreams of the white whale.\u00a0 In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-narrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}