{"id":1430,"date":"2010-03-05T17:14:19","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T21:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=1430"},"modified":"2010-03-05T17:14:19","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T21:14:19","slug":"the-true-moby-dick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=1430","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;true&#8221; Moby Dick?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In the eighty-sixth chapter of Herman Mellville\u2019s <em>Moby Dick<\/em>, after describing the sperm whale\u2019s tail, Ishmael states that he still has an \u201cinability to express it\u201d (Melville, 366) and that even after dissecting a whale, he \u201cknow[s the whale] not, and never will\u201d (Melville, 367).\u00a0 There is a similar instance in the 103<sup>rd<\/sup> chapter of the novel, entitled \u201cMeasurement of the Whale\u2019s Skeleton.\u201d For the most part, this chapter is a fairly dry and very detailed description of the whale\u2019s skeleton. When Ishmael is examining a skeleton, he suddenly breaks away from his observations and thinks<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cHow vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untraveled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in the heart of the quickest perils; only within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out\u201d (Melville, 438).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As suddenly as this mental soliloque began, it ends and moves back to the description of the skeleton in a manner so abrupt that it is almost comical. \u00a0The added factor in this thought \u2013 that the \u201ctrue\u201d whale can be discovered only in a perilous fight \u2013 is very likely an allusion to the final hunt of Moby Dick that will finish the novel. Therefore, it would be interesting to examine the first concrete sighting of <em>Moby Dick<\/em> to attempt to determine if there is an instance in which this particular whale\u2019s true nature is revealed.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One possible revelation of the true Moby Dick is the shockingly calm and peaceful first description of him: \u201cA gentle joyousness \u2013 a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale\u201d (Melville, 525). While this moment does not seem perilous, the danger of hunting Moby Dick has been well forewarned and is not doubted. \u00a0The fact that the word \u201cinvested\u201d is used to refer to the whale in both instances is especially indicative of a correlation. The descriptions of Moby Dick, for the most part, become increasingly more fearsome as this tragic climax in the novel progresses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In the eighty-sixth chapter of Herman Mellville\u2019s Moby Dick, after describing the sperm whale\u2019s tail, Ishmael states that he still has an \u201cinability to express it\u201d (Melville, 366) and that even after dissecting a whale, he \u201cknow[s the whale] not, and never will\u201d (Melville, 367).\u00a0 There is a similar instance in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-or-cetology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430","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=1430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1432,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430\/revisions\/1432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}