{"id":180,"date":"2010-01-29T18:51:16","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T22:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=180"},"modified":"2010-01-29T18:51:34","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T22:51:34","slug":"the-perfect-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=180","title":{"rendered":"The Perfect Career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whaling is the perfect career for Ishmael.\u00a0 The story of Melville\u2019s Ishmael closely parallels that of the Bible\u2019s.\u00a0 Melville\u2019s opening paragraph sets Ishmael in the same position that the baby Ishmael was placed in: both need water for survival.\u00a0 Melville then continues for several paragraphs describing the importance of water to humans.\u00a0 Melville binds the two Ishmaels by the one thing that will save both of their lives.<\/p>\n

Violence also binds the two figures together.\u00a0 As we discussed in class, Genesis 16:12 describes Ishmael as<\/p>\n

…a wild donkey of a man;
\nhis hand will be against everyone
\nand everyone’s hand against him,
\nand he will live in hostility
\ntoward\u00a0all his brothers. \u00a0(Biblegateway.com)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many times in the first few chapters, the narrator comments on the violence of whaling \u2013 in describing the \u201cheathenish array of clubs and spears\u201d that decorates the inn (Melville, 10), in his concern for Queequeg when he shaves with the head of a harpoon (Melville, 25), and in his confusion over the fact that a devout Quaker, such as Captain Bildad, would participate in such an occupation (66).\u00a0 For these reasons, the job of whaling meshes perfectly with the biblical figure for whom Melville\u2019s character is named.<\/p>\n

The biblical Ishmael also represents a person who followed a different path, just as Melville\u2019s Ishmael makes his own way in the world.\u00a0 Melville\u2019s characters would have grown up with the stories of Isaac and his descendents, but Ishmael\u2019s story travels off in a different direction.\u00a0 In mirroring his namesake, Melville\u2019s Ishmael can question the norm and decide his own fate.\u00a0 But Melville’s Ishmael strays even farther from any sort of settled path; even though he has so many connections to the Genesis story, this Ishmael does not even follow completely in his namesake’s footsteps. \u00a0He defies the second part of the prophecy and makes a bosom friend, Queequog at the beginning of the novel. \u00a0Although the job of whaling, where everyone must work smoothly together for the three long years that they inhabit the cramped quarters of the ship, seems to work against Ishmael’s prophecy, I think that Melville’s Ishmael makes himself even more similar to the biblical character by making\u00a0himself a path different from the norm.\u00a0 But by tearing himself away from the constraints of the story that gives him his character, I think that Ishmael becomes even more closely tied to the biblical character.\u00a0 And whaling allows Ishmael to explore his freedom and question any norm or idea.<\/p>\n

Another question that arises for Ishmael is the morality of whaling.\u00a0 In presenting this question, whaling allows him to question his life.\u00a0 Even though Ishmael seems destined for a whaling ship at the beginning of the novel, whaling is perhaps one of the most ungodly professions.\u00a0 Melville writes that Captain Bildad is \u201ca sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore\u201d (66).\u00a0 Here Melville implies that whaling is comparable to murder \u2013 a act prohibited by one of the Ten Commandments.\u00a0 A few sentences later, Ishmael says that \u201ca man\u2019s religion is one thing, and this practical world is quite another.\u00a0 This world pays dividends\u201d (66). Ishmael is starting to question the well-travelled path of his past and searching for a new religion.\u00a0 He is becoming the biblical Ishmael.\u00a0 After all, Ishmael went on to father his own religion, Islam.\u00a0 The high seas offer Melville\u2019s character a place in which to question and explore his ideas on religion.<\/p>\n

Yet Ishmael is not the first to look to whaling for answers to spiritual questions.\u00a0 It seems that the entire town of New Bedford, and perhaps most of New England, has found a way to reconcile whaling with God.\u00a0\u00a0 The imagery in chapters 7,8, and 9, \u201cThe Chapel,\u201d \u201cThe Pulpit,\u201d and \u201cThe Sermon\u201d shows how far a church can go to becoming a whaling ship.\u00a0 This begs the question \u201chow far can a whaling ship go to becoming a church?\u201d \u00a0The church, however, also raises another question for Ishmael to sort out.\u00a0 In chapter 8, \u201cThe Pulpit,\u201d Melville describes the pulpit of the church as enclosing Father Mapple almost as if he is isolated from the congregation in a whaling-inspired room of his own.\u00a0 The description of the church as similar to a whaling ship makes me think that the Pequod will be a sort of community, but when Mapple shuts himself away, he makes prayer seem to be an individual activity.\u00a0 So on his journey, will God make Ishmael into \u201ca great nation,\u201d the metaphorical father of the men on the Pequod, or will Ishmael travel alone? (Biblegateway.com) Whaling seems to bring up many questions for Ishmael, but perhaps it will also reveal the answers to his unique future.<\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n