{"id":445,"date":"2010-02-02T22:58:54","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T02:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=445"},"modified":"2010-02-03T11:32:41","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T15:32:41","slug":"classifying-whales-and-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"Classifying whales and men"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter thirty-two in Herman Melville\u2019s <em>Moby Dick<\/em> deals exclusively with Ishmael\u2019s own categorization system for whales.\u00a0 Throughout this chapter, Ishmael tells the reader everything he has experienced or has heard of that would be useful in distinguishing whales from one another.\u00a0 Yet, the most common piece of knowledge is that whales are largely a mystery.\u00a0 Ishmael begins the chapter with quotations regarding this mysteriousness, this \u201c impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea\u201d (126).\u00a0 Despite this grounding in mystery, Ishmael goes on to provide the reader with his own set of classifications for the whale.\u00a0 These are based largely on size and then appearance.\u00a0 Within these divisions, whales are discussed regarding their value to whalers, primarily the value of their oil.\u00a0 However, he also comments on whales\u2019 sociability:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Fin-Back is not gregarious.\u00a0 He seems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters.\u00a0 Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters; his straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man; this Leviathan seems to be the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that style upon his back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From there I drew a similarity from the way Ishmael discusses whale to the way in which he discusses men.\u00a0 He also feels the need to categorize men based on their birthplace. \u00a0The three mates on the Pequod are all introduced with their origins as one of their chief characteristics. \u00a0Just as Ishmael judges whales based on the value of their oil, he seems to judge men based on their affinity with water. \u00a0The Lakeman, while being born far from the ocean, is still respected because the Great  Lakes have given him similar experiences. \u00a0The Canallers are predisposed to betrayal due to their upbringing along the Erie Canal.<\/p>\n<p>And yet in reality, this sort of stereotyping comes about because so much is unknown about individuals.\u00a0 Ishmael is able to classify people based on his limited experience and on what he has heard from others, just as he classifies whales.\u00a0 I found this to be yet another example of the science of whales being intertwined with Ishmael\u2019s views on humanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter thirty-two in Herman Melville\u2019s Moby Dick deals exclusively with Ishmael\u2019s own categorization system for whales.\u00a0 Throughout this chapter, Ishmael tells the reader everything he has experienced or has heard of that would be useful in distinguishing whales from one another.\u00a0 Yet, the most common piece of knowledge is that whales are largely a mystery.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-or-cetology","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","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=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}