In \u2018The Blacksmith\u2019, Ishmael expands upon his understanding of the sea as an escape from the troubles of life.\u00a0 When death seems the only possible place left to go, Perth (like Ishmael) finds the sea.\u00a0 Similar to the opening paragraph of the novel in which he discusses his own reasons for going to sea, in this chapter, Ishmael gives us Perth\u2019s reasons, based on his “wretched” life on land.\u00a0\u00a0 Prior to boarding the Pequod, Perth was \u201crobbed\u201d of his happy life, owing in large part to alcoholism.\u00a0 He lost his family and his home, and \u201cstaggered off a vagabond in crape\u201d (Melville 468).\u00a0 Though his life was seemingly lost, he was not able to commit suicide\u2014the blank slate of the sea beckoned him.\u00a0 It was a submittal to a different kind of death, \u201ca life which, to [his] now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, [was] more oblivious than death\u201d (468).<\/p>\n
The sea attracted Ishmael for similar reasons; the oblivion of the sea provided him grounds for deep thought and reflection.\u00a0 But the seas barrenness also brings man a simplicity to his life, which can pervade even his mind.\u00a0 Without the many complexities of life on land, a man (such as Perth) can be stripped down to his barest form.<\/p>\n
Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart\u201d (466)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In embodying the hammer, Perth truly left his \u201clanded world\u201d behind.\u00a0 His broken heart brought him to sea, and then turned into a tool.\u00a0 The sea didn\u2019t restore his life, or his heart, instead it simplified it so much that it became wholly unnecessary for him to be anything more than his work.\u00a0 He\u2019s entered into a transitory state\u2014he\u2019s ceased living, but because he\u2019s not dead either, he can only do those most basic functions, biding what time the sea chooses to give him.<\/p>\n
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In \u2018The Blacksmith\u2019, Ishmael expands upon his understanding of the sea as an escape from the troubles of life.\u00a0 When death seems the only possible place left to go, Perth (like Ishmael) finds the sea.\u00a0 Similar to the opening paragraph of the novel in which he discusses his own reasons for going to sea, in […]<\/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-849","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\/849","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=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}