{"id":244,"date":"2010-01-29T20:42:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T00:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=244"},"modified":"2010-01-29T20:42:44","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T00:42:44","slug":"humanity-and-the-whale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=244","title":{"rendered":"Humanity and the whale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Herman Melville begins <em>Moby Dick<\/em> with a vocabulary lesson on the word \u201cwhale,\u201d and follows this with a series of literary references to this famous creature.\u00a0 While he cautions the reader that we \u201cmust not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology\u201d ( xxiii), they do contain what sounds like scientific information about whales.\u00a0 Much of this information comes from recordings of voyages taken by various explorers around the globe.\u00a0 However, there are also references that come from great literary works such as the Bible, Shakespeare, and Paradise Lost.<\/p>\n<p>These excerpts elevate the whale from being a mere animal to an entity whose history is intertwined with humanity\u2019s.\u00a0 Giving us the translation of \u201cwhale\u201d in different languages also implies that this creature has an important place in cultures all over the world.\u00a0 I would like to know his source for the Hebrew translation though.\u00a0 As far as I can tell, \u05d7\u05e8 means \u201chole,\u201d or biblically \u201clord,\u201d and the word for whale is actually \u05dc\u05d5\u05d9\u05ea\u05df, which is \u201cLeviathan\u201d in English.<\/p>\n<p>These early pages prepare the reader for the importance of the whale in the main part of the novel.\u00a0 Though the long introduction takes place primarily on land, whaling is present in many aspects of the lives of residents of New Bedford and Nantucket.\u00a0 The Spouter-Inn is decorated with the accoutrements of whaling, and the bar is shaped like a whale.\u00a0 Even the pulpit at a local church resembles a ship.\u00a0 The chaplain gives a whale themed sermon retelling the story of Jonah who is swallowed by a whale for disobeying God.\u00a0 Queequeg, Ishamael\u2019s new harpooner friend, uses his harpoon to shave in the morning.\u00a0 These details display ways in which whaling can truly enter into peoples\u2019 ways of life.\u00a0 Ishmael seems to understand this melding as he himself has a very close relationship with the sea, and goes to it for a form of catharsis.<\/p>\n<p>Ishmael describes his affinity for water in the opening pages, but also implies that all men are innately drawn to the sea.\u00a0 Men who work in offices every day at some point leave and \u201cmust get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in\u201d (2).\u00a0 This connection between men and the sea, and between humanity and whales, acts as foreshadowing for the rest of the novel.\u00a0 After the long introduction, the plot will continue away from land and become increasingly concerned with the act of whaling and man\u2019s fascination with the whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Herman Melville begins Moby Dick with a vocabulary lesson on the word \u201cwhale,\u201d and follows this with a series of literary references to this famous creature.\u00a0 While he cautions the reader that we \u201cmust not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology\u201d ( [&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-244","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\/244","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=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}