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.