{"id":762,"date":"2010-02-15T18:23:46","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T22:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=762"},"modified":"2010-02-15T18:25:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T22:25:06","slug":"heaven-and-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=762","title":{"rendered":"Heaven and Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pervasive throughout Herman Melville\u2019s Moby-Dick<\/em> are references to religion, particularly Catholicism. \u00a0\u00a0As the concepts of Heaven and Hell are central to this religion, it only makes sense for references of them to be prolific in this novel.<\/p>\n

An epitomizing example of Heaven-on-Earth occurs in the chapter \u201cA Squeeze of the Hand\u201d.\u00a0 In it, the protagonist Ishmael describes the experience of tempering and preparing the spermaceti while aboard the whaling ship the Pequod<\/em>:<\/p>\n

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma,\u2013literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that expressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it\u2026while bathing in that bath, I felt free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is impossible to say that this is an inaccurate description of what the bliss of Heaven must feel like.\u00a0 Ishmael\u2019s mind is at ease and wholly content.\u00a0 His physical sensations are pleasant and easy.\u00a0 Even the surrounding sea, which is so often described as tumultuous, is calm and serene.\u00a0 Ishmael even goes so far as to say that he feels \u201cdivinely free\u201d from any malevolent sentiment whatsoever.\u00a0 Melville makes it clear that Ishmael\u2019s experience is perhaps next to Godly it is so positive.<\/p>\n

Contrastingly, Ishmael is undoubtedly describing a secular Hell when he describes the try-works of the ship, which are used to boil the oil out of whales’ blubber:<\/p>\n

Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body.\u00a0 Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time.\u00a0 It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funeral pyres.\u00a0 It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage is absolutely steeped in Hellish references.\u00a0 The description of the fiery burning of the whale can be very easily equated to Hell-fire.\u00a0 Not only is it fire, but even its smoke is absolutely unbearable to inhale, but when around it \u201cinhale it you must\u201d, as one in Hell is forcibly subjected to Hell\u2019s miseries.\u00a0 Furthermore, Melville makes clear the nearness of death in this passage, mentioning that the smoke smells like the smoke one would smell from a funeral pyre.\u00a0 This is an unbearably graphic image, the smell of human bodies burning, and once again, an image very reminiscent of Hell.\u00a0 Furthermore, Melville assigns a Hindoo-like quality to the smell, suggesting its sacreligious (to Catholicism, anyway) and thus Hell-like nature.\u00a0 Finally, Melville makes a very direct reference to Catholicism, mentioning that the try-works have a smell similar to the smell one would encounter on Judgment Day, and undoubtedly such an unpleasant smell would not be issued for anyone traveling to Heaven.<\/p>\n

This presentation of dualities by Melville, particularly in chapters so close to another (there is only one very short chapter between them), reminds the reader that Heaven and Hell are not so far apart.\u00a0 Both are experienced by Ishmael on the Pequod<\/em> within a very short time span in the novel.\u00a0 Perhaps this is echoing Melville\u2019s ideas of a Calvinist fate, and is his way of showing to his audience that Heaven and Hell are both possible for any of us, and not only that, but that our mortality is inevitable and the afterlife is not far away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pervasive throughout Herman Melville\u2019s Moby-Dick are references to religion, particularly Catholicism. \u00a0\u00a0As the concepts of Heaven and Hell are central to this religion, it only makes sense for references of them to be prolific in this novel. An epitomizing example of Heaven-on-Earth occurs in the chapter \u201cA Squeeze of the Hand\u201d.\u00a0 In it, the protagonist […]<\/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-762","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\/762","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=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions\/764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}