{"id":623,"date":"2010-02-08T22:46:48","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T02:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=623"},"modified":"2010-02-08T22:50:43","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T02:50:43","slug":"moby-dicks-divinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=623","title":{"rendered":"Moby-Dick’s Divinity"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u201cThe Jeroboam\u2019s Story\u201d, the Pequod<\/em> encounters the ship the Jeroboam<\/em>, aboard which is a sailor claiming himself to be the archangel prophet Gabriel.\u00a0 In the past, Gabriel declared that Moby Dick was \u201cno less a being than the Shaker God incarnated\u201d (306).\u00a0 After Gabriel warns that the ship should not hunt Moby-Dick, the crew spots Moby-Dick and one of the ship\u2019s mates, Macey, attempts to harpoon him, at which point Macey, and only Macey, is tossed into the sea \u201cfor ever sank\u201d (307).<\/p>\n

This mere claim of Gabriel, that Moby-Dick is the Shaker God, supports the theory that Moby-Dick is an instantiation of God.\u00a0 Not only does Gabriel predict that misfortune will fall on anyone who attempts to kill Moby-Dick\/God, this misfortune is actualized, lending credence to Gabriel\u2019s claim.\u00a0 Furthermore, in the Bible, Gabriel was a prophet who predicted the birth of two prominent figures, John the Baptist and Jesus.\u00a0 Thus, Gabriel\u2019s prophetic name further upholds the validity his conviction that Moby-Dick is God \u2013 if the Gabriel in the Bible was able to predict the birth of such a Biblically important figure as Jesus, then shouldn\u2019t Gabriel of the Jeroboam<\/em> be able to predict whether or not Moby-Dick is God?<\/p>\n

In response to the account of Macey\u2019s death, Ishmael points out that accidents of the kind that befell Macey are \u201calmost as frequent as any\u201d (307).\u00a0 This causes reader doubt whether or not Moby-Dick should be thought of as God.\u00a0 Perhaps this sort of accident is typical of whaling, of all whales, and nothing to note as particularly significant.\u00a0 However, immediately after providing this doubt-inspiring comment, Ishmael then contradicts it, saying that in these types of accidents,<\/p>\n

Strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, not a single mark of violence is discernible; the man being stark dead (307).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This suggestion of mystery involved in these accidents once again brings in the concept of divine intervention.\u00a0 Perhaps the divinity of all whales, or the divinity of the sea, is what causes these men to be retrieved from the sea seemingly unharmed (except for, of course, the fact that they\u2019re dead).\u00a0 One would think that upon being hurtled into such a tumultuous environment as the struggle between a whale and a whaling ship, a man would be marred.\u00a0 The fact that many of these men are not once again supports the idea that divinity is at work.<\/p>\n

The contending points brought out in this chapter show that Melville\/Ishmael are wrestling with the idea of the divinity of Moby-Dick.\u00a0 It seems as though neither is willing to commit to the idea that Moby-Dick either represents, or does not represent, God.\u00a0 Or perhaps the contradictory flavor of this chapter does not dictate that Melville\/Ishmael are unsure of their sentiment on this subject, but rather that they are simply unwilling to show this sentiment to the reader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In \u201cThe Jeroboam\u2019s Story\u201d, the Pequod encounters the ship the Jeroboam, aboard which is a sailor claiming himself to be the archangel prophet Gabriel.\u00a0 In the past, Gabriel declared that Moby Dick was \u201cno less a being than the Shaker God incarnated\u201d (306).\u00a0 After Gabriel warns that the ship should not hunt Moby-Dick, the crew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623","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=623"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}