{"id":167,"date":"2010-01-28T16:44:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T20:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=167"},"modified":"2010-01-29T16:04:36","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T20:04:36","slug":"167","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"Ishmael’s Invisible Hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

The narrator is at the helm of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick<\/em>. While Captain Ahab may be in charge of the ship, Ishmael is our<\/em> crazed captain, sailing us through the story. It seems that Melville wrote in 20th century parlance what would have been termed “a romance” through the style of a travel narrative, which was the form that was most familiar to him. Melville has created such a chaotic world, both on land and on “the watery part,” that a narrator just as complex is needed to steer the ship. Melville is not giving us a docked story, but a ship, which must be steered to reach its destination.<\/p>\n

Ishmael is the frothy film between the murky depths and us.\u00a0 We are not given the undiluted ocean, the whole truth, the whole, watery body of knowledge.\u00a0 We are told everything through Ishmael\u2019s perspective.\u00a0 There is an arduous attempt to recreate reality through great observational detail, but all we are left with are the lines left in the sand after the waves have receded back into the ocean.\u00a0 Ishmael, as a prophet, is left with a great burden.\u00a0 He must convince us of the reality of the story, despite the fact that the water tastes less salty when it has not touched our lips.<\/p>\n

In many ways, we have to take Ishmael on faith.\u00a0 We can call him Ishmael, and we can believe his story\u2014or we can choose not to.\u00a0 In Chapter 18, Captain Peleg of the Pequod<\/em> tells Ishmael, “Young man, you’d better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast hand; I never heard a better sermon… why Father Mapple himself couldn’t beat it, and he’s reckoned something” (86, Signet ed.).<\/p>\n

What is Ishmael\u2019s purpose as a narrator? Is it actually to tell us a story or to tell us a sermon?\u00a0 It is pretty evident from the beginning that he is back-narrating the story, so he could not have remembered much detail, yet he retells such colorful conversations and striking sermons word-for-word.\u00a0 Though I don\u2019t see an omniscient form of narrative emerging yet, I do see a narrator with a God-like memory, or imagination.<\/p>\n

In fact, if Ishmael is better at telling sermons than Father Mapple, how do we know that he did not author the sermon in Chapter 9 himself?\u00a0 I think it is likely. \u00a0It is so rife with whaling references that it would make the sub-sub-librarian blush.\u00a0 I think it also has too many parallels to the unfolding plot of the story, and that Melville, the writer, would not miss a chance like this to make some of the themes of the book explicit.<\/p>\n

For instance, when Jonah boards the ship, the priest comments:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn their gamesome but still serious way one [sailor] whispers to the other\u2014\u2018Jack, he\u2019s robbed\u00a0 a widow;\u2019 or, \u2018Joe, do you mark him; he\u2019s a bigamist;\u2019 or, \u201cHarry lad, I guess he\u2019s the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom\u201d (41).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Ishmael boards the Pequod, Captain Peleg asks him:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes thee want to go a-whaling, eh?\u2014it looks a little suspicious, don\u2019t it, eh?\u2014Hast not been a pirate, hast thou?\u2014Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?\u2014Dost not think of murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea\u201d (68)?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God (Yahweh<\/em> in Hebrew) chooses Jonah; \u201cThe lot is [his]\u201d (44). Queequeg\u2019s idol, Yojo<\/em>, selects Ishmael (65).<\/p>\n

And another:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hard hand of God is upon [Jonah]\u201d (44). Ishmael remembers finding a \u201csupernatural hand\u201d placed in his as a child after waking from a nightmare (25-26).<\/p>\n

In class, we heard Melville\u2019s style compared to jazz music, but I\u2019d like to compare it to the music of someone one wouldn’t typically associate it with. Charlie Chaplin once recalled having this discussion<\/a> with the great Romantic composer Rachmaninoff:<\/p>\n

I remember [Vladimir] Horowitz, the pianist… Just before the war [World War II] I dined at his house with his wife, the daughter of Toscanini. Rachmaninoff and Barbirolli were there… It was an intimate dinner, just five of us.<\/p>\n

It seems that each time art is discussed I have a different explanation of it. Why not? That evening I said that art was an additional emotion applied to skillful technique. Someone brought the topic round to religion and I confessed I was not a believer. Rachmaninoff quickly interposed: “But how can you have art without religion?”<\/p>\n

I was stumped for a moment. “I don’t think we are talking about the same thing,” I said. “My concept of religion is a belief in a dogma–that art is a feeling more than a belief.”<\/p>\n

“So is religion,” he answered. After that I shut up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rachmaninoff meant religion as a feeling, as an obsession which pervades one\u2019s work.\u00a0 Could religion or obsession also be guiding this narrative?\u00a0 Could Melville be trying to show that aspect of religion, i.e., its very essence?\u00a0 Ishmael is obsessed with the waves, the sea, and ocean life.\u00a0 Are \u201chis ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean\u201d(46)?<\/p>\n

Throughout the story, it may be Ishmael\u2019s invisible hand that is guiding us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The narrator is at the helm of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. While Captain Ahab may be in charge of the ship, Ishmael is our crazed captain, sailing us through the story. It seems that Melville wrote in 20th century parlance what would have been termed “a romance” through the style of a travel narrative, which was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-narrative","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","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\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}