{"id":344,"date":"2010-02-01T00:26:09","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T04:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=344"},"modified":"2010-02-01T00:27:05","modified_gmt":"2010-02-01T04:27:05","slug":"the-sea-and-the-opening-paragraph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=344","title":{"rendered":"The Sea and the Opening Paragraph"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the opening paragraph of the <em>Moby Dick<\/em>, Ishmael\u2019s cherished relationship with the ocean is established.  In the mysterious, and ominous introduction, our narrator invokes the sea as a healer of land-induced woes.  When Ishmael feels grimness in his soul he retreats to the sea for solace and rejuvenation. The \u201cwatery part of the world\u201d offers Ishmael a \u201csubstitute for pistol and ball\u201d (Melville 1). The free-flowing movement of the sea seems to lull our narrator back into a more peaceful and quiet frame of mind.<\/p>\n<p>His suicidal thoughts (or potentially murderous tendencies) are not attributed to anything specific, so it\u2019s difficult to say if Ishmael believes the physical land to be at the root of his darkness, or whether he just finds the sea to be a retreat from his own personal demons (not in relation to the land itself).  Regardless, his ocean solution is not commonplace, yet Ishmael speaks as if it is a very normal way to deal with depression.  In fact, so normal that he feels \u201calmost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean\u2026\u201d (1).<\/p>\n<p>Melville\u2019s attempts to normalize the lifestyle of taking \u201cto the ship\u201d functions to alert readers to the important role the sea is going to play in the rest of the novel.  In order for readers to access the tale they must adopt those feelings as well.  Ishmael is looking to get out on the open water \u201cas soon as [he] can,\u201d but it\u2019s not until the 22nd chapter that Melville finally takes us aboard the ship.  This extended time spent on land offers readers a foundation for the inevitable ensuing contrast of life at sea.<\/p>\n<p>Melville, Herman. <em>Moby Dick. <\/em>New York: Signet Classic, 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the opening paragraph of the Moby Dick, Ishmael\u2019s cherished relationship with the ocean is established. In the mysterious, and ominous introduction, our narrator invokes the sea as a healer of land-induced woes. When Ishmael feels grimness in his soul he retreats to the sea for solace and rejuvenation. The \u201cwatery part of the world\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":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-criticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","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=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}