Invisible Man and Moby-Dick Connection

[Cellomaster2238]

I was beginning to reread Moby-Dick when I noticed a peculiar little paragraph that I don't seem to remember from my first go. It is section in chapter two about a black church that Ishmael walks into. Inside, the preacher has a sermon about the "blackness of darkness." Since reading Moby-Dick, I have since read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. A little light bulb went off in my head that reminded me of an enigmatic section of that work that involved a certain narcotic and so Louis Armstrong. There is a hallucination of a descent through several layers ("Hark ye yet again,- the little lower layer") and ends up of all places, in a black church where a preacher is preaching about the "blackness of blackness." In the course of the sermon, he alludes to the "whale's belly." So my point (or question): I cannot figure out the significance of the allusion nor the meaning of the "blackness of darkness/blackness. Can someone give me a little help?

[Cellomaster2238]

(Bump)

[Cellomaster2238]

Thoughts, anyone?

[Cellomaster2238]

I just did a google search on the "blackness of blackness," and this post was number ten on the results. That's just a little ironic.

But surely, at least one of you has an opinion that you would be willing to share with me because I can't seem to find an answer that I can fit to both of these authors. I don't think that Melville could be writing merely about blackness as a skin color and the fact that Ellison alludes to Melville tells me that there must be something more. I can't seem to find it, but maybe one of you can.

[PeterL]

But surely, at least one of you has an opinion that you would be willing to share with me because I can't seem to find an answer that I can fit to both of these authors. I don't think that Melville could be writing merely about blackness as a skin color and the fact that Ellison alludes to Melville tells me that there must be something more. I can't seem to find it, but maybe one of you can.

Melville could have meant that exterior coloration corresponded to degree of evil, but Ishmael heard that, rather than expressing it, so Melville may have wanted readers to weigh it appropriately and contrast it with the White Whale later. I don't recall having read The Invisible Man, so I can't relate it to that.

[Cellomaster2238]

I see what you mean that Melville might be providing a contrast to the whale, but I don't think he is talking a bout skin color. The other black characters, Pip and Dagoo, aren't inherently evil (though Pip does become slightly deranged), and Melville uses the word "negro" when referring to their skin color. He also uses the words "blackness of darkness" which to me is laden with more meaning than mere blackness. He also calls the church "The Trap." Its doors "stood invitingly open" amid a mass blackness with lights "like a candle moving about in a tomb." It seems to me that he is trying to hide his meaning by merely glossing over it. I know that he veiled his meaning under many layers. I feel certain that he couldn't be talking about the actual skin color of people.

[PeterL]

I think that he was equating darkness, lack of light, with evil. It would make sense for him to glide over that, so that readers could find it in detail further on.

[mtpspur]

Just an opinion but the whale's belly was possibly an allusion to the book of Jonah where it's implied Jonah 'died' then rose from the dead as I believe it's a picture of the Lord's ressurection from the dead. The 'darkness of blackness' in a church setting wither refers to the sins of humanity or the outer darkness of eternal dammnation as refered in the Bible. Just a thought. Seriously doubt it has a reference to race in this instance.