25. "Moby-Dick" (1851) by Herman Melville Chs. 133-135 and Epilogue

 

""He raised a gull-like cry in the air. 'There she blows - there she blows!
A hump like a snowhill! It is Moby Dick!'" by Mead Schaeffer (1922)

Frontispiece and dust jacket illustration for Moby-Dick

"Tribal History" from the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation website.

By the early 17th century, just prior to European contact, the Pequots had approximately 8,000 members and inhabited 250 square miles. However, the Pequot War (1636-1638) -- the first major conflict between colonists and an indigenous New England people -- had a devastating impact on the Tribe.

When the Pequot War formally ended, many tribal members had been killed and others placed in slavery or under the control of other tribes. Those placed under the rule of the Mohegans eventually became known as the Mashantucket (Western) Pequots and were given land at Noank in 1651. In 1666, the land at Noank was taken from the Tribe, and it was given back property at Mashantucket.

In the ensuing decades, the Pequots battled to keep their land, while at the same time losing reservation members to outside forces. By 1774, a Colonial census indicated that there were 151 tribal members in residence at Mashantucket. By the early 1800s, there were between 30 and 40 as members moved away from the reservation seeking work. Others joined the Brotherton Movement, a Christian-Indian movement that attracted Natives from New England to a settlement in upstate New York and later, Wisconsin. As for the remaining land in Connecticut, by 1856 illegal land sales had reduced the 989-acre reservation to 213 acres.

Consider the prominence of Tashtego, a Native American from Massachusetts.

Remember, Tashtego has turned to whaling because he no longer is free to roam and hunt on land: "an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow of the sires" (Ch. 27).

Tashtego is the first to harpoon a whale on this voyage, though, ironically, the chapter title--"Stubb Kills a Whale"--gives credit to someone else (Ch. 61).

Tashtego knows the inside of a whale--"the belly of the beast"--better than anyone on board, having been submerged in one in Ch. 78 (Queequeg rescues him).

Tashtego claims that he saw Moby-Dick at almost the same time Ahab did: "'I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I cried out,' said Tashtego." (Ch. 133)

When the flag on the top mast that serves as a weathervane is lost, Ahab orders Tashtego to hammer a new one in its place: "And now marking that the vane or flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast" (Ch. 135).

When Moby-Dick makes his final attack on the Pequod, the narrator paints a dramatic portrait of a defiant Tashtego: "the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water. Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego’s mast-head hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart" (Ch. 135).

Tashtego is the last character whose name Ahab speaks as the ship goes down, and in fact, it is Tashtego, not the captain, who plays the captain's role of "going down with the ship": "Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab’s boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent. 'I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,—death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains?"

The final image in the final lines of the last chapter focuses on Tashtego, who survives and resists, even after Ahab has gone, and casts a blow against Empire and "heavenly" justice that "blesses" the world's dominant powers: "A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.
    "Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago" (Ch. 135).

Given this prominence and the fact the boat Ahab captains is named after a Native American tribe of New England that has been submerged and wiped out by White conquering force, can Ahab's voyage be productively read as a hopeless but valiant effort to strike back against an inscrutable, violating power?

1491: Language Families of North America

 

Historically, there were over 500 Native languages spoken in North America. The map above was created by Ives Goddard and the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in 1999.

To zoom in on the map, click here.

In North America, Native American literature was oral. Few tribes kept written records. Non-alphabetical texts—"painted hides or bark and wampum belts made of shell could serve as prompts for the recitation of tales or in treaty negotiations and other ceremonies” (29)

“. . . European conquerors systematically destroyed the bodies of writing in such places as Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City), leaving just a handful of the pictograph codices . . .” (29)

The image at left was drawn and colored
by anonymous Tlaxcaltec artist in 1560. It depicts the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521.

1492: Colombo

Illustration designed by Joos van Winge for a 1598 edition of
“A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies” (1552)
by Bartolome de las Casas.

Under Colombo’s leadership, Spanish soldiers cut off the hands and noses of native slaves who do not bring them enough gold.

Horrified by the treatment of the American Indian slaves, de las Casas recommends shipping in slaves from Africa.

On September 6, 1492 Cristoforo Colombo's ships sail across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands, Spain.

On October 12, 1492, Colombo sets foot on an island in the Bahamas that the native Taino call “Guanahani.”

Colombo calls it “San Salvador.”

Colombo takes six friendly natives captive on his first trip back from America. 

On his second, he returns to Spain with more than 500 that he intends to sell as slaves. He “intended to create a market in enslaved Americans and a substantial number of Natives were taken as slaves, but ultimately this project failed because too many Native people died” (9).

Within twenty-five years of his arrival at Guanahani, most of the Taíno have died from enslavement, massacre, or disease.

Colombo did not set foot in land claimed by the current United States.

In 1494, Portugal’s King Joao II and Spain’s Fernando and Isabel meet in Tordesillas, Spain to divide up the “New World.”

“The Spanish founded colonies at present-day St. Augustine, Florida (1565), and Santa Fe, New Mexico (1610), and Dutch settlers established New Netherland (1614), which came to include New York City and Albany (1614)." All of these cities are older than the English settlements at Boston (1630), Plymouth (1620) and Jamestown 1607).

The pre-Columbian population of what is now the United States and Canada, with its more widely scattered societies, has been variously estimated at somewhere between 600,000 and 2,000,000. Many historians believe that as much as 90% of the population in the Americas died within a few generations of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.

24. "Powhatan's Discourse of Peace and War" (1624) by John Smith.

Wahunsenacah and the Powhatan

The Powhatan homelands are in the Chesapeake Bay near present-day Virginia. At the time of first contact with Europeans in the 16th century, it is estimated that the Powhattan had a population of between 13,000 and 34,000 separated into approximately 30 different tribes.

Wahunsenacah, who took the name "Powhatan" when his father died, was chief of the chiefs when John Smith and 143 others arrived to establish the colony of "Jamestown" on April 26, 1607

Population Devastation

By that time the Powhatan population had already decreased by 10,000 because of diseases brought by previous European explorers.

Surviving Jamestown

In December 1607, the Powhatan captured Smith and held him captive for a month.

Only 38 of the original 144 colonists survived that first winter. But Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in North America.

In 1609, Smith returned to England. He explored the New England coast (he gave "New England" its name) in 1614, but thereafter never returned to America.

Pocahontas

After Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, died in 1616, Smith wrote about how she had saved his life when her father had held him captive.

Powhatan's Discourse of Peace and War

In 1624, Smith published a book titled The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles. "Powhatan's Discourse of Peace and War" is included in that text within a larger context in which Smith suggests that Powhattan was trying to deceive and manipulate the English.

“The formalize modes of address that Native Americans used in their early encounters with European were often lavishly described in exploration narratives. One reasons such scenes were central in Renaissance-era accounts is that the writers were imitating classical historiography, with its emphasis on oratory. As set pieces in their narratives, the writers included moving and aesthetically pleasing speeches based more or less loosely on memory and other sources. ‘Powhatan’s Discourse of Peace and War,’ by John Smith, and ‘King Philip’s Speech,’ by William Apess, are reconstructed works that provide narrative drama in their original contexts and stand alone as effective examples of Native eloquence” (Levine, 30).

Power and Wisdom
Powhatan explains to Smith that he knows well how the world works, contrary to what many English people believed of the Native Americans. He has lived through wars and sickness, watching his people die, and has seen much bloodshed and death. Powhatan knows what Captain Smith thinks, and says “Think you I am so simple, not to know it is better to eat good meat, lie well, and sleep quietly with my women and children...” (39). He understands that the white people look down upon his people, for being “simple” and uneducated. However, he tells Captain Smith this is not the case. Powhatan has been around long and seen many things. He reminds him that if the Englishwere to attack his people, the Powhatan would find a way survive by any means necessary. They would “lie cold in the woods, feed upon acorns, roots, and such trash...(and) neither rest, eat, nor sleep...” (39). Though they may be hunted, Powhatan and his people know how to survive in nature, as it is their home. He is not making a threat. Rather, he is trying to make Smith understand that his people will not be simply contained and pushed around. I liked this discourse because it gave the power to the Native Americans. . . . things such as this. . . [give] voice to the Native Americans[, who have] so long deserved to be heard.

Dehumanization?
.. . . when [Powhatan] asks, “What will it avail you to take that by force you may quickly have by love.” I’m not sure why this particular line stood out to me so much, but I’m suspecting that it has to do with it relating to modern times as much as it did in the past. People seem to be turning on one another so often these days to get what they want, when simple manners or politeness could work just as well, and perhaps even better. The lack of love between colonies and tribes were leading white settlers to start a “dehumanization” process to make their deeds more commendable . . . . People’s lack of love and common decency makes it hard to believe they were even human and not machines. The colonists were entirely focused on making the natives more like them instead of trying to work with them in a sensible way.

Whose Voice?
Powhatan’s discourse was apparently written by John Smith, potentially years after his capture and interaction with Powhatan. Smith of course had many reasons to fight with the native people, but even more to ally himself with them. The general opinion of many people is that Smith most likely embellished Powhatan’s speech in one way or another as “questions of its authenticity and sincerity add layers of complexity” (39). Even if Powhatan never spoke these words, though, it can be assumed that he was still in all likelihood a friend, in some way, to Smith. The fact that Smith felt compelled to write this speech at all, is interesting.. . . 

This Land Was Made for You and Me?

In 1631,  he published Advertisements for the Unexeprienced Planters of New England, or Any Where: Or, the Path-way to Experience to Erect a Plantation.  In it, he addressed the concerns of those who questioned the right of the English to take land from Native Americans. As he put it, “Many good religious devout men have made it a great question, as a matter of conscience, by what warrant they might go to possesse those Countries, which are none of theirs, but the poore [savages’].”

 Smith’s response: to refrain from colonizing America would constitute “neglect of our duty and religion” as well as as “want of charity to those poore Savages” (4)

ONE: We are bringing them Christianity: “God did make the world to be inhabited with mankind, and to have his name knowne to all Nations, and from generation to generation.”

TWO: They’ve got more land than they need: “here in Florida, Virginia, New-England, and Cannada, is more land than all the people in Christendome can [cultivate], and yet more to spare than all the natives of those Countries can use and culturate” (3-4)

THREE: If we don’t claim the land for England and Protestants, the Spanish and Portuguese will claim it for the Catholics.

24. "Iroquois Creation Story" (1827) transcribed by David Cusick

The Haudenosaunee ("People of the Longhouses") after their characteristic dwellings, which were 20 ft. wide (four park benches) and as long as 200 ft. long (six school buses).

They  resided in upstate New York, west of the Hudson river. Some of their villages had as many as 2,000 inhabitants.

The name "Iroquois" was given to them by the French, who, in 1623, became the first to translate and transcribe the Iroquois creation story.

The English called them the" Five Nations."They were: 1) Mohawk; 2) Seneca; 3) Oneida; 4) Onondaga; 5) Cayuga (later joined by a sixth nation—the Tuscarora from North Carolina).

In 1722, the Tuscarora of North Carolina (who also spoke an Iroquoian language) joined them as the sixth nation of the Confederacy.

Other tribes that spoke Iroquoian languages included the Cherokee and the Huron.

In 1827, David Cusick, a Tuscarora Indian, born on the Oneida reservation, in central New York state became the first native to write down the Iroquois creation story. This was shortly before Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States (1828). It was Jackson’s intent to “remove” eastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi.

 

 

24. "King Philip's Speech" (1836) by William Apess

Between 1616 and 1619, 90 percent of the Wampanoag Indians of Massachusetts were wiped out by disease in an epidemic called "The Great Dying" caused by their interaction with Europeans who had been visiting the region during the previous fifty to one-hundred years.

When the separatist Pilgrim Puritans arrived in 1620, Wampanoag leader Massasoit (ca. 1590-1662) maintained peaceful relations with the them. His son, Metacom (1638-1676), became leader of the Wampanoag when Massasoit died in 1662. Metacom was called “King Philip” by the English.

After the Plymouth colony executed three Wampanoag in June 1675, Metacom led an alliance against the English colonies in Massachusetts, Rhode island, and Connecticut. The English called it “King Philip’s War” (1675-1676).

The Narrangasetts and the Mohegans took sides with the English because they had “grievances against the militarily aggressive Pequots” (10).

In February 1676, Mary Rowlandson and her three children and 20 others were taken captive after the Indians attacked their frontier village in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Rowlandson was held captive for three months before she was released for a ransom. Six years later, she published narrative of her expeirence and her encounter with "King Philip," whom she describes as "generous" and "sympathetic to her." Her narrative was republished several times.

Metacom was killed in the Great Swamp Fight of August 1676. His severed head was later put on a stake in Plymouth, where it remained for years.

By September the colonists and their Indian allies had destroyed much of the Native American opposition in southern New England, killing thousands of Native Americans and selling many into slavery and indentured servitude. Some 600 English soldiers had been killed in the conflict and 17 white settlements destroyed; some 50 additional settlements had been damaged."

Many historians describe King Philip's war as the bloodiest conflict per capita in U.S. history.

In his “Eulogy on King Philip,” a speech he delivered in Boston in 1836, Pequot leader and Methodist minister William Apess set out to humanize Metacom.

Full text of William Apess's Eulogy for King Phillip

For more on William Apess, see:

Gussman, Deborah. "O Savage, Where Art Thou?": Rhetorics of Reform in William Apess's "Eulogy on King Philip." The New England Quarterly, Sep., 2004, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 451-477  URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1559826

Invasion of Land or Disrespect for People?
Apess’s King Phillip’s Speech is an empowerment speech addressed to fellow Natives. It is meant to incite action to protect the culture. As it states, “all our ancient customs are disregarded, and the treaties made by our fathers and us broken all of us insulted” (41). This line seems to be calling them to fight for recognition and respect. Furthermore, based on the passage, I think this demonstrates that perhaps they were bothered less by the invasion of land and home and more by lack of willingness on the part of the colonist to impart camaraderie and knowledge in their interaction with the Native people.

Disrespect for Customs and Traditions?
The paragraph excerpt from Eulogy on King Philip shares a common sentiment with The Trickster. The excerpt says, “Brothers, these people from the unknown world will cut down our groves, spoil our hunting and planting grounds, and drive us and our children from the graves of our fathers, and our women and children will be enslaved” (27-28). Much like in The Trickster, someone is adamantly ignoring customs and traditions, destroying land and life.

24. Excerpts from "The Trickster" (1956)

The Ho-chunk ("People of the Big Voice") moved from the southeast to the area near Green Bay, Wisconsin 1,000 years ago. The Algonquians called them “Winnebago" ("People of the Dirty Water").

Cultural anthropologist and folklorist Paul Radin began collecting Ho-chunk stories in the early 1900s and published The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology in 1956. (34) The stories he recorded came to him second hand: an “older individual” told them (in the Ho-chungra language) to Sam Blowsnake, who wrote them down in Ho-Chunk. Then "Radin, Blowsnake, and another [Ho-Chungra] man, Oliver Lamere, collaborated on the translation in ot Enlgish, which Radin . . published in literate prose" (35).

Student comment:

The Trickster is probably the strangest thing I have ever read. From the excerpts alone, I think the Trickster’s character and behavior might symbolize the white man taking a bite out of Native Americans, whom the more natural bulb symbolizes. The story says, “Moreover, the excrement began to come up to him,” which I take as meaning that white people have built an empire on treating others like, for lack of a better term, shit (27). At the end of 25, the story says, “If the trees had not spoken to him he certainly would have died” (27). If the Trickster had not returned to nature (Native Americans) for help, he would have died—much like the relationship between  Pilgrims and Native Americans.

24A. "Moby Dick" (1851) by Herman Melville, Chs. 120-132

Tom Nelis as Captain Ahab and Starr Busby as Starbuck in the 2019 A.R.T. production of the original musical, Moby-Dick, written by Dave Malloy (Photo by Maria Baranova)

Tashtego's "Chapter"

As I read, I also wondered why chapter 122 was so short when it could have been incorporated into another chapter. In chapter 122, Tashtego thinks to himself about how the crew cares more about rum than the storm. It seemed like a strange chapter to have all on its own, especially considering its length, but I wondered if Melville made this chapter so short to bring the reader’s attention to it and keep it from being lost in the other details of a longer chapter.

Question: Is Tashtego condemning the crew for caring more about rum than the storm? Or is he commenting on his own, irresistable desire to drink?

 Human Empathy and Divine Apathy

• . . . Pip and Ahab most likely hadn’t had any conversations while on the ship, especially not after Pip jumped ship those two times and lost his sense of self. When they finally interact Ahab becomes some form of gentle giant claiming that Pip has “touchest my inmost core” making me think that Ahab probably sees himself in Pip, lost at sea with no sense of identity except the one thing tethering them to where they are; for Ahab, Moby Dick; Pip, the ship (ch.125).
• Pip to Ahab:  "Oh, sir, let old Perth now come and rivet these two hands together: the black one with the white, for I will not let this go.
  "[Ahab to Pip:] Oh, boy, nor will I three, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient god oblivious of suffering man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come! I feel prouder leading thee by the black hand, than though I grasped an Emperor's!" (ch. 125)

The Absurd

• Another surprise that caught me off guard was the intentional irony of the “lifebuoy” being made from a “coffin” (ch. 127). The two don’t often correlate as one is meant to help people survive when the other is meant to shelter people who’ve entered into eternal rest.
• ". . . if the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for one coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun!" (ch. 126).
• From Ahab's perspective it is absurd to abandon the hunt to search for a "whaleboat" (Ch. 128). As he puts it, "Who ever heard of two pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat i nthe height of the whaling season?" (ch. 126). In fact, however, the point of the search would not be to find that "boat." It would be to find the people on the boat, including the son of the Rachel's captain, who might die if he is abandoned. His wilfull obtuseness blinds him to the callous inhumanity of his obsession.

Limitations of Human Empathy

• . . . we meet the Rachel [whose] captain, Gardiner, got separated from his son at sea and begged Ahab to help find him. When Ahab refused and departed from them it gave us the visual of sea spray falling from the ship giving the image that the ocean itself “was Rachel, weeping for her children” (ch. 128).
• Ahab repeatedly turns down the Rachel's captain's request to help him and his crew search the nearby waters for a missing whaleboat containing one of the captain's sons. The way Ahab denies Captain Gardiner's fatherly request is incredibly blunt: "'Even now I lose time. Good-bye, goodbye. God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself, but I must go.'" In this way, we notice how Ahab's hunt has turned him against even his fellow man in his pursuit of revenge.

Remember the Pequod?
In Wordy Shipmates, the Pequot are portrayed as proud and unyielding, yet their end is tragic and gruesome. After being hunted down by now-rival tribes who “send their severed heads along to the English,” there was an “attempt to wipe out the Pequot linguistically[,]” by “forbidding the tribe to refer to themselves as 'Pequot'” (195-196). Regardless, the tribe still lived on, and their history was preserved in, as observed by Vowell, an ironic setting within the Foxwood Resort Casino, an “impressive edifice built for the sole purpose of taking the white man’s wampum” (200). In this, the pyromaniac Puritans failed in their task of burning the Pequot’s identity from existence. Though, I wonder how, or if, this is a viable connection to the naming of Ahab’s Pequod. It’s clear how Ahab’s vengeful monomania correlates to the entire Pequot massacre’s happening at the result of a single vengeful murder by a handful of Natives, but perhaps the existence of Moby-Dick as a book is Ishmael’s “impressive edifice” built for the sole purpose of taking the white whale’s glory, to preserve the bravery and stubbornness of the crew, which is so easily reflected in the Pequot’s last stand.

Trained to Read for Detail

When a red-billed hawk snatches Ahab's hat from his head, the crew are inclined to "read" special significance into what might otherwise be seen as a random event:  "Ahab seemed not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now, alsmost the least heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every sight" (Ch. 130). The narrator suggests that the hawk's action might be seen as an omen, comparable to the occasion when an eagle flew three times around the head of Tarquin, the legendary last king of Rome, and then stanstched replaced his hat (6th century B.C.E.). The Pequod's search for Moby Dick, the whlate, has trained the narrator and crew to read meaning into events like this; reading Moby-Dick has trained readers to do the same. Both, in other words, encourage us to be alert, to pay special attention to  small details, and to consider who they might have larger, even cosmic, significance.

The Humanist Prescription Falls Short

For a moment, Ahab suggests that value of sympathetic human contact surpasses the wonders of nature or any religious feeling when he says: "Starbuck: let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God." Yet any solace that he might take from such human interaction is ultimately overcome by his fixation on Moby Dick. This episode depicts Ahab as pitiable and sick, a victim of mental, emotional, and psychological forces that he struggles to manage in a way that would be most beneficial for his health. When he later asks, "What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings I so keep pushing, and crowdining, and jamming myself on all the time . . . Is it Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?" it is clear that he does not feel that he has the power to make a positive change in his life.

23A. "Moby-Dick" (1851) by Herman Melville, Chs. 105-119

 

"Prometheus Bringing the Fire" (1637) by Jan Crossiers

Ahab as Prometheus
Chapter 108 shows a conversation between Ahab and the carpenter, who is making Ahab a new leg from the bone of a whale. During this conversation, Ahab makes the comment that the carpenter and the blacksmith aiding him are like Prometheus, the Titan from Greek mythology who created humanity and stole fire from Zeus to give to them. This outraged Zeus, and he punished Prometheus brutally. In Ahab’s analogy, the carpenter and blacksmith are Prometheus, the whale is Zeus, and the ivory leg being given to Ahab is the fire that was given to early humans. It is fitting that Ahab sees himself in the story of Prometheus, because that whole story dealt with the fact that Prometheus defied the gods’ will, and one interpretation of the novel is that Ahab equates Moby Dick to the Christian god. And even though Prometheus is punished in the original story, humanity gets to keep their fire (although they do end up with Pandora as a punishment), so it feels like a victory over the gods. Ahab wants to beat Moby Dick, so it makes sense that he identifies with this story. (Also the fact that there are no women aboard the Pequod aligns with the latter half of the fire myth, where the gods create the first woman, Pandora, and give her to mankind as a punishment.)

Whale = Buffalo?

Ishmael comments on the population of the buffalo, saying “the census of the buffalo in Illinois exceeded the census of men now in London” but that “at the present day not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region.” Ishmael is perhaps again alluding to the honor of whale hunting, while a group of forty men in a whaling ship can barely kill forty whales in forty-eight months, it is not rare for “the same number of moccasined men” to slay forty thousand buffalo in the same amount of months. It can be assumed that Melville was attempting to directly address the issue of morality that so many people have had about whaling. For years people have claimed that the mass hunting of animals is extremely detrimental to their respective populations, and that if this mass hunting continues, extinction is likely. Melville seems to be trying to convey that this issue in whaling is not even comparable to that same topic in regard to the American bison. Though in reality, blue whales have become endangered in more recent years, just as the bison all those years ago.

It's a Man Thing?

• In Moby-Dick chapter 106, Ishmael reveals a secret he learned about Ahab in regard to his leg. He explains that the reasoning for Ahab’s initial seclusion before the beginning of their journey is an injury he received from a mishap with his ivory leg. In the incident, Ahab slipped and the ivory leg went up and injured his groin. He was so embarrassed by the injury that he kept himself secluded until it healed, which was quite a while. Even when the Pequod sailed, “he had hidden himself away with such Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness.” Aften reading about the incident, I was a bit puzzled. As it was described, it seems that Ahab was in seclusion for a good while, at least a few weeks. One would assume that being hit in the groin would not constitute such a dramatic seclusion. Yes, it could be credited to pride and quite literally manhood. However, I think that Ahab’s injury went deeper than that. The time it took him to recover, and the re-ignited hate for Moby Dick afterwards makes me think it did more than injure his manhood, literally and figuratively. I think that the White Whale actually took his manhood, took his virility. Taking the essence of a man’s identity would constitute a consuming hate like Ahab had for the whale. It would also explain his need for rest and seclusion for many weeks, based not only on “embarrassment,” but deeper feelings of loss. 

Imitate the Carpenter ('s son?)

• . . . in chapter 107, Ishmael makes an observation about the carpenter’s mentality. He says, “you might say, that by this strange uncompromisedness he did not seem to work so much by reason, instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to it, but merely by a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process.” I think Ishmael could be saying that because the carpenter understands that life is one big unanswered question, he is able to do what Ahab has yet to do at this point in the book-just live life.

A Cry for Help? A Seam that Can't be Fixed?

• I found Ahab’s comments on the oil leaks interesting. It appears as though he is comparing his obsession with Moby Dick and the [loss] of his leg to the oil incident claiming, “I’m all aleak myself.” [Starbuck] is rightly angered by Ahab’s disregard for the other crewmen and tries to re- direct his capatin back to the straight and narrow, stating “ Ahab beware of Ahab.” However, I think there is an [underlying] message in Ahab’s reply that Starbuck has failed to see before- a cry for help.  Ahab [seems] to recognize [...] that he was likely to be misinterpreted [...] as is apparent in his shift in demeanor as he puts the weapon back stating, “Thou art too good a fellow Starbuck” almost as if resigning himself to a knowledge that only he is left to navigate and come to terms with his own experience
• In Moby-Dick,  Starbuck gives Ahab a warning that there is nothing Ahab should fear “but let Ahab beware of Ahab[,]” which Ahab takes into consideration later when speaking to the Blacksmith about “madness.” It appears that Ahab recognizes that he’s facing an internal battle between going home and seeking his revenge when he breathes in the “sugary musk” and “new found sea” with the result that “the old man’s purpose intensified” and he re-doubles his efforts to find Moby Dick, losing more of his sanity (ch. 111). Even Perth, the blacksmith, has to face the truth when Ahab confronts him and demands to know his opinion, and Perth admits that Ahab is the one seam he cannot “smooth” (ch. 113).

"Pan" (1899) by Mikhail Vrubel

Sea as Pan?

• In chapter 111 of Moby-Dick, Ishmael starts out by describing the scenery of the south sea of which he is admiring. He describes it in fine detail, speaking of “milky-ways of coral isles,” and calling it the “mysterious, divine Pacific.” He seems to have a deep connection with the sea, and understands it as a living being, rather than just a body of water. On the other hand, he describes Ahab as blind to the splendor of the sea. His thoughts lie with the White Whale, as he “inhaled the salt breath of the newfound sea” in which the “hated White Whale must even then be swimming.”  This juxtaposition of Ishmael and Ahab reveals much about each character of course. The way each character views the sea is what really gives insight. As a Romantic, Ishmael has a connection with nature that he openly nurtures. He is in turn happier and more content with his life. On the other hand, Ahab [takes] no action to connect to nature, even while it is in his face. [Ahab] is still single-mindedly focused on the White Whale, even interpreted as nature itself. His obsession with the whale, and his neglect of nature can then be [the reason] for his unrest and dissatisfaction with a simple life. He will likely not even be satisfied if he does kill the whale, because his disregard for nature is blocking his ability to find true happiness. If he does not look at the world and nature in a way that is appreciative and insightful, all he will find is dark feelings.
• Consider these lines in Chapter 111 ("The Pacific"), attributed to Ishmael: "Lifted by those eternal swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan." The note in Herschel Parker's Norton Critical Edition explains:  "Pantheistic thoughts about the benign oneness of nature such as those of the youth at the end of Ch. 25."

Drama Queen-queg?

On a different note, Melville had me scared for a moment that we were about to lose Queequeg. When a fever plagues his body, some notes are made about his slimming features, but the narrator chooses to focus on his eyes. He talks about how Queequeg’s eyes took on a “strange softness and lustre” as if seeing, or understanding, something he hadn’t prior to getting ill (ch.110). It seemed like he really was about to die. But considering the narrator’s, Meville’s and Ishmael’s flair for the dramatics, I had a slight suspicion he’d make it. This was proven near the end of the chapter when Queequeg jumped up and “pronounced himself fit for a fight” as if nothing had happened (ch. 110). Apparently Ishamel and Ahab aren't the only dramatic ones on the ship.

Thumbing His Nose at Fate and Death (a la Ahab?)
Queequeg is on of my favorite characters, so I was prepared to be upset by his death. I found the image of Queequeg taking his coffin for a test-drive a harrowing one! This attachment I have to Queequeg was affirmed whenhe just ‘decided not to die’. In fact, Ishmael says, “In a word, it was Queequeg’s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort” (ch. 110). This resiliency, and honestly arrogance, is kind of endearing!

"Sea viewed from the Heights of Dieppe" (1852) by Eugene Delacroix

Narrative as a Whale-Hunting Experience 

Pip: "Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where go ye now? But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who's now been missing long: I think he's in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him; for he must be very sad; for look! he's left his tambourine behind;—I found it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I'll beat ye your dying march." Pip’s words read like that from a character from a play, and the actions from this chapter mirror that [of] a scene from such, with its own fixed setting, and rising actions—this particular chapter [also adds] dramatic suspense, as the audience is invested in the life [...] of Queequeg. [Similarly, the chapter, “Ahab and the Carpenter,” . . . reads like a play, [and provides a] sort of respite from the . . . storytelling which occupies the bulk of the narrative (with obvious breaks in which Ishmael details certain topics in an informative manner). All of these things in tandem create a juxtaposition of dream-like meditations of the whale and theatrical suspense which is not so different from whaling . . . itself.

Ahab on Life vs. Narrative Progress

"There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:--through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence's doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. . . Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers dies in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it" (Ch. 114).

The Beauty and the Horror of Nature

• In chapter 114 of Moby-Dick, Melville wrote that “one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath” the sea when beholding its beauty, and that the sea’s “velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.” These lines reminded me of a time earlier in the novel when Melville wrote about the ocean’s ruthlessness that it does not discriminate between a sea creature or a land dweller. It makes no distinction between friend and foe, and it shows its ferocity to each in turn. Both passages balance the beauty and horror of the ocean in a mesmerizing, captivating way that makes me want to know more about the ocean. I can imagine men who worked out on the sea read these lines and nodded the whole time reading them, thinking to themselves about how beautiful and terrifying the ocean was to them.
• "At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwhale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger's heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang" (ch. 114).

The Horror of Humanity

• When Captain Ahab asked the captain of The Bachelor if he had lost any men on his voyage, he replied, “Not enough to speak of—two islanders, that’s all” (Ch. 115). When I read this, I was taken about by the captain’s nonchalance of losing his men and was utterly carefree about losing two men. How could losing two men not be enough to speak of? Unless he was simply accustomed to losing more men than that on each voyage or simply not caring about the lives of the two islanders, I can see no other reason for his apathy towards the losses of two crewmembers.
• Footnote from The Norton Critical Edition (3rd. ed.) by Herschel Parker:  "This deadpan speech of the captain of the Bachelor is analogous to the telling answer Mark Twain has Huck Finn give to a question as to whether anyone was hurt in a steamboat explosion (Huckleberry Finn, Ch. 320: 'No'm. Killed a nigger.' Like Twain, Melville knew exactly what ironic point he was making about the value of human lives" (ch. 115)

The Limitations of Science

Ahab to the Quadrant: "the world brags of these, of thy cunning and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed by all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, o Sun!" (Ch. 118)

Perspectives on St. Elmo's Fire
Corpusant is plasma[-]like [lightning,] but [...] it is just random bursts of light instead of patterned like the lines/webbing seen with [lightning]. I was extremely interested in the diverse ways the masts were described from different perspectives. The first description we get from the narrator [--]“like three gigantic wax tapers before an altar”[--] suggests that the Pequod is a sacrifice. Stubb describes them like “three spermaceti candles” and says that they are “a sign of good luck.” Ahab feels that they are helping them “white flame but lights the way to the White Whale” offering directions to find Moby Dick. This is just more evidence showing how things can be seen differently depending on perspective.

Ahab, Fedallah, Mystery, Fate

• In chapter 117, Fedallah tells Ahab about a recuring dream he has about Ahab’s death, which has three parts. The three parts are:
• 1. “two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America” (ch. 117)
• 2. “though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot” (361, ch. 117)
• 3. “Hemp only can kill thee” (362, ch. 117)
  
  Fedallah’s dream reminds me of the prophecy given to Macbeth about his death. Macbeth is told to beware of the Thane of Fife (Macduff). He is also told that he cannot be killed so long as Birnam Wood does not encroach on Dunsinane Hill nor can he be killed by any man of woman born. Fedallah’s first prophecy about the hearses lines up well with Macbeth’s prophecy about Birnam Wood, since there is no way a hearse can travel on the sea and no way for a forest to move up a hill, at least according to Ahab and Macbeth, respectively. The prophecy about hemp being the only thing able to kill Ahab lines up with the prophecy about Macbeth not being able to be killed by a man of woman born, because Macbeth finds out later in the play that this prophecy does not include c-section babies. Rather than implying that Macbeth can’t be killed, it implies that he can only be killed in a very specific way, much like Ahab and the hemp. As for Ahab’s prophecy about Fedallah being his pilot, I think this can relate to Macbeth’s prophecy about being wary of Macduff, since both prophecies denote a single person as being the downfall of the people receiving the prophecies.

Ahab the Brave? Or Ahab the Fool?
As a typhoon beats down on the Pequod, Ahab challenges nature’s wraith andsays to the lighting, “Light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee!” (Ch. 119)  Although most of the crew is terrified and superstitious about the storm’s meaning, believing it to be a bad omen, Ahab’s monomania holds the crew to their duty. As indicated by Starbuck, this storm is “the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick,” which also suggests that the ship is getting closer to the end of its mission to hunt the White Whale (ch. 119). The lighting flashing about is building to a climax as it charges Ahab with passion and the crew with fear for what is to come.

Loyalty to . . . .?

. . . the crew is starting to truly realize just what Ahab is willing to do to kill the white whale. Although they previously understood he was obsessed and serious about the matter, I don’t think they ever understood the full extent of his obsession. Furthermore, Ahab said to the crew “all your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and heart, soul, body, lungs, and life, old Ahab is bound” (ch. 119). I feel that this statement solidified Ahab’s intentions with the crew. They realized that he was willing to risk everything, even their lives, in pursuit of Moby Dick. I was very surprised but moved by them still staying by Ahab’s side. On one hand he is willing to risk their very lives just to kill a whale. It is insane and no one would blame them if they mutinied. On the other hand, they didn’t turn against him, and stayed loyal. It is admirable, while arguably stupid. 

1630: Puritans

Puritan Text vs. Catholic Pope

• Consider Protestant investment in God's word (the Bible), not God's church (with the Pope in Rome)
• "... [Luther's] larger message became the core ethos of Protestantism: the Bible, not an earthly pope, is the highest authority" (Vowell, 6).
• In John Calvin's Geneva Bible, "the one the Calvinists on the Mayflower and most travelers in the Winthrop fleet carried with them to America," the Pope is referred to as "the Antichrist" and "the beast in the bottomless pit . . which hath his power out of hell" (Vowell, 40).
• ". . . Puritan lives were overwhelmingly, fanatically literary. Their single-minded obsession with one book, the Bible, made words the center of their lives--not land, not money, not power, not fun" (Vowell, 13).

Puritans vs. Anti-intellectualism

• Vowell describes the Puritans in Boston as "communitarian English majors" (13) and poitns out that they founded Harvard. 

Puritans as Intellectuals

Winthrop makes sure to back up what he sees with what is found in scripture. It is filled not just with his opinion on how people should live their lives and treat other people, but with Bible verses, as well. For example, he writes that “if the time and occasion be ordinary he is to give out of his abundance.” Following this, he writes to “let him lay aside as God hath blessed him,” which comes from the First Book of Corinthians, chapter sixteen, verse two.

Faith and Imperialism

• Consider Winthrop's admonition: "We must not look only on our things, but also on the things of our brethren" (56) A call to community or a call to imperialism?
• While reading The Wordy Shipmates, I was surprised that the seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony displayed an Indian saying, “Come over and help us” (Vowell 27). The Puritans’ idea of their importance to the world was heavily inflated, and it was the Indians who ended up needing to help the Englishmen who came over to the New World in 1620. I wonder if the Puritans were aware of this fact. This self-importance is also seen in the sense of entitlement that the Puritans had towards the land in New England. John Winthrop wrote, “God hath thereby cleared our title to this place,” concerning the plague that wiped out ninety percent of the Indians in the New World. (Vowell 31). They believed themselves to be chosen by God to enter what would be America just as God chose the Israelites to enter the promised land. 
• “The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief” (Vowell 1). This is the opening line of Vowell’s book, and it seems it is also the best summary. She goes on to explain what she means in the next few sentences. . . . the Puritans’ idea of being God’s chosen people was passed onto America with its ideas such as Manifest Destiny. Vowell even says her reason for writing the book is because “the country [she] lives in is haunted by the Puritans’ vision of themselves as God’s chosen people” (24). . . . 

Puritans vs. Other Protestants vs. Arminianism

• Arminianism (supported by King Charles and Bishop Laud): "the dogma that a believer's salvation depends merely on faith, is at odds with the Puritans' insistence that salvation is predetermined by God" (Vowell, 9).

• 1620: Mayflower Separatists (more radical) to Plymouth. The Plymouth colony, known formally as "The colony of New Plymouth," was the first permanent settlement by Europeans in New England. The town as founded by Pilgrims, religious separatists who fled England first to the Netherlands and then to North America.

• 1630: Arbella (Winthrop and Bradstreet) Non-Separatists (less radical) to Massachusetts Bay. Want to reform the Church of England from the inside. “Reform” meant purging the church of remnants of Roman Catholicism (e.g. clerical hierarchies and “kneeling” for communion)

John Winthrop

John Winthrop, a lawyer (born in 1588) wanted to reform the Church of England from within (he was not a separatist)

Winthrop sailed from England to Massachusetts with other Puritans on the Arbella to Massachussets in 1630 and, it was long believed, drafted " A Model of Christian Charity" on board.  

John Winthrop called upon colonists to join each other and God in a covenant to build “a Citty [sic] upon a Hill” to be witnessed by “the eyes of all people.” 

Winthrop guided the colonists on his arrival in North America in 1630 and was elected governor 12 times during the period from 1631 to 1648. 

He was an influential Puritan voice in Massachusetts Bay Colony and imposed a rigid system based on group discipline and individual responsibility.

Opposition against him built up after a few years and dissidents kept challenging Winthrop’s system in the mid- and late 1630s.

Though widely respected, Winthrop was criticized for opposing the formation of a representative assembly (1634), and the colony’s limitations on religious freedom were decried by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson (see below). The Puritans banned Williams from Massachusetts in 1636, and Hutchinson was excommunicated in 1638.

Winthrop  was irritated when the freemen (voters) insisted in 1634 on electing a representative assembly to share in decision making.

By 1640 Winthrop had become the custodian of Massachusetts orthodoxy, suspicious of new ideas and influences and convinced that God favoured his community above all others.

In 1641 Winthrop helped write the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, the first legal sanctioning of slavery in North America. Indeed, Winthrop owned at least one Native American slave, taken during the Pequot War (1636–37). (As slavery grew in New England, it was more typical for Native American slaves to be sent to the West Indies, where they were exchanged for enslaved Africans.)

Roger Williams

Wintrhop found Roger Williams’s criticism of church-state relations intolerable. Williams was banned from Massachusetts Bay Colony for “dangerous views,” including the beliefs that the only just way to gain title to land was to purchase it from Native Americans and that the magistrates had no right to interfere in matters of religion. Williams went on to found the town of Providence and colony of Rhode Island, which became a refuge for Anabaptists and Quakers.

Winthrop secretly helped Williams to flee to Rhode Island in 1636.

Anne Hutchinson

In 1638, Anne Hutchinson was excommunicated from the Boston church for her questioning of clerical authority, including the belief that that individual intuition—rather than the observance of institutionalized beliefs and the dictates of ministers—was the path to reaching God and attaining salvation. Hutchinson found refuge in the new colony of Rhode Island.

Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet wrote poetry while rearing eight children in the Massachusetts Bay Colony; unbeknownst to Bradstreet, her brother-in-law took her poems to England, where they were published in 1650 as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America.

1630: "A Model of Christian Charity" by John Winthrop

How to Survive in the Wilderness

I can understand how this was a written as a method of uniting Puritan settlers in order to survive; for one, Winthrop’s describes having faith in God as having enormous humility and generosity, not only asserting that “the rich and the mighty should not eat up the poor[,]”... but the traditional Christian philosophy of loving your neighbor as well. Stating that all men “might by all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection[.]”

Compare with Declaration of Independence (cf. "All men are created equal")

Winthrop's Christian Charity is not in agreement with "The Declaration of Independence." Compare [Winthrop's] hard, cold fact that 'some must be rich, some poor' to the shocking sentence of the Declaration of Independence, written 146 years later: "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happines." By contrast, Winthrop writes: “GOD ALMIGHTY in his most holy and wise providence, hath soe disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poore, some high and eminent in power and dignitie; others mean and in submission."

Diversity and Community

John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” mainly concerns building a solid community. Attempting to reason with inequality, Winthrop writes, “Thirdly, that every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knitt more nearly together in the Bonds of brotherly affection.” God has created us unequally so that we must lean on one another. He explains that rather than isolating and fragmenting ourselves because of our differences, we must use our differences to complete the whole picture. Life’s inequalities allow us to love and care for one another.

Why are some rich and some poor and what is our responsibility to one another?

Answer 1: 

What annoyed me the most initially was the following quote; “From hence it appears plainly that noe man is made more honourable than another or more wealthy &c., out of any particular and singular respect to himselfe, but for the glory of his creator and the common good of the creature, man” (Winthrop). This to me, is not a comforting concept. The idea that certain people are given advantages or privileges over others in the plan of God under the idea that they use these advantages and privileges to benefit all of mankind doesn’t sit right with me. At that point, if God is the one who decides our success and advantages, why choose a specific set of people to prosper and another to suffer? Under the guise that one protects the other? It seems to me to be a poor argument attempting to acknowledge the disparity in how different classes of individuals are treated under “God’s plan” . . . Why should the poor depend upon the rich to survive when so often it is the rich disenfranchising the poor? It seems like a lazy explanation trying to slink out from under the question; “why does God intend our suffering while others receive benefits in mass? Why would he create us in such disparity?”

Answer 2:

First of all, as Winthrop sees it, diversity is glorious. A universe in which everyone and every creature was the same would be boring. In creating diversity of every kind, not just rich and poor, God was "delighted to show forth the glory of his wisdom in the variety and difference of the creatures."

Secondly, diversity gives every one a challenge and an opportunity to do God's work or, as Winthrop puts it, diversity gives us all the "occasion to manifest the work of his Spirit."

Thirdly, diversity means that we all need each other, just like a body needs all of its different parts and organs in order to survive. We all have different strengths and shortcoming so that "every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knitt more nearly together in the Bonds of brotherly affection."

Why and how much are Christians asked to give? How much is too much charity?

Winthrop urges Christians to help each other even beyond the point that seems reasonable because Christians should put their duty to God even above their duty to their family. To illustrate this point, he refers to the the prophet Elisha, who told the widoe of Sareptah to prioritize charity, saying she "must first give before shee must serve her owne family."

Winthrop says that if you know someone can’t pay you back, just give to them. Don’t make a loan.  As he puts it, "Thou must observe whether thy brother hath present or probable or possible means of repaying thee, if there be none of those, thou must give him according to his necessity, rather then lend him as he requires."

Winthrop opposes all kinds of selfishness, which he links to the mistakes made by Adam, "who rent himselfe from his Creator, rent all his posterity allsoe one from another; whence it comes that every man is borne with this principle in him to loue and seeke himselfe onely, and thus a man continueth till Christ comes and takes possession of the soule and infuseth another principle, loue to God and our brother."

As Winthrop sees it, Christians should be motivated to help each other "not for wages, or by constrainte, but out of [love]."

It could be argued that Winthrop advocates for a kind of proto-Communism, when he praises the practices of the first Christians, who "sold all, had all things in common, neither did any man say that which he possessed was his owne. Likewise in theire returne out of the captivity, because the worke was greate for the restoring of the church and the danger of enemies was common to all."

Why does Winthrop think we should pick up God's slack?

The following quote only serves to further confirm to me that it’s purpose was to shake responsibility of Christianity to explain such disparities between people and their lives and experiences; “Lastly, when there is no other means whereby our christian brother may be relieved in his distress, we must help him beyond our ability rather than tempt God in putting him upon help by miraculous or extraordinary meanes[.]” What? This literally states not to ask God to perform miracles to help those he has condemned to suffering by nature of their being and to instead exert ourselves past our capabilities in order to help disenfranchised people. This is actually bonkers and so clearly an example of religion attempting to use quasi-moralistic arguments to shield from the logic [that] actually underlies their religion. If God decided who will suffer and who will benefit, why is it our responsibility to assist in decreasing that suffering and to refrain from asking for his advice and help? Simply because? Because it’s more moralistic to help your fellow man than condemn his suffering to the absent hands and eyes above? It just really seems like a way to expense God from any accountability or even responsibility while still administering him as the [ultimate] power which makes legitimately no sense to me. It sounds like we are expected to pick up God’s slack.

Loving Those Like Us

Winthrop argues that love takes place when the likeness between yourself and another is acknowledged. When those who follow Christ acknowledge their likeness, they need to treat each other with love. I had this impression from the following, “This loue is as absolutely necessary to the being of the body of Christ, as the sinews and other ligaments of a naturall body are to the being of that body.” 

High Stakes:"A City on a Hill"

"For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are uppon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee haue undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of God, and all professors for God's sake. Wee shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are a goeing."

In the Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell argues  arguing that the community and solidarity that the Puritans exuded has been in many a missing component in the ideology of the “Modern America.” She uses former president, Ronald Reagan, as an example claiming that he misconstrued the Winthrop quote he loved to use so much about America being a "City on a Hill"; forgetting the foundations of solidarity and community Winthrop preached by leaving “thousands of poor kids who had to skip lunch and sleep in poisoned neighborhoods” (66).

1666: "The Author to Her Book," Anne Bradstreet

 

"Virgin and Child" (1670s) by Bartolome Murillo

"The Author to Her Book" (1666/1678)

Writing for the Public

"The Author to Her Book" [on] its face seems to be about how writers struggle with editing first drafts of their work. All first drafts are crap, and Bradstreet describes them as “unfit for light/Thy visage so irksome to my sight.” She then describes the editing process, where she tries to make the poems flow better by stretching “thy joints to make the even feet[,]” which implies that she struggled with revising the meter of her lines. She eventually has to send her work out into the world to be read by the public and by critics, and she struggles with letting her writing go, wondering if she did well enough

Mothering Eight Kids

She calls herself a mother multiple times in this poem and as early as the second line, where she claims that she gave “birth” to the poem. . . . This whole poem shows the reader how Bradstreet feels about her writing as well as being a mother. Every parent struggles with sending their kids out into the world, hoping that they did enough to raise competent children, but this had to have been especially hard for Bradstreet. We know that she had eight children, was sickly, and that her husband was absent. She must have felt like she raised the kids on her own, a sentiment that is present in her poetry, as she writes “if for they father asked, say thou hadst none.” She had to write her poetry and raise her children alone.

Trying to Be a Good Christian?
As the title suggest, Bradstreet is speaking directly to her own book. As a result, the relationship she has with it feels conflicted. She feels almost as though she is disappointed in her writing. This idea was reinforced with the following lines, “I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw” (Bradstreet). These lines gave me the impression that even though she has tried to correct her “defects”, all she could do was create another flaw. It feels like an endless spiral of correcting mistakes. 

"To My Dear Children" (1867)

• Contrary to popular opinion, the Puritans were not masochists who delighted in being punished; rather they knew that God is a loving Father who only ever does what is best for His children, including chastisement.  That is why Bradstreet urges her children to “take it as thankfully and joyfully as in greatest mercies.” She addresses atheism, bringing up a number of doubts and assurances until she wraps it up with a prayer, “‘Return, O my Soul, to thy rest, upon this rock Christ Jesus will I build my faith, and if I perish, I perish.’” 
• In her letter “To My Dear Children”, [Bradstreet] admits that “Satan troubled me concerning the verity of the Scriptures, many times.” Though she trusts the existence of God, she questions the various interpretations of Christianity; but, upon the “consideration of these things” she would resignedly revert to her “own religion again.”
• I saw a connection between what she writes about her experience with God and faith and that of Emily Dickinson’s work. It seems like Dickinson although she believes that a higher power exists she often found herself “with God like an untoward child.” Furthermore, she seems to have found yourself losing the battle of faith for a time, as she claims, “many times hath Satan troubled me concerning the verity of the Scriptures, many times by atheism how I could know whether there was a God.” However, she seems to be urging her children to look upon God as their anchor in hard times as she states, “that have brought you into the world, and with great pains, weakness, cares, and fears brought you to this, I now travail in birth again of you tell Christ be formed in you.” She seems to be asking her children to seek out her love through Jesus after she has gone.
• [Bradstreet] expressed that when she was a teenager and had given into more worldly things, God “laid his hand sore upon me and smote me with the smallpox.” This coincides with the idea that God brings hardships to believers when they stray from Him. Bradstreet expressed that these times of hardship were “the times when the Lord hath manifested the most love” in her life, bringing her back to Him. I think that this must have been a comforting letter for her children to read after they lost their mother.
• Bradstreet also wrote about times in which she questioned her faith and the credibility of the Bible. She “never saw any miracles” and the ones she read about could have been “feigned.” Bradstreet writing about her spiritual struggles humanized her and made her more relatable in a time when it seemed that believers wanted to project supreme piousness and righteousness.