When looking for character development, most readers would skip over the cetology chapter.\u00a0 However, Melville inserts a remarkable amount of personality into his description of the whales.\u00a0 This is not surprising, considering that, in many ways, Moby Dick is the central character of the novel.\u00a0 In the Cetology chapter, Ishmael refers to every whale as “he,” not “it,” an important, humanizing distinction.\u00a0 Some descriptions are more clearly human-esque than others, such as when Ishmael refers to the Sulphur Bottom whale as a<\/p>\n
retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings.\u00a0 He is seldom seen…and then alays at too great a distance to study his countenance.\u00a0 He is never chased; he would run away with the rope-walks of lline.\u00a0 Prodigies are told of him.\u00a0 Adieu, Sulphur Bottom!\u00a0 I can say nothing more that is true of ye (p. 133)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This description sounds eerily applicable to a human, especially the phrase “retiring gentleman” and the words “profounder” and “countenance.”\u00a0 Ishmael is describing a shy man, who runs away from those who pursue him.\u00a0 Few have seen his face, and they know little about him.\u00a0 Without the mention of diving, this could easily be a reclusive guest at an inn or some mystical stowaway on the Pequod.<\/p>\n
The characterization of whales seems to be a matter of some debate with the characters in the text.\u00a0 When describing Moby Dick’s encounter with Ahab, and the taking of Ahab’s leg, Ishmael states that “no turbaned Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming malice,” (p. 177).\u00a0 This creature is vindictive, which gives him power of thought like a human.\u00a0 The very fact that he has a name, Moby Dick, shows that the line between animal and human is blurred in this narrative.\u00a0 Of course, not everyone sees it this way.\u00a0 When Ahab informs the crew of the goal of this journey, Starbuck protests.<\/p>\n
‘Vengeance on a dumb brute!’ cried Starbuck ‘that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness!\u00a0 To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous!’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Starbuck does not approve of anthropomorphism.\u00a0 To him, blurring the line between human and “dumb brute” is unacceptable, blasphemous.\u00a0 The repeated descriptions of whales as having human characteristics, and the strength of Starbuck’s objections, suggests that this debate will carry on throughout the novel.<\/p>\n
(New York: Signet Classic, 1998)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When looking for character development, most readers would skip over the cetology chapter.\u00a0 However, Melville inserts a remarkable amount of personality into his description of the whales.\u00a0 This is not surprising, considering that, in many ways, Moby Dick is the central character of the novel.\u00a0 In the Cetology chapter, Ishmael refers to every whale as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","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=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":481,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}