Was Melville alluding to wars with Native Americans in Moby Dick?

[kev67]

Maybe this is not a very original observation. In chapter 87, The Grand Armada, The Pequod and its crew come across a mass of whales. There's a sort of circle of them, inside of which there are mother whales with their babies. It seems like the whales on the perimeter are trying to protect the more vulnerable whales in the centre. I believe other herd animals do this as well, but it seems rather human. Captain Ahab believes Moby Dick has a malign cunning, that his actions are deliberate, that he is not just thrashing about. In another chapter Ahab meets the captain of an English whaler, who lost his arm to Moby Dick. The captain tells Ahab that Moby Dick bit through a harpoon line that had been launched at another whale, as if Moby Dick had tried to save that whale. Captain Ahab thinks so. In that case, if Ahab believes Sperm Whales to be intelligent creatures, who live in communities and look after each other, doesn't that make what they are doing pretty close to murder? They certainly don't doubt their method of hunting the animals is very cruel. I wonder whether Melville was thinking about what the white settlers had been doing to Native Americans. There you had a people who might have seemed rather alien with different beliefs, language and culture. Some Native Americans may have behaved very violently and made themselves feared and hated, but from their point of view they were defending themselves against aggresors. I looked up 'Pequod'. According to Wikipedia, they were a Native American tribe who were wiped out in a war with white settlers and other Native American tribes. Maybe it is not a fair analogy because the white settlers in New England did actually have talks with the local Native Americans, and sometimes made alliances with them, where as we still cannot talk to whales.

[Dreamwoven]

Maybe this is not a very original observation. In chapter 87, The Grand Armada, The Pequod and its crew come across a mass of whales. There's a sort of circle of them, inside of which there are mother whales with their babies. It seems like the whales on the perimeter are trying to protect the more vulnerable whales in the centre. I believe other herd animals do this as well, but it seems rather human.

It reminds me of the American bison, who do this when wolves harass the mother bison and their vulnerable offspring. I remember seeing a nature programme on this. Wolves have to beware the bison horns and the tough hides of living bison.

[Dreamwoven]

In the same nature programme I also saw the different technique and problems of gorillas, where there is one alpha male who dominates all the other gorillas in the group. As long as he can maintain his position he has unlimited access to all the females. Once he loses that position he just becomes another gorilla in the group. The successor then kills all the infants in the group who were sired by the previous alpha male. The knack has to be to maintain the alpha male status for as long as possible, at least until "his" infants have become old enough to attempt to challenge him for the alpha male position. Much of this involves bluff, facing up to the rival, with chest-thumping, teeth-baring, and hoping that the rival will back off.

[kev67]

I saw a nature programme in which a pack of walruses protected their young against a polar bear by forming a circle around them. The polar bear was desparate or it would not have taken them on. Unfortunately for it, it was stabbed by one of the walruses, did not succeed in snatching one of the cubs, and laid down to die.

Herd animals if they are sufficiently big can do this. I am pretty sure cattle do this. As a lad, I once went into a field with a dog and all the cattle surrounded it. At the time I thought it was just curiosity, but I suppose they considered it a threat. It was alarming for the poor labrador, but at least they did not have horns.

I was surprised sperm whales did this because I would not have thought they had any natural predators, but apparently killer whales can be a threat to young sperm whales.

[Pompey Bum]

Moby-Dick has nothing to do with the plight of American Indians, which is to say it may as well have everything to do with it. The whiteness of the whale will absorb and render meaningless (but also pure) any harpoon we cast at it. I am convinced that if Moby-Dick is about anything besides a whale hunt, it is about the human failure to penetrate the facade of reality in any meaningful way. The harpoon I cast (of course) is that the whale is God--or is he the devil? And which is the god of the earth and the sea in any case? Which is the god of evolution? Why is our metaphor failing? Why can't we see beyond (or even through) the endless empty waves our mother ship rides on? Why can't we break through the whiteness of the whale? And, oh God, where is the ship?

So Native Americans? Sure, fire away.

[kev67]

I watched a woman on YouTube say it was all about cannibalism, which was a stretch for me.
Still, you have a man who chases an animal half way around the world to take revenge on it. You have an animal that appears to behave intelligently, and fights back. You have descriptions of terrible cruelty inflicted on animals for profit. The crew is indifferent to the suffering, the narrator included, but maybe readers are allowed to think Moby Dick was the good guy.

[kev67]

My ancient computer posted twice, and I can't delete posts on here.

[prendrelemick]

Conversly, doesn't it also remind you of "circling the wagons" in those old pioneer days - which asks the question who are the Indians?

I recently saw one of those short animated (I mean cartoon animation) BBC discourses titled "Know Thyself" (BBC 'A history of ideas.' ) When Freud's Unconscious Forces were mentioned, Moby Dick swam across the screen. Perhaps the Pequod is journeying through Ahab's subconscious. It is Ahab who creates Moby Dick for us - his presence is strong throughout all of the voyage, before he actually turns up.

[Pompey Bum]

I recently saw one of those short animated (I mean cartoon animation) BBC discourses titled "Know Thyself" (BBC 'A history of ideas.' ) When Freud's Unconscious Forces were mentioned, Moby Dick swam across the screen. Perhaps the Pequod is journeying through Ahab's subconscious. It is Ahab who creates Moby Dick for us - his presence is strong throughout all of the voyage, before he actually turns up.

It's an interesting idea, prendrelemick. The multi-racial, multi-national Pequod has sometimes been seen as a microcosm of humanity, but I suppose it could also be represent the human psyche. (That interpretation would be more consistent with the Pequod's occasionally encountering other ships). I am hesitant to reduce the analogy to Freudian categories (which seem somewhat antiquated), but I suppose the tyrannical Ahab--the bad king of the Hebrew Scriptures--could be taken as a kind of super-ego character, with Ishmael, the reader's interface, as the embattled ego. Would that make Moby-Dick the dangerous, defiant, and unpredictable id? I think that's over interpreting. But the Pequod is, at least, a world haunted by symbols, as is the human psyche.

The more I think about the white whale, the more I become convinced it is an anti-symbol of a God or reality whose secrets cannot be penetrated without the destruction of the entire ship (which is what happens at the end). In the meantime Moby-Dick's message is: Sure, cast another guess my way: I have lots of rusty old harpoons stuck in me.

[kev67]

Conversly, doesn't it also remind you of "circling the wagons" in those old pioneer days - which asks the question who are the Indians?


That is what we might be reminded of now, but I don't suppose Melville watched those Westerns. Maybe that does not matter.

[prendrelemick]

Moby-Dick has nothing to do with the plight of American Indians, which is to say it may as well have everything to do with it. The whiteness of the whale will absorb and render meaningless (but also pure) any harpoon we cast at it. I am convinced that if Moby-Dick is about anything besides a whale hunt, it is about the human failure to penetrate the facade of reality in any meaningful way. The harpoon I cast (of course) is that the whale is God--or is he the devil? And which is the god of the earth and the sea in any case? Which is the god of evolution? Why is our metaphor failing? Why can't we see beyond (or even through) the endless empty waves our mother ship rides on? Why can't we break through the whiteness of the whale? And, oh God, where is the ship?

So Native Americans? Sure, fire away.

Ahab is the devil .

I remember thinking there is a thread in Moby Dick that reminds me of Milton's Paradise Lost. The build up to the last battle - we,ve got the men, the ship, the rhetoric, the weapons, ( big harpoons annointed in mystic fire), we can take him! Let's do it! Yeah! Then along comes Moby Dick or Milton's 'Son' like a dose of reality and destroys them easily. We always knew he would.
Ahab as the charismatic Satan leading his crew to disaster is not a stretch too far. Starbuck is constantly warning Ahab he is going against God in his lust for revenge. Moby Dick is God's instrument of punishment for their conceit.

So;
Ahab = pure id. Starbuck the Ego. Moby Dick the Super Ego. Now that's a failing metaphor!

[JCamilo]

It's an interesting idea, prendrelemick. The multi-racial, multi-national Pequod has sometimes been seen as a microcosm of humanity, but I suppose it could also be represent the human psyche. (That interpretation would be more constant with the Pequod's occasionally encountering other ships). I am hesitant to reduce the analogy to Freudian categories (which seem somewhat antiquated), but I suppose the tyrannical Ahab--the bad king of the Hebrew Scriptures--could be taken as a kind of super-ego character, with Ishmael, the reader's interface, as the embattled ego. Would that make Moby-Dick the dangerous, defiant, and unpredictable id? I think that's over interpreting. But the Pequod is, at least, a world haunted by symbols, as is the human psyche.

The more I think about the white whale, the more I become convinced it is an anti-symbol of a God or reality whose secrets cannot be penetrated without the destruction of the entire ship (which is what happens at the end). In the meantime Moby-Dick's message is: Sure, cast another guess my way: I have lots of rusty old harpoons stuck in me.

Borges has a theory that Moby Dick is a version of the episode of Ulysses in the Divine Comedy (which ended as basis to Tennyson poem). Ulysses, according to borges, was not there because he was a liar (a commun interpretation because that is how Virgil understood him), that was a trick. His story tells not about his "sins", but about his last trip, when he goes to a last travel and see on the horizon a moutain, see the mount purgatory, etc. To Borges Ulysses challenged the divine order trying to reach what was denied to him (in a cat-rat chase, as Borges also sees Moby Dick as kafkanesque tale) therefore punished. Ahab and the crew do something similar, trying to reach the unreachable Moby Dick.

[Pompey Bum]

Thanks, prendrelmick and JC, for the interesting ideas about Dante and Milton. There is certainly something cosmic about the Pequod's final confrontation with Moby-Dick. I especially like the idea that there was always something unnatural or sinful in the pursuit. I think Melville saw it that way. But paradoxically he also saw it as heroic.


Ahab is the devil

I'm not sure Ahab is supposed to be the devil exactly, but he is fueled by a demonic energy. The Biblical Ahab was an Israelite king who "paganized" by marrying the foreign princess Jezebel and adopting her idols. (In that Ahab's case it was Elijah who warned him that he was going against God). Do Starbuck's warnings amount to the idea that Ahab's vengeance is a way of objectifying God--of turning God into a fetish--by replacing mystery and purity (the terrifying whiteness of the whale) with a physical whale that can be harvested for its blubber and spermaceti?

And so another harpoon is cast. :)

[prendrelemick]

If his Whiteness (His pure inviolate flesh) is the key, then when the physical whale appears close up and that whiteness is gnarled, scarred and a bit smelly - is another metaphor.

[prendrelemick]

Borges has a theory that Moby Dick is a version of the episode of Ulysses in the Divine Comedy (which ended as basis to Tennyson poem). Ulysses, according to borges, was not there because he was a liar (a commun interpretation because that is how Virgil understood him), that was a trick. His story tells not about his "sins", but about his last trip, when he goes to a last travel and see on the horizon a moutain, see the mount purgatory, etc. To Borges Ulysses challenged the divine order trying to reach what was denied to him (in a cat-rat chase, as Borges also sees Moby Dick as kafkanesque tale) therefore punished. Ahab and the crew do something similar, trying to reach the unreachable Moby Dick.

That talk of a mountain is a good fit. It would be interesting to see which other circles of hell the Pequod sailed through. Ulysses passes the Pillars of Hercules into mysterious and forbidden seas. I can't help thinking of Atlantis.

[JCamilo]

Well, Ahab is almost an anti-hero, in this way, similar to the romantic vision of Lucifer. Both are have a natural power of rethoric, in many technical aspects they are similar characters. I am not sure if Pequod is the nice circles (one can always play with the crew and see their sins, but Ishmael is not Dante guided by Virgil, he is a sinner that admires a pagan) but there is a descend to hell in this story. Maybe the Pequod is a map or europe, Melville reaction to the Thourean/Emerson romatic view.

In other works, like Benito Cereno, Melville seems to reflect the Civil War concerns. The africans are evil (while freedom is a good cause) , and to me it seems like Melville was pointing the war would be decisive for the matter but it was not a solution. (Ultimatelly Melville was right). His characters have this tragic quality in a way, failure of objective, which may seems Melville didnt feel we could achive anything with heroic acts at all.

Anyways, I think Melville is a master of atmosphere. Read the begining of Benito Cereno, it is all about bad omens, but the wether and sea conditions seems to be telling the whole drama of the book. Much like Poe (or Emily Bronte) when the "supernatural" is natural and psychological.

[Pompey Bum]

If his Whiteness (His pure inviolate flesh) is the key, then when the physical whale appears close up and that whiteness is gnarled, scarred and a bit smelly - is another metaphor.

It is not the flesh that is inviolate--many harpoons have damaged it--but the whiteness itself, which Melville describes as "mystical and well nigh ineffable." He compares it to the ectoplasm of a ghost and the pale horse ridden by Death in Revelation. "It was the whiteness of the whale," he says, "that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught."

In my opinion, that is the key to the novel. The scars, the flesh, the whale form itself (and all the things we try to make of the whale) are a facade. But the ineffable purity--not the whale but the whiteness of the whale--is what Ahab obscenely (and heroically) tries to violate. But Moby-Dick remains awesome and unknowable.

That is my ending. But was it Melville's, and does Melville give us a choice? This gets to a question we haven't asked yet: did Moby-Dick survive the final combat? When I was a little boy, my father used to read me a child's picture-book version of the novel. One of the last images in it was of Ahab harpooning Moby-Dick while the whale spouted blood. I remember asking my dad if Moby-Dick survived. Oddly enough he told me, No, he got killed, but he took Ahab with him. Years later, of course, I discovered that Melville says nothing of the kind.

On the other hand, the whale makes no curtain call. He had already been injured, he was harpooned in the final combat, and he rammed the Pequod hard enough to break it to sink it (which would also have caused terrible injury). So was my father right? Or did Melville leave the answer up to the reader? I'd be interested to hear your view. Mine is that my father was wrong. Moby-Dick triumphed and survived and Melville intended no ambiguity about it. God can destroy man but man cannot destroy God. What do you think?

[Pompey Bum]

Well, Ahab is almost an anti-hero, in this way, similar to the romantic vision of Lucifer. Both are have a natural power of rethoric, in many technical aspects they are similar characters.

This is a good point, JC. In fact, I wouldn't say almost. Ahab is one of the great antiheroes of literature. He is comparable to Milton's Satan and Aeschylus' Prometheus. Only a hero dares to defy a god. That is his tragedy.


His characters have this tragic quality in a way, failure of objective, which may seems Melville didnt feel we could achive anything with heroic acts at all.

Correct. Ahab's tragedy accomplishes nothing. In the end, we are left clinging to a coffin in a vast, unknowable sea. The central paradox of Melville is that life is unimportant without heroism (as emphasized at the book's start), and yet heroic acts fail to redeem anything. It is a profoundly pessimistic view of life.


I am not sure if Pequod is the nice circles (one can always play with the crew and see their sins, but Ishmael is not Dante guided by Virgil, he is a sinner that admires a pagan) but there is a descend to hell in this story.

I found this line from the novel's final pages comparing the Pequod to Satan, "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."

In my version of the story, the Pequod is something like the Church, which guides lost humanity over an obscure surface-world in search of a God it doesn't begin to understand. Was Melville subject to the thriving anti-Catholicism of his day? Is Ahab the Anti-Christ Pope of the mother ship?

And so another harpoon is cast. :)

[JCamilo]

Maybe not the church, I do not think he goes something as organized, but he seems to reveil in the human and seem to think Leaders are a problem. Ahab (quite genial) dooms all with his obssession. Babo in Benito Cereno overplays his manipulation and dooms the crew that just got his freedom. There is something in Melville that while he sings the body eletric, that is a can of worns. Well, he is pessimist, in a America of Thoureaus and Emersons and coming to the Civil War.

Maybe the pequod is a mirror of society (hence we can see any society there), maybe the american society (all the brotherhood, all the mixed cultures) , yet, one Charismatic Leader. Maybe Melville was quite afraid (or wanted the reader to be afraid) of this leader. D.H.Lawrence essays on american literature are quite good. He seems to notice something on Melville that the earlier writers (alongside Melville, Hawthorne, Poe) didnt saw, this dark side of basic nature. Maybe Melville wanted to say : Our ideals are always ideals, they will not solve all problems. One day you will be voting for Hillary and Trump. Many maybes. Biblical wise, because it is there, I do not exactly think it is good vs.evil, Satan Vs. God. It is the challenge that matters (I guess you agree). This seems similar to other works, Billy Budd does not even need to do anything except being pretty. In Baterbly, the main characters tries to not do anything so he will not call any attention.

[Danik 2016]

The name Pequod seems to be significant too as the name of an Indian tribe that was destroyed by the white men:
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question139612.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pequot_people#Etymology_of_.22Pequot.22

[mona amon]

It is great to see a thread on an actual book once again, with Litnetters at their literary best. Now I want to re-read this magnificent book! The first time I thought it was a book on whaling and specifically about Captain Ahab's obsessive hunt of the great white whale that chomped off his leg, and I doubt if I will see in it anything more than that this time round, but all these interesting interpretations are bound to enhance my reading experience.

[prendrelemick]

It is not the flesh that is inviolate--many harpoons have damaged it--but the whiteness itself, which Melville describes as "mystical and well nigh ineffable." He compares it to the ectoplasm of a ghost and the pale horse ridden by Death in Revelation. "It was the whiteness of the whale," he says, "that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught."

In my opinion, that is the key to the novel. The scars, the flesh, the whale form itself (and all the things we try to make of the whale) are a facade. But the ineffable purity--not the whale but the whiteness of the whale--is what Ahab obscenely (and heroically) tries to violate. But Moby-Dick remains awesome and unknowable.

That is my ending. But was it Melville's, and does Melville give us a choice? This gets to a question we haven't asked yet: did Moby-Dick survive the final combat? When I was a little boy, my father used to read me a child's picture-book version of the novel. One of the last images in it was of Ahab harpooning Moby-Dick while the whale spouted blood. I remember asking my dad if Moby-Dick survived. Oddly enough he told me, No, he got killed, but he took Ahab with him. Years later, of course, I discovered that Melville says nothing of the kind.

On the other hand, the whale makes no curtain call. He had already been injured, he was harpooned in the final combat, and he rammed the Pequod hard enough to break it to sink it (which would also have caused terrible injury). So was my father right? Or did Melville leave the answer up to the reader? I'd be interested to hear your view. Mine is that my father was wrong. Moby-Dick triumphed and survived and Melville intended no ambiguity about it. God can destroy man but man cannot destroy God. What do you think?
Ah yes, I remember now his list of scary white coloured things, - I was unconvinced, but that doesn't matter, the point was stretched and made within the book so let's accept it. But you go an extra step, "The whiteness of the whale will absorb and render meaningless (but also pure) any harpoon we cast at it." ( like a black hole?) What are you saying whiteness is/represents?

I just re-read day three of the chase, and the adjective of, "The stricken whale", did jump out from the page, but reports of his death have been exaggerated I think.

More interesting, as JC said, was:- "(The Pequod) like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it." I need to search out that reference.

[Pompey Bum]

Maybe not the church, I do not think he goes something as organized...Maybe the pequod is a mirror of society (hence we can see any society there),

Perhaps we can agree it represents humanity, however one further defines it. But then who are these other ships the Pequod encounters? They seem to be part of a different theme: that of Ahab's (anti-)heroism, since the other captains (as I recall) are running away from Moby-Dick. I need to reread those chapters--it's been a while.


maybe the american society (all the brotherhood, all the mixed cultures)

I had the same thought just before reading your post. But Melville's very deliberate inclusion of the alien/other Queequeg and a multinational crew convinced me otherwise. I think his scope is universal.


yet, one Charismatic Leader. Maybe Melville was quite afraid (or wanted the reader to be afraid) of this leader.

I doubt he was being political. Millard Fillmore was a lousy president, but he was no Ahab. :) Or did you have someone else in mind?

[Pompey Bum]

The name Pequod seems to be significant too as the name of an Indian tribe that was destroyed by the white men:
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question139612.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pequot_people#Etymology_of_.22Pequot.22

That doesn't make much sense in terms of the original question Kev asked, which was about whether Melville's description of whales defensively surrounding mothers and young could have been an allusion to a tactical defense used by American Indians (and, lest we forget, European Americans used to circle the wagons when the Indians would attack their families). But the Pequod was a whaling ship--its crew were the killers--so what would its name have to do with such a maneuver?

One of the links you left suggests that by giving the ship the name of a doomed people Melville was foreshadowing the doom of the voyage. That's possible. My view is that he took the name of an ancient and aboriginal people to give a primal aspect to the multiracial, multinational crew. The Pequod does not represent 1851 society but humanity writ large. On the other hand, maybe he just wanted a believable sounding name. A great many things here in New England are named for the vanished Indians.

[Pompey Bum]

It is great to see a thread on an actual book once again, with Litnetters at their literary best. Now I want to re-read this magnificent book!

I agree, Mona. And I've been considering a reread, too. It's been 25 years since the last time (and that was a reread). But I'm just finishing a lengthy reread (of Vanity Fair) so the next one should probably be something new. But it is tempting me. So many books, so many books. :)

[Pompey Bum]

More interesting, as JC said, was:- "(The Pequod) like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it." I need to search out that reference.

Ahem, ahem, ahem, ahem...


I found this line from the novel's final pages comparing the Pequod to Satan, "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.

Glad you found it interesting, though. :)


Ah yes, I remember now his list of scary white coloured things, - I was unconvinced, but that doesn't matter, the point was stretched and made within the book so let's accept it.

Well, he did specify that his words were going to be insufficient to communicate that which is "mystical and well nigh ineffable [unspeakable]." Perhaps that was why you found it unconvincing.


What are you saying whiteness is/represents?

As I said, "the human failure to penetrate the facade of reality in any meaningful way." Or to take it a step further (as I believe Melville did) the unknowability of God. The impenetrability of the sea (that is, to vision) is also a metaphor for the former.


I just re-read day three of the chase, and the adjective of, "The stricken whale", did jump out from the page, but reports of his death have been exaggerated I think.

So do I. For the story to work, Ahab must not only die but fail.

[prendrelemick]

Ahem, ahem, ahem, ahem....

oops!



As I said, "the human failure to penetrate the facade of reality in any meaningful way." Or to take it a step further (as I believe Melville did) the unknowability of God. The impenetrability of the sea (that is, to vision) is also a metaphor for the former.

You know those annoying kids who just keep asking why, over and over and over....:brickwall

I agree, unknowability and impenetrability is a theme in there. But a metaphor has to have a backstory or a progression of logic. It is supposed to make something hard, clearer through an image, or be allegorical or something. I'm having trouble getting from white to what you said . Why not black for instance?

[Pompey Bum]

I agree, unknowability and impenetrability is a theme in there. But a metaphor has to have a backstory or a progression of logic. It is supposed to make something hard, clearer through an image, or be allegorical or something. I'm having trouble getting from white to what you said . Why not black for instance?

First (and I hope obviously), this is what works for me. I also believe it is what Melville meant, but I am neither a missionary nor a monomaniac and I am not trying to force my reading on you. In fact, I would appreciate hearing other interpretations since they would help me understand more (whether I accept them or not).

The color is white instead of black because white is a void. There IS an image, a whale, but rather than "make something hard clearer" (as you put it), the the void puts meaning out of reach (this is why the whiteness of the whale is described as ineffable). It would be easier for us if the white whale was a conventional symbol: Moby-Dick is the all-loving God--you'll never reach him if your heart is full of vengeance!; or Moby-Dick is almighty Mother Nature--paternalistic, male environmental criminals will get what's coming to them eventually! But Moby-Dick is not easy. The symbol itself is not penetrable, except in its impenetrability (the harpoons in the whale's scarred sides). That is the point of the novel. That is why it is necessary for Ahab not just to die but also to fail.

Is this Melville's critique of concept of revealed knowledge? Maybe. It calls to mind a great line in an otherwise hokey Bob Dylan song: "Nothing is revealed." That would make a good synopsis of Moby-Dick. So is the white whale the empty-set God of atheism (as I have heard suggested)? I don't think so, but a certain kind of agnostic may recognize the big guy; not the sort who can't make up his mind whether God exists, but the one who sees God as inherently unknowable. I once saw a bumper sticker that read: MILITANT AGNOSTIC: I DON'T KNOW AND NEITHER DO YOU. Heh heh. That would be a good summary, too. :)

[kev67]

That is my ending. But was it Melville's, and does Melville give us a choice? This gets to a question we haven't asked yet: did Moby-Dick survive the final combat? When I was a little boy, my father used to read me a child's picture-book version of the novel. One of the last images in it was of Ahab harpooning Moby-Dick while the whale spouted blood. I remember asking my dad if Moby-Dick survived. Oddly enough he told me, No, he got killed, but he took Ahab with him. Years later, of course, I discovered that Melville says nothing of the kind.


I just finished the book. I was worried Moby Dick might not survive the final confrontation. As far as I can tell he did, although all those ropes, harpoons and corpses might slow him down. How's he going hunt giant squid encumbered by all that?

[JCamilo]

Perhaps we can agree it represents humanity, however one further defines it. But then who are these other ships the Pequod encounters? They seem to be part of a different theme: that of Ahab's (anti-)heroism, since the other captains (as I recall) are running away from Moby-Dick. I need to reread those chapters--it's been a while.

We can guess they are the denial of heroic pursuit. The model of scrivener, hiding from god presence (can you say they are the Limbo? :D ) Or they are other nations/societies that do not move toward greatness/madness? Because they may represent humanity but not all humanity.



I had the same thought just before reading your post. But Melville's very deliberate inclusion of the alien/other Queequeg and a multinational crew convinced me otherwise. I think his scope is universal.

I think they are not alien (perhaps the persians, but they are too alien) to Melville, a guy who lived a few months with cannibals. Of course, Moby is moving towards the universal, from the perspective of Melville own experience (like his previous works and by some accounts Moby Dick also started as a sea adventure) and developed in a World's Stage. He is very allegorical after all.


I doubt he was being political. Millard Fillmore was a lousy president, but he was no Ahab. :) Or did you have someone else in mind?

No, I am not thinking political as the french novelists would be. But of course, the universality of such leader could be implied to any politic. I think he was moving from sea captains he meet, at that time very powerful, and I suspect, many charming captains with good rethorical power. Just like the scew, the pequod grow in symbolism, so does the captain.

I think of Walt Whitman. Besides Whitman, the Pequod is the perhaps the most meaningful literary map of america, of democracy, of representation, individualy and entreprise. Yet, Melville is dark. What is dark? Perhaps some sensibility towards the upcoming civil war also gives him some fear about the leadership. Like I said, In Benito Cereno Melville seems to be talking about the possible upcoming violence after the end of slavery. It may be that artistic sensibility that give writers the capacity to feel for a time that didnt exist yet.

And the white, it is another thing moving from a particular (the reason essex whale) to an universal meaning. The horror of white was proposed by Poe before, no?

[prendrelemick]

On the whole I think the book, and Ahab,s story in particular, is about the inner self rather than events happening or about to happen outside it in 1850's America. It is about obsession that drives out reality.
This is reflected in the feeling of unreality the Pequod sails in. The ship is part of Ahab, he is conjoined with it down through his leg into a socket drilled into the deck. The ship is his body, the crew are carried along in Ahab and Ahab is damaged. Part of him was ripped and carried away by the Whale (not only his leg) but in Melville's parlence, his soul. In that way he is also conjoined with Moby Dick. As he says himself - only Ahab can conjour him up. (Which he has been doing throughout the book, long before he is actually sighted.) He is seeking to wrest his soul back from the whale.

Now, the other day I was watching a quiz on telly, and this question came up: “Who was told by Tiresias he would have a long life unless he saw and recognised himself ?” The answer was Narcissus. “Ah” thinks I. “Another harpoon to cast at Moby Dick.” Narcissus is mentioned at the very beginning of the book. His own image draws him to his watery death. Is that what Ahab is doing?

ps. There is some Macbeth in there too.

[Dreamwoven]

A nice interpretation, prendrelemick!

[JCamilo]

What I mean is that Moby Dick is a book that grows with Melville. It is born as project more similar to his previous works, which have some basis on other stories and Melville experience. Those experience certainly enlarge Melville formation, but it was only when he was pursuing his own White Whale he found the "muse" that allowed him to step foward and attempt such complex (and radical) literary experience, which also reflects on the themes of the book. One has to wonder how much Hawthorne friendship helped Melville.

Yet, he never abandoned this "realism", he kept using previous incidents to basis his novels. Melvile was never an art for art kind of author, he has a moralist side, and deemed that literature must be real. (This is of course something relevant for XX century, when Conrad also suggest something similar.) There are other examples where Melville works with social-political concerns. I already mentioned Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, but there is Mardi a distopian novel, showing an allegory of America where leaders screw up the place (a socialist community of sorts) or Gees, a satyre in Swift style dealing with racism towards portuguese sailors that had a colony nearby.

Melville is very weary of leaders. I always feel he is some sort of Dark spiritual brother of Whitman (perhaps Melville moralism, religiousity, perhaps he is a Poetman author). Also, he is very Shakespearean. I would say, the most shakespearean novelist ever. (Ahab is different from every character, he is not part of the action, he comes into scene). I would say this make me think twice about turning the Pequod in a character or part of Ahab. It is more a scenary for Ahab (one that he is able to have influence). I feel a bit like Lear and the old "the madness of the king, the madness of the kingdom" approach. The crew cannot, of course, leave the kingdom, no more than the peasants. They must go all the way with the king.

[prendrelemick]

I know nothing of Melville or his other works, I have only read Moby Dick. I am aware of Billy Budd because I saw the opera many years ago and know something something of its political slant. And that's about it. You are making points way above my level. But your last couple of sentences are along the same lines as I was thinking.

[JCamilo]

Before casting another harpoon at Moby Dick, I suggest go hunting those other works (mostly Billy Budd, Benito Cereno and Bartebly). They are shadowed by Moby Dick, but any author who had only those 3 in their biography, would be already remembered as one of the best novelists. In many aspects the white while draws melville to the depth with her, leaving behind a shadow over his other works and sometimes it seems he was an "one hit wonder". Nothing like this, even when we notice he tries hard to not be dragged by Moby Dick while working those other novels, because of the heavy criticism he received.

[Pompey Bum]

I just finished the book. I was worried Moby Dick might not survive the final confrontation.

Congratulations, Kev. And I beg your pardon. I (stupidly) did not even consider that you might not have known know how Moby-Dick ended. I'm glad to see that you stayed away from the site as you were finishing the novel, and I hope that I didn't spoil anything for you. I apologize if I did.


As far as I can tell he did, although all those ropes, harpoons and corpses might slow him down. How's he going hunt giant squid encumbered by all that?

No doubt he'll use them as fishing lines. Squid love human flesh.

[Pompey Bum]

We can guess they are the denial of heroic pursuit. The model of scrivener, hiding from god presence (can you say they are the Limbo? :D ) Or they are other nations/societies that do not move toward greatness/madness? Because they may represent humanity but not all humanity.

I reread several chapters last night. It struck me that Ahab and Boomer, the captain of the Samuel Enderby, are being closely contrasted vis a vis the captain-like Father Mapple, whose sermon on Jonah advised acceptance of God's will however fearsome or inscrutable. Ahab and Boomer have both been permanently damaged by Moby-Dick. Boomer lost his arm to a harpoon sticking from the whale's side; he wears a whalebone arm to match Ahab's whalebone leg. Boomer has spotted Moby-Dick twice since that encounter but always given him a wide berth. "He's best let alone," he councils Ahab. "What is best let alone," Ahab counters, "that accursed thing is not always what least allures.” He goes on to compare Moby-Dick to a magnet.

There is more going on here than Ahab's obsession or Boomer's prudence. Mapple's broad shadow (the Mapple episode is given three chapters) makes it a question of free will and opens the question of where Melville stands on the issue. It is all well and good to speak of Ahab's indomitable will, but how much will is really being exercised by that which a magnet draws? Is Ahab's famed will ultimately illusory? And does this relate to the central paradox of life being unimportant without heroic action (cf the pale usher of Etymology) but heroic action failing to redeem--or to achieve much else.

Before I reread the chapters I mention above, I noticed and wondered about a passage in the novel's first chapter:

"Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage...yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment."

Is Melville being ironic? Or does he genuinely believe that free will is a delusion? Is it part of Ahab's delusion?


I think of Walt Whitman. Besides Whitman, the Pequod is the perhaps the most meaningful literary map of america, of democracy, of representation, individualy and entreprise. Yet, Melville is dark. What is dark? Perhaps some sensibility towards the upcoming civil war also gives him some fear about the leadership. Like I said, In Benito Cereno Melville seems to be talking about the possible upcoming violence after the end of slavery. It may be that artistic sensibility that give writers the capacity to feel for a time that didnt exist yet.

The glorious thing about Melville is that he is an American 19th-century literary voice that is completely pessimistic. I suppose Poe's was, too, but Melville's voice seems more authentically American than writers like Poe and Hawthorne who were often trying to sound European. Whitman saw the horror of the war close up and was still exuberant about the American potential. Moby-Dick was starkly pessimistic, but remember that it failed commercially and arguably ended Melville's career as a popular writer. Americans weren't ready for that kind of pessimism until the 20th century.

I don't think The pessimism in Moby Dick has anything to do with the Civil War, by the way. The novel was published a decade before. There were some nasty things going on: Millard Fillmore was enforcing the fugitive slave act by sending federal troops after runaway slaves who had long resided in the North; violent skirmishes were breaking out with their defenders. We like to say in retrospect that the war was inevitable because slavery had been winked at during the constitutional convention, but in fact it was brought on by a sudden secession crisis following Lincoln's election. Southern states had long bluffed about seceding if they didn't get their way in national elections, but Melville could not have known in 1851 that actual secession would come, or that the president would send troops to suppress it, or that it would lead to a holocaust that would destroy the South and leave the north forever changed. None of that was a given in 1860 (far from it). And even the most farsighted writer would not have guessed it in 1851.

Melville is sometimes said to have predicted the war in a poem called The Portent, in which he calls the hanging of the abolitionist guerrilla John Brown "the meteor of the war," but the poem was not published until 1866, a year after the war ended. I don't know when he wrote the poem, but Brown was not hanged until the end of 1859. Melville's pessimism prior to 1851 (when Moby-Dick was published) certainly had nothing to do with Brown. In the 1840s and 1850s, the country itself was not nearly as pessimistic about what was coming as it should have been.

[Pompey Bum]

On the whole I think the book, and Ahab,s story in particular, is about the inner self rather than events happening or about to happen outside it in 1850's America.

I strongly agree about the latter point. My rereading of the chapters about the other ships has even made me a little sympathetic about your ideas about the inner self. A complex symbol can, of course, work on several levels; the Pequod, for example, can be a macrocosm of the human psyche as well as a microcosm of humanity itself (or just a good ol' Yankee whaler). E.M. Forster once said something to the effect that Moby Dick is a book with hundreds of symbols, but what it means is another matter. :)


It is about obsession that drives out reality.
This is reflected in the feeling of unreality the the Pequod sails in. The ship is part of Ahab, he is conjoined with it down through his leg into a socket drilled into the deck. The ship is his body, the crew are carried along in Ahab. Part of Ahab was ripped and carried away by the Whale (not only his leg) but in Melville's parlence, his soul. In that way he is also conjoined with Moby Dick. He is seeking to wrest it back again.

Your idea about the Pequod being an extension of Ahab's body is brilliant and a bit creepy. It could also be interpreted that Ahab is bound to the physical world of the ship even as he is drawn to confront the ineffable mystery that lies beneath the Moby-Dick's facade. But again, it works on both levels.

Ahab is bound to Moby-Dick not only by the loss of his leg but also by the whalebone leg he had replaced it with. But whether this actually constitutes, as you say, "in Melville's parlance, his soul," or whether that is part of the delusion that drives him against the whale--in contrast to Captain Boomer, who has also lost a limb to Moby-Dick and replaced it with one of whalebone. Boomer accepts the loss of his arm as God's will. Ahab, the "Godless and Godlike man" cannot let it go. His defiance may or may not be heroic, but in the end it avails him nothing. Moby-Dick gets him body and soul.


Now the other day I was watching a quiz on telly, and this question came up: “Who was told by Tiresias he would have a long life unless he saw and recognised himself ?” The answer was Narcissus. “Ah” thinks I. “Another harpoon to cast at Moby Dick.” Narcissus is mentioned at the very beginning of the book. His own image draws him to his watery death. Is that what Ahab is doing?

Bravo. I noticed the same passage last night and even highlighted it. Melville is discussing the draw that bodies of water have on people, so it is not necessarily about Ahab attempting to recover his soul from Moby-Dick:

"And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned."

I find the immediately following line more pertinent to Ahab:

"But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all."

So even the image we take to be ourselves is only an "ungraspable phantom." In the same way, I think, any notion Ahab may have about wresting his soul back from Moby-Dick is just a part of his greater delusion. There is certainly narcissism in Ahab's obsessive need for vengeance. But Moby-Dick just spouts and flips his tail at all of that. No wonder Ahab hates him so much.

[JCamilo]

I reread several chapters last night. It struck me that Ahab and Boomer, the captain of the Samuel Enderby are being closely contrasted vis a vis the captain-like Father Mapple, whose sermon on Jonah advised acceptance of God's will however fearsome or inscutible. Ahab and Boomer have both been permanently damaged by Moby-Dick. Boomer lost his arm to a harpoon sticking from the whale's side; he wears a whalebone arm to match Ahab's whalebone leg). Boomer has spotted Moby-Dick twice since that encounter but always given him a wide berth. "He's best let alone," he councils Ahab. "What is best let alone," Ahab counters, "that accursed thing is not always what least allures.” He goes on to compare Moby-Dick to a magnet.

There is more going on here than Ahab's obsession or Boomer's prudence. Mapple's broad shadow (the Mapple episode is given three chapters) makes it a question of Freewill will and opens the question of where Melville stands on the issue. It is all well and good to speak of Ahab's indomitable will, but how much will is really being exercised by that which a magnet draws? Is Ahab's famed will ultimately illusory? And does this relate to the central paradox of life being unimportant without heroic action (cf the pale usher of Etymology) but heroic action failing to redeem--or to achieve much else.

I think that is tragic, heroic. While the heroes cannot avoid fate, it is their actions that will lead to them to such destiny. Ahab chooses to pursue his fate, believe in a different outcome, but that cannot be changed. But perhaps, the true matter is the decision of the crew to be part of Ahab quest.


Before I reread the chapters I mention above, I noticed and wondered about a passage in the novel's first chapter:

"Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage...yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment."

Is Melville being ironic? Or does he genuinely believe that free will is a delusion? Is it part of Ahab's delusion?

Melville is able of irony, but I think Ahab is genuinelly tragic, except it is a Shakespearean, not classical, tragedy.


The glorious thing about Melville is that he is an American 19th-century literary voice that is completely pessimistic. I suppose Poe's was, too, but Melville's voice seems more authentically American than writers like Poe and Hawthorne who apwere often trying to sound European. Whitman saw the horror of the war close up and was still exuberant about the American potential. Moby-Dick was starkly pessimistic, but remember that it failed commercially and arguably ended Melville's career as a popular writer. Americans weren't ready for that kind of pessimism until the 20th century.

No, they are far from it. It is good to remember Poe was also rejected (less, Poe was popular) and inside Poe's mind, his balance came from activelly acting against the "good america", like some of his a bit out of hand controversies. Hawthorne is bleak, but he is more balanced and inside out, too much a moralist. The trio was a stark contrast to the intellectual balance of Emerson or Whitman Esctatic voice. However, I do see Poe as very american, specially if we look at his critical work: he was one of the first authors to think about the text as a format for a new kind of reader, he wanted an accessible publishing choice, etc, even if his more (much more) intellectual approach, often heavy handed.


I don't think The pessimism in Moby Dick has anything to do with the Civil War, by the way. The novel was published a decade before. There were some nasty things going on: Millard Fillmore was enforcing the fugitive slave act by sending federal troops after runaway slaves who had long resided in the North; violent skirmishes were breaking out with their defenders. We like to say in retrospect that the war was inevitable because slavery had been winked at during the constitutional convention, but in fact it was brought on by a sudden secession crisis following Lincoln's election. Southern states had long bluffed about seceding if they didn't get their way in national elections, but Melville could not have known in 1851 that actual secession would come, that the president would send troops to suppress it, or that it would lead to a holocaust that would destroy the South and leave the north forever changed. None of that was given in 1860 (far from it). And even the most farsighted writer would not have guessed it in 1851.

No, I do not think Moby Dick is an allegory of Civil War. I think his perception of the sittuation could have lead him to delve deeply in the subject, I also think he was reacting to conciously to the extreme positive vision that Whitman portraied. Melville just do not allow him to be "drunk" with the great democracy, despite his own experience allowing him to develop a more positive views of the diversity. Melville wasnt unware of the sittutioan (his godfather was one of the judges - no idea now the name of the position exactly - to determine runaway slaves should be brought back to their owners), he was not strained from what was happening. The prophetic tone of his work may help us to draw some "visionary" interpretation, but the point of the leadership mistrust is repeated in other works.


Melville is sometimes said to have predicted the war in a poem called The Portent, in which he calls the hanging of the abolitionist guerrilla John Brown "the meteor of the war," but the poem was not published until 1866, a year after the war ended. I don't know when he wrote the poem, but Brown was not hanged until the end of 1859. Melville's pessimism prior to 1851 (when Moby-Dick was published) certainly had nothing to do with Brown. In the 1850s the country itself was not nearly as pessimistic about what was coming as it should have been.

if I am not mistaken, his war poems are all after-war. Some sort of project he developed after visiting places where the conflict happened.

[Pompey Bum]

if I am not mistaken, his war poems are all after-war. Some sort of project he developed after visiting places where the conflict happened.


Thank you for that information, JC. I suspected it was a post-war observation (it's easy to recognize the meteors after the war), but I wasn't sure.


It is all well and good to speak of Ahab's indomitable will, but how much will is really being exercised by that which a magnet draws? Is Ahab's famed will ultimately illusory? And does this relate to the central paradox of life being unimportant without heroic action (cf the pale usher of Etymology) but heroic action failing to redeem--or to achieve much else.


I think that is tragic, heroic. While the heroes cannot avoid fate, it is their actions that will lead to them to such destiny. Ahab chooses to pursue his fate, believe in a different outcome, but that cannot be changed. But perhaps, the true matter is the decision of the crew to be part of Ahab quest.

I agree that Ahab is a tragic hero, at least on the surface. My question is: does Melville really buy it? Does he see Ahab as defying God or fate by pursuing Moby-Dick (in contrast to Captain Boomer who accepts from the loss of an arm that "he is best left alone")? Or does he see him as deluded about his will? I guess I need to reread more and think more about Melville's theory of fate. In some ways, the passage below anticipates Tolstoy's ideas two decades later. Is Ahab another failed "great man," like Tolstoy's Napoleon, whose reputedly brilliant orders are not even reaching his troops? Is Melville (like Tolstoy) rejecting Carlisle, and is this the source of his apparent distaste for leaders?


Before I reread the chapters I mention above, I noticed and wondered about a passage in the novel's first chapter:

"Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage...yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment."

Is Melville being ironic? Or does he genuinely believe that free will is a delusion? Is it part of Ahab's delusion?


Melville is able of irony, but I think Ahab is genuinelly tragic, except it is a Shakespearean, not classical, tragedy.

Almost. What is missing, in contrast with either classical or Shakespearian tragedy, is catharsis. We are left clinging to a coffin in the middle of a vast, unknowable sea: an devastating metaphor and critique of the human condition. It is as if Melville's pessimism overwhelms and subverts even the tragedy he has been telling. There is no redemption, only survival, and even that is arbitrary. GO ISHMAEL! :)

[JCamilo]

Thank you for that information, JC. I suspected it was a post-war observation (it's easy to recognize the meteors after the war), but I wasn't sure.

There wouldnt be any good prophet otherwise :D



I agree that Ahab is a tragic hero, at least on the surface. My question is: does Melville really buy it? Does he see Ahab as defying God or fate by pursuing Moby-Dick (in contrast to Captain Boomer who accepts from the loss of an arm that "he is best left alone")? Or does he see him as deluded about his will? I guess I need to reread more and think more about Melville's theory of fate. In some ways, the passage below anticipates Tolstoy's ideas two decades later. Is Ahab another failed "great man," like Tolstoy's Napoleon, whose reputedly brilliant orders are not even reaching his troops? Is Melville (like Tolstoy) rejecting Carlisle, and is this the source of his apparent distaste for leaders?

I do not think Melville makes Ahab decisions a farse, as this would make his damning a farse too. Maybe it was unavoidable or maybe a dual possibility (like calvinism, but I think Melville disliked calvinism). As the great man, I think Melville activelly denies the great man notion, either be the Emerson benign verion of Carlyle version. I think we have to work with Melville own experiences again, how he manages to draw from them inspiration for something that grows universal. Melville had problem with authority, he was abandoned in an island after a failed mutiny. I think his distate for authority is something, let's say, pre-intellectual. I also think he is conciously being very romantic: he let himself be influenced by the precussors and yet works against them (in a dialogic form, Bakhtin notion). The difference with tolstoy, is of course, Melville more genuine affinity with the "average joe", because of Melville origem.





Almost. What is missing, in contrast with either classical or Shakespearian tragedy, is catharsis. We are left clinging to a coffin in the middle of a vast, unknowable sea: an devastating metaphor and critique of the human condition. It is as if Melville's pessimism overwhelms and subverts even the tragedy he has been telling. There is no redemption, only survival, and even that is arbitrary. GO ISHMAEL! :)

Well, maybe they cut the final, where Ishmael clings on the shripwreck, while the whale charges at him, with the mouth open, but he sees Ahab wooden leg still inside the beast mouth and with a harpoon he hits the wooden leg and the whale explodes? :D

It is a XIX century man, Nietzche is coming by the next door. Imagine if Melville had never fell from grace or was considered just an adveture writer until the XX century. The amount of writers who would have to bow down to his influence, even someone like Lovecraft.

[Pompey Bum]

I do not think Melville makes Ahab decisions a farse, as this would make his damning a farse too.

No, Ahab is a tragic hero and there is nothing farcical about him. There is some farce in the novel (the bedroom scene with Queequeg for example), and there are some truly funny one liners: "Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed"; or (also of Queequeg): "He was an undergraduate."). But Ahab's story is not farce.


Maybe it was unavoidable or maybe a dual possibility (like calvinism, but I think Melville disliked calvinism).

I've heard different things. He had a very strict Protestant relative (grandmother?) in his life when he was growing up; maybe he was rebelling against Calvinism or maybe he just learned to think in those terms (or maybe both). I find it all a bit speculative. But some of the things Ishmael says (apparently speaking in earnest for Melville) are noticeably duelistic. For example: "Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me."


As the great man, I think Melville activelly denies the great man notion, either be the Emerson benign verion of Carlyle version.

The difference with tolstoy, is of course, Melville more genuine affinity with the "average joe", because of Melville origem.

Yes, that is what I meant when I said that Melville sounded authentically American. Poe and Hawthorne were Americans, of course, but Melville "talked American." Melville talked Northeast (where I grew up) and Mark Twain talked Midwest (where I spent my boyhood summers).

I'm intrigued that Melville's ideas about fate may have been similar to Tolstoy's. I'll have to look into it.


Well, maybe they cut the final, where Ishmael clings on the shripwreck, while the whale charges at him, with the mouth open, but he sees Ahab wooden leg still inside the beast mouth and with a harpoon he hits the wooden leg and the whale explodes? :D

Or the one where Moby-Dick carries Ahab up the Empire State Building until he is knocked off by circling biplanes? :)

On the other hand, true tragedy/catharsis would only have been a matter of having Ahab kill Moby-Dick but die in the attempt (this was my father's interpretation of the ending). Ahab's obsessive vengeance would have wrought his own destruction and the sea would have been cleared of its big ol' scourge. But that was not the story Melville wanted to tell.


It is a XIX century man, Nietzche is coming by the next door. Imagine if Melville had never fell from grace or was considered just an adveture writer until the XX century. The amount of writers who would have to bow down to his influence, even someone like Lovecraft.

Yes, I made a similar point recently on another thread. But speculative history is useless. Fate is a funny thing, that's all.

[JCamilo]

No, Ahab is a tragic hero and there is nothing farcical about him. There is some farce in the novel (the bedroom scene with Queequeg for example), and there are some truly funny one liners: "Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed"; or (also of Queequeg): "He was an undergraduate."). But Ahab's story is not farce.

I think Queequeq may be quite realistic in his actions. Also, it is very "In the navy" (Not the only novel Melville seems to allude to homossexuality in among the sailors, I guess he had somehow to make it a bit humurous to try to pass by). It is very whitmanesque. At sametime, a dig at the rousseau ideas about the pure and primitive state of man that was very typical on Romantics (and American literature with Feenimore Cooper). You obviously notice, while Queequeeq went to hunt Moby Dick, he will not sink with her. He is saved or at least, not damned. (And Ishmael is saved too, saved by Queequeeq?) because he abandons the hunt (in a sort of definitive way, but still).

Anyways, if Ahab is not a farce, his will is true. It is not strange that free will and predestination are contraditory. Church philosophers have been dealing with this contradiction for centuries. The way I see, Ahab choose to continue the hunt. It would not end that way if he had "accepted" his defeat, Job wise. By making that an obssession he offended the watever holy/profane was behind Moby Dick. Think about Dostoievisky and the idea that the ideal man is Jesus and that if you want to see the correct curse of action you had to think what Jesus would do. Not saying Ahab had to give the other leg, but pretty that had Jesus fought, cried, etc, he would end in the cross nevertheless and reborn in the 3th day, yet, everything would be different in terms of redemption... But I think Ahab's will is really true. It is like "I will hunt this whale, as you want, but it will be on my terms" and it is very natural he feels his acts were a conflict between his will and fate, in the parts you quoted. It is Jesus in the cross, questioning before drinking his death kind of approach.


I've heard different things. He had a very strict Protestant relative (grandmother?) in his life when he was growing up; maybe he was rebelling against Calvinism or maybe he just learned to think in those terms (or maybe both). I find it all a bit speculative. But some of the things Ishmael says (apparently speaking in earnest for Melville) are noticeably duelistic. For example: "Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me."[/quoe]

Melville likes a lot of building those mixed up messages. In every book he seems to pull the reader to reflection because nothing is clear, there is always a double meaning (again a dialogic position) in the sittuations and dialogues. It seems to me that Melville wants to make truth something hard to be understood (difficulty of communication is something also typical on Melville novels). That is what puts him high with the likes of Dante or Shakespeare, Moby Dick is a work of multiple readings since the conception, because of the literary style and capacity of Melville. It is not just a matter of moral, he is doing in USA (except people didnt notice) what made the russians so famous about the novels. He is a Tolstoeisviski.

[quote]Yes, that is what I meant when I said that Melville sounded authentically American. Poe and Hawthorne were Americans, of course, but Melville "talked American." Melville talked Northeast (where I grew up) and Mark Twain talked Midwest (where I spent my boyhood summers).

I also think Melville is the only one of the 3 that is building something americans love to pursue (the great american novel), with all, an american myth, destruction and reconstruction of a previous model, a more universal theme... Hawthorne moralism makes him a bit more typical than universal, I guess.


Or the one where Moby-Dick carries Ahab up the Empire State Building until he is knocked off by circling biplanes? :)

On the other hand, true tragedy/catharsis would only have been a matter of having Ahab kill Moby-Dick but die in the attempt (this was my father's interpretation of the ending). Ahab's obsessive vengeance would have wrought his own destruction and the sea would have been cleared of its big ol' scourge. But that was not the story Melville wanted to tell.


I suppose Melville would be aware that such ending would close any debate and maybe give the impression man killed god. Also, killing the whale would look like a version of Killing the deer in he sea, no?

[Pompey Bum]

I think Queequeq may be quite realistic in his actions. Also, it is very "In the navy" (Not the only novel Melville seems to allude to homossexuality in among the sailors, I guess he had somehow to make it a bit humurous to try to pass by). It is very whitmanesque. At sametime, a dig at the rousseau ideas about the pure and primitive state of man that was very typical on Romantics (and American literature with Feenimore Cooper). You obviously notice, while Queequeeq went to hunt Moby Dick, he will not sink with her. He is saved or at least, not damned. (And Ishmael is saved too, saved by Queequeeq?) because he abandons the hunt (in a sort of definitive way, but still).

Well, there is a lot going on with Queequeg. He is certainly a parody of Rousseau's noble savage. But he also expresses a sincere idea of Melville's which he (quite brilliantly) expresses as farce: however advanced "civilized man" imagines himself to be, he intimately shares this world (the symbol is the bed) with those who make him very uncomfortable; but the truth is that there is not a whole lot of difference between them. "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

The initial bedroom story is like a sailor's yarn that get's more and more outrageous. "The innkeeper said you'll have to double up with a harpooner, and I'm like, Woah, I don't know, but then, Okay, what the hell, where is he? And he says, Well he's out selling human heads, and I'm like, What? And he says, Aw, he's okay." The level of discomfort gets ratcheted up progressively (which is part of the farce), but it ends with Ishmael and Queequeg becoming "a cosy, loving pair." I agree that there is a homosexual bond, but the more important issue (for Melville) is the universality of the human condition. And he sees this as something common sailors, who travel the world and know its peoples, are more familiar with than those who sit in ivory towers and think they're better than others. (Okay, okay, there's an "In the Navy" thing going on, too :) ).


Anyways, if Ahab is not a farce, his will is true.

Not necessarily. He could be deluded (like Oedipus and Macbeth, for example). It's not a binary distinction.


The way I see, Ahab choose to continue the hunt. It would not end that way if he had "accepted" his defeat, Job wise. By making that an obssession he offended the watever holy/profane was behind Moby Dick.

On the surface of it, Ahab and Boomer are both choosing. Boomer is choosing to abide by what he sees as fate or God's will, even though he doesn't want to. He wants to kill Moby-Dick for personal glory and profit. He tells Ahab: "There would be great glory in killing him, I know that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he’s best let alone". But Ahab chooses to do what he wants, even in defiance of fate or divine will. That, I think is his sin (the same Jonah showed in leaving Nineveh in Father Mapple's sermon) rather than obsessiveness. So perhaps, for Melville, Ahab and Boomer (and Jonah and the rest of us) are free to do what we want, but we are not free to choose what it is that we want to do. Thus, for Ahab (and probably for Boomer, too), Moby-Dick is "a great magnet." But they choose different responses to his allure.


But I think Ahab's will is really true. It is like "I will hunt this whale, as you want, but it will be on my terms" and it is very natural he feels his acts were a conflict between his will and fate, in the parts you quoted. It is Jesus in the cross, questioning before drinking his death kind of approach.

I don't see that analogy. If anything, the whale is Christ (albeit the wrathful version) and Ahab is party to a kind of Crucifixion at the end (is he the soldier who pierce's Christ's side with his lance?). But Ahab only damns himself, while Moby-Dick brings Judgement to the Pequod's world in microcosm. (But that doesn't quite work either, since Ishmael's deliverance is so arbitrary).

Ah, too many harpoons!


I suppose Melville would be aware that such ending would close any debate and maybe give the impression man killed god. Also, killing the whale would look like a version of Killing the deer in he sea, no?

My theory is he was keeping him alive for the sequel: Moby-Dick II: Ishmael's Revenge. (This time it's personal). That's a joke, but now that I think of it, perhaps Melville did envision a sequel but never wrote it because of the commercial failure of Moby-Dick. It would explain the lack of catharsis and the weird, radical ending. But I hope I'm wrong. The last scene in Moby Dick is one of my favorites in literature.

[prendrelemick]

I apologise if I am falling behind here, but I've been flicking through the text.

Ahab may have been following his destiny, but in the End Moby Dick was just splashing around. On the first real sighting he didn't even notice the Pequod and Ahab, choc full with human conceits and infatuations, sneaking up on him. This was very striking to me, after such a build up I had expected Moby to be waiting, a picture of malevolence - " So we meet again Meester Ahab." Not so, he sheds his supernatural aura and becomes a very physical whale doing whaley things - I think this is deliberate by Mellville, and ties in with all the encyclopedic whale facts he has been serving up. Ishmael may engage in a bit of pathetic fallacy, but that is just more human conceit. The crew are about to get a deadly dose of the real world and discover they, in their human insolence, are insignificant.
The Mapple sermon tells us about a whale being used as God's instrument, and I think that is what Melville intended with Moby, but both whales are unaware creatures in themselves . Destiny and rights and wrongs are games we higher creatures play.

[Dreamwoven]

There is a valley in our part of Southern Norrland called Mobydalen (Moby Valley), with its own website with pictures: http://www.gestrike.net/mobydalen/

[Pompey Bum]

There is a valley in our part of Southern Norrland called Mobydalen (Moby Valley), with its own website with pictures: http://www.gestrike.net/mobydalen/

Ahoy, ship! Hast seen the wide vale? :)

[JCamilo]

Well, there is a lot going on with Queequeg. He is certainly a parody of Rousseau's noble savage. But he also expresses a sincere idea of Melville's which he (quite brilliantly) expresses as farce: however advanced "civilized man" imagines himself to be, he intimately shares this world (the symbol is the bed) with those who make him very uncomfortable; but the truth is that there is not a whole lot of difference between them. "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

I am not sure if it is a farce. I think it is a genuine expression of Melville experiences. He probally slept with one or another cannibal. I think his idea maybe something that we today would do. Romantics loved to profess their love for savages, but they would often attempt to turn this savage into a civilizated man, a christian, etc. Maybe the idea is less about their difference, more about the real incapacity to accept this difference.


The initial bedroom story is like a sailor's yarn that get's more and more outrageous. "The innkeeper said you'll have to double up with a harpooner, and I'm like, Woah, I don't know, but then, Okay, what the hell, where is he? And he says, Well he's out selling human heads, and I'm like, What? And he says, Aw, he's okay." The level of discomfort gets ratcheted up progressively (which is part of the farce), but it ends with Ishmael and Queequeg becoming "a cosy, loving pair." I agree that there is a homosexual bond, but the more important issue (for Melville) is the universality of the human condition. And he sees this as something common sailors, who travel the world and know its peoples, are more familiar with than those who sit in ivory towers and think they're better than others. (Okay, okay, there's am "In the Navy" thing going on, too :) ).

Yes, I think the In the Navy Part was pretty much something veiled and that found cultural acceptance as long it was something restricted to the "sea" and could be justified as form of companionship or comrades. Certainly, the theme is not homossexuality, but the crew's dynamics and relationship. Which made them a form of society, with their our rules and codes at the time.


Not necessarily. He could be deluded (like Oedipus and Macbeth, for example). It's not a binary distinction.

Ok, but in this case, Melville is deluded like Macbeth, as his ambition (kill moby) is beyond his reach. He obviously believes he can do it. But I do not think this apply to his decisions - His choice to purse moby for revenge is not dellusion as if he was going after her because something tricked him to feel such wrath.




On the surface of it, Ahab and Boomer are both choosing. Boomer is choosing to abide by what he sees as fate or God's will, even though he doesn't want to. He wants to kill Moby-Dick for personal glory and profit. He tells Ahab: "There would be great glory in killing him, I know that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he’s best let alone". But Ahab chooses to do what he wants, even in defiance of fate or divine will. That, I think is his sin (the same Jonah showed in leaving Nineveh in Father Mapple's sermon) rather than obsessiveness. So perhaps, for Melville, Ahab and Boomer (and Jonah and the rest of us) are free to do what we want, but we are not free to choose what it is that we want to do. Thus, for Ahab (and probably for Boomer, too), Moby-Dick is "a great magnet." But they choose different responses to his allure.

Yes, that is more or less what I think. Let's imagine Boomer one day would find Moby Dick too. It was unevitable, but he just meet her by chance in the vast sea. Since it is just his job, he harpoon it. Since he is not guided by vengeance, he actually kills her. There is no special satisfaction. It was just his fate and how he avoided it. Maybe that happened in Moby Dick: the next generation.




I don't see that analogy. If anything, the whale is Christ (albeit the wrathful version) and Ahab is party to a kind of Crucifixion at the end (is he the soldier who pierce's Christ's side with his lance?). But Ahab only damns himself, while Moby-Dick brings Judgement to the Pequod's world in microcosm. (But that doesn't quite work either, since Ishmael's deliverance is so arbitrary).

I do not think there is any willing sacrifice or a Jesus in this book. Ahab probally is the only one in position to do so, but he is too royal and is a bit more friendly to Yaveh. What I meant is those dialogues when Ahab questions his fate (or his freedom of choice) that you posted, seems to be a dramatic momment, similar to Jesus questioning his fate just before his final words. I am sure we can have other momments like it, Shakespeare has plenty of it... It seems to be those self-questioning are more a way to prepare the readers to the fact it is (and the character is aware of that) in fact unavoidaible and he would do it all again if he had the chance, and not a way to suggest Ahab had not control of his actions.


My theory is he was keeping him alive for the sequel: Moby-Dick II: Ishmael's Revenge. (This time it's personal). That's a joke, but now that I think of it, perhaps Melville did envision a sequel but never wrote it because of the commercial failure of Moby-Dick. It would explain the lack of catharsis and the weird, radical ending. But I hope I'm wrong. The last scene in Moby Dick is one of my favorites in literature.

Well, I dont think there was a sequel (in the sense of using Moby Dick again). Melville is bleak, he is found of gray areas, Ishmael is certainly not a build up as a character meant to be followed in another book. Melville is not Hawthorne, he is not able to give us a definite moral guidance. Plus, the real Essex meeting, it seems to me Melville was just being realistic about a whale just going away and death being part of the whale hunting trade.

[JCamilo]

I apologise if I am falling behind here, but I've been flicking through the text.

Ahab may have been following his destiny, but in the End Moby Dick was just splashing around. On the first real sighting he didn't even notice the Pequod and Ahab, choc full with human conceits and infatuations, sneaking up on him. This was very striking to me, after such a build up I had expected Moby to be waiting, a picture of malevolence - " So we meet again Meester Ahab." Not so, he sheds his supernatural aura and becomes a very physical whale doing whaley things - I think this is deliberate by Mellville, and ties in with all the encyclopedic whale facts he has been serving up. Ishmael may engage in a bit of pathetic fallacy, but that is just more human conceit. The crew are about to get a deadly dose of the real world and discover they, in their human insolence, are insignificant.
The Mapple sermon tells us about a whale being used as God's instrument, and I think that is what Melville intended with Moby, but both whales are unaware creatures in themselves . Destiny and rights and wrongs are games we higher creatures play.

Well, sometimes, a white whale is just a white whale.

[Pompey Bum]

Ahab may have been following his destiny, but in the End Moby Dick was just splashing around. On the first real sighting he didn't even notice the Pequod and Ahab, choc full with human conceits and infatuations, sneaking up on him. This was very striking to me, after such a build up I had expected Moby to be waiting, a picture of malevolence - " So we meet again Meester Ahab."

Not so, he sheds his supernatural aura and becomes a very physical whale doing whaley things - I think this is deliberate by Mellville, and ties in with all the encyclopedic whale facts he has been serving up. Ishmael may engage in a bit of pathetic fallacy, but that is just more human conceit. The crew are about to get a deadly dose of the real world and discover they, in their human insolence, are insignificant.
The Mapple sermon tells us about a whale being used as God's instrument, and I think that is what Melville intended with Moby, but both whales are unaware creatures in themselves . Destiny and rights and wrongs are games we higher creatures play.

This was Starbuck's position: it is wrong to treat Moby-Dick as something other than a dumb animal. I don't think it was the author's. Ishmael is not an unreliable narrator, and as you observe, this was not his position either. Any "pathetic fallacy" must be laid at Melville's door, but since he was writing fiction, I'll give him a pass. (The whale that destroyed the Essex was just a whale, but Moby-Dick was anything Melville intended him to be). JC mentioned that Melville was fond of complicated/difficult symbolism and allegory in his other works. How likely is it that he would have abandoned this approach for Moby-Dick?

I sometimes hear readers who become exasperated with Melville's complexities ask why Moby-Dick can't be about a whale hunt. The answer, of course, is that it can be and it is. Symbolism allows meaning on more than one level, and those who want a whale hunt get it. But with Moby-Dick and other novels that use a lot of symbolism, I often hear that sort of comment thrown out as a veiled criticism of those who pursue symbolic meanings. Some feel intimidated by literary complexities, some feel analysis detracts from a story they love, and others have minds that just don't work that way. I'm not saying you are doing this, prendrelemick, just that (given Melville's literary predilections), I'd be careful how much of Moby-Dick we ascribe to "human conceit."


The crew are about to get a deadly dose of the real world and discover they, in their human insolence, are insignificant.

I will take issue with you here, though, not only because I don't think this was Melville's point, but also because it feeds into a modern environmentalist reading that is fundamentally eisegetical (that is, brought to the text rather than derived from it). If Melville had been a transcendentalist like Emerson, the idea of human insignificance before nature would be more convincing. But Melville's ideas Often opposed Emerson's, and not least in his views on nature. As far as getting "a deadly dose of the real world" goes, remarks like the following make it clear that Melville (like most 19th century Americans) did not consider physicality to represent true being:

"...no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part."

"Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me."

In sum, your idea of "the real world" has been filtered through a 20th/21st century materialist outlook. It may or may not be ontologically valid, but it is not what Melville was talking about in 1851. The past is a foreign country (as has often been observed), they do things differently there.

[Pompey Bum]

Well, sometimes, a white whale is just a white whale.

HA HA! You beat me to it! :) (But see my comments above about the Essex).

[Pompey Bum]

I am not sure if it is a farce. I think it is a genuine expression of Melville experiences. He probally slept with one or another cannibal.I think his idea maybe something that we today would do. Romantics loved to profess their love for savages, but they would often attempt to turn this savage into a civilizated man, a christian, etc. Maybe the idea is less about their difference, more about the real incapacity to accept this difference.

Well, the Queequeg story has some some comic elements, in any case ("We cannibals must help these Christians" is another hilarious line). I would call the story of their first night together farce, it's just that Queequeg is not the butt of the farce--mainstream 1851 American values are. There's a great passage from the chapter in which Ismael and Queequeg cross from New Bedford to Nantucket; some of their fellow passengers are staring at them because of their apparent closeness:

"So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so companionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro."

That is an observation that would have offended virtually every white, heterosexual American at the time (including most of the abolitionists). Melville was such such an independent voice. No wonder his book didn't sell.


Yes, I think the In the Navy Part was pretty much something veiled and that found cultural acceptance as long it was something restricted to the "sea" and could be justified as form of companionship or comrades. Certainly, the theme is not homossexuality, but the crew's dynamics and relationship. Which made them a form of society, with their our rules and codes at the time.

That's true, but as far as the story goes, Ishmael clearly falls in love with Queequeg. And that is really weird for a mid-19th century American novel. There's no real accounting for it. It's just, you know, Melville. He does his own thing, God bless him.


Yes, that is more or less what I think. Let's imagine Boomer one day would find Moby Dick too. It was unevitable, but he just meet her by chance in the vast sea. Since it is just his job, he harpoon it. Since he is not guided by vengeance, he actually kills her. There is no special satisfaction. It was just his fate and how he avoided it. Maybe that happened in Moby Dick: the next generation.

But Boomer does encounter Moby-Dick after losing his arm, twice in fact, and both times he gives him a wide berth. So he is not just doing his job; as he explains to Melville his will was to kill him--he wanted glory and the riches all the spermaceti would bring home. But he chose not to pursue his will, and this contrasts to Melville who gave himself up to his. Boomer is not heroic since he is retreating (if not actually running away); but he is not sinful, either, since he he accepts the loss of his arm as fate or God's will. But Ahab is the (heroic) sinner who puts his own will--by choosing to pursue it--over God's. And this is analogous to Jonah's placing his own will to leave Nineveh over God's will that he remain there as a prophet (which was discussed in Father Mapple's sermon). Both sins bring forth the beast from the sea.

Now, I've said that before, and I don't want to beat a dead horse; I understand your position, and I think you understand mine. But since we have been talking and I have been rereading parts of Moby-Dick, I have had some new ideas (I can hear prendrelemick groaning now :) ), and I wanted to get your (plural) thoughts on them.

I wonder if the paradox of Moby-Dick (a monster whose distinguishing trait is its ineffable purity) is Melville exploring the idea that Blake described as "the marriage of heaven and hell" (not that he necessarily got the idea from Blake). Jonah and Ahab put their will before God's; both are driven over the sea where they encounter Leviathan. Jonah is swallowed; Ahab was symbolically swallowed when he lost his leg. Jonah repents and aligns his choices to God's will. Ahab remains (heroically) defiant and is dragged down to hell.

Okay, roger that, Houston, so the question is: who is Leviathan (mentioned several times in Moby-Dick's Etymology section)? By Melville's time, he/it would have been identified with the devil. But in strict monotheism, who must devil actually be (or who must be responsible for him on any case)? How many options are there? That was Blake's point--Heaven and hell are just opposite sides of the same thing, and the same God who made the Lamb made the Tyger.

In Melville's version (if I am right about this), God not only sends Leviathan to swallow Jonah and (symbolically) Ahab, God IS Leviathan or rather Leviathan is an aspect of God--the Tyger as opposed to the Lamb). For all its terrors, Leviathan's purpose was to bring Jonah's choice into alignment with God's will for his salvation (though Jonah's actual will was what it was--there was nothing to be done about it).

This, I am beginning to suspect, is the reason for the terrifying whiteness of the whale. Ahab was not the devil, he was just an egomaniacal sinner. But Moby-Dick was the same Leviathan who swallowed Jonah and (perhaps) for Melville an aspect of God Almighty. And since, for Trinitarians, the Father and Son are persons of the same godhead, Ahab's final piercing of Moby-Dick's side may resonate with the Crucifixion after all.

What do you think? I'm not completely convinced. It's certainly not my theology, but it may have been Melville's. Will this be the harpoon that finally makes it through? I don't know.

[JCamilo]

Well, the Queequeg story has some some comic elements, in any case ("We cannibals must help these Christians" is another hilarious line). I would call the story of their first night together farce, it's just that Queequeg is not the butt of the farce--mainstream 1851 American values are. There's a great passage from the chapter in which Ismael and Queequeg cross from New Bedford to Nantucket; some of their fellow passengers are staring at them because of their apparent closeness:

"So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so companionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro."

That is an observation that would have offended virtually every white, heterosexual American at the time (including most of the abolitionists). Melville was such such an independent voice. No wonder his book didn't sell.

Yeah, how much a french decadent poet Melville is. Yet, when we read his talks with Hawthorne about the book, it does not seem he was such rebel. He is sure he was doing something special, but perhaps not shocking. Sometimes I think, what is exotic or unique for us on Melville, was not so much at the time. Or it was so veiled, that even the white heterosexual male helped to veil it. A whome Navy conspiracy to help to cover their flamboyat gayness!



That's true, but as far as the story goes, Ishmael clearly falls in love with Queequeg. And that is really weird for a mid-19th century American novel. There's no real accounting for it. It's just, you know, Melville. He does his own thing, God bless him.

While I am not sure it is true, we could make a case this "love" (which was returned) was what saved them both from Mody Dick. Therefore, Ishmael survival wouldnt be so random. But I think we are reading like XXI century readers about this.



But Boomer does encounter Moby-Dick after losing his arm, twice in fact, and both times he gives him a wide berth. So he is not just doing his job; as he explains to Melville his will was to kill him--he wanted glory and the riches all the spermaceti would bring home. But he chose not to pursue his will, and this contrasts to Melville who gave himself up to his. Boomer is not heroic since he is retreating (if not actually running away); but he is not sinful, either, since he he accepts the loss of his arm as fate or God's will. But Ahab is the (heroic) sinner who puts his own will--by choosing to pursue it--over God's. And this is analogous to Jonah's placing his own will to leave Nineveh over God's will that he remain there as a prophet (which was discussed in Father Mapple's sermon). Both sins bring forth the beast from the sea.

I should have been more ambitious with my narrative. Boomer would be in his last travel. Perhaps one day to reach land and retire. Old. Tired. Happy for his survival. And Moby would be shown on his path. Also old. More gray than white. Perhaps he would see Ahab harpoon on her back, or not see. Moby is sluggsh, slow. Her eyes could be blurred. It is an old whale, perhaps even suffering. Some young harpooner would be eager to catch her. Some will remember her. This kind of meeting.


Now, I've said that before, and I don't want to beat a dead horse; I understand your position, and I think you understand mine. But since we have been talking and I have been rereading parts of Moby-Dick, I have had some new ideas (I can hear prendrelemick groaning now :) ), and I wanted to get your (plural) thoughts on them.

I wonder if the paradox of Moby-Dick (a monster whose distinguishing trait is its ineffable purity) is Melville exploring the idea that Blake described as "the marriage of heaven and hell" (not that he necessarily got the idea from Blake). Jonah and Ahab put their will before God's; both are driven over the sea where they encounter Leviathan. Jonah is swallowed; Ahab was symbolically swallowed when he lost his leg. Jonah repents and aligns his choices to God's will. Ahab remains (heroically) defiant and is dragged down to hell.

Okay, roger that, Houston, so the question is: who is Leviathan (mentioned several times in Moby-Dick's Etymology section)? By Melville's time, he/it would have been identified with the devil. But in strict monotheism, who must devil actually be? How many options are there? That was Blake's point--Heaven and hell are just opposite sides of the same thing, and the same God who made the Lamb made the Tyger.

In Melville's version (if I am right about this), God not only sends Leviathan to swallow Jonah and (symbolically) Ahab, God IS Leviathan or rather Leviathan is an aspect of God--the Tyger as opposed to the Lamb). For all its terrors, Leviathan's purpose was to bring Jonah's choice into alignment with God's will for his salvation (though Jonah's actual will was what it was--there was nothing to be done about it).

This, I am beginning to suspect, is the reason for the terrifying whiteness of the whale. Ahab was not the devil, he was just an egomaniacal sinner. But Moby-Dick was the same Leviathan who swallowed Jonah and (perhaps) for Melville an aspect of God Almighty. And since, for Trinitarians, the Father and Son are persons of the same godhead, Ahab's final piercing of Moby-Dick's side may resonate with the Crucifixion after all.

What do you think? I'm not completely convinced. It's certainly not my theology, but it may have been Melville's. Will this be the harpoon that finally makes it through? I don't know.

There is a temptation (i just did it saying Ahab is more friendly to Yaveh) to see the divine/profane together, the old testament god in action here. He is more primeval, he is more complex. It is not difficulty to find the gnostic approach or Blake. Melville is also playing with a building mythology. But there is something different between Blake and Melville. Blake talks with angels. He knows. Melville does not. He doubts. Melville cannot give us a full answer, because he is not the harpoon. He is something facing the inexplicable, so waves more possibilities than certains.

I do think Leviathan is part of Moby Dick, but it is not about fiding who is Leviathan, who is god, who is Ahab, a symetry like Blake would do. Moby is part of the profane and the divine, I have no doubt. Melville is quite good to make evil happens for good cause also, he certainly find in every human this same duality. But I think Melville is always expanding the symbolism, building multiple interpretations. He was found of natural sciences (his efforts to ressonate with evolutionary theory at some point are notable), so, we must remember that a symbol does not cease to be the object its represents even when it is something new. (I recall Dante four level of meanings, Literary, Allegorical, Moral and anagogical, all present in Melville, and according to Dante one level can only be true if the other level is also true, so this make Moby Dick just a novel about whaling - hence the whale can be just a whale when needed - and a Novel about everything else).

Also, I feel Melville is very concious about his literary precussors. He never just repeat them, I would suggest, Ishmael is a Johan as good as other (he is the one telling the tale, after all. Prophets are tell-talers). We know Ishmael is not a reliable narrator (and couldnt be the narrator in every chapter), so what Ishmael is. I think he is a point of view. If Melville could talk with Angels, Ahab would give the point of view, Melville needs to use the point of view from his mates (they also go down with ahab and the whale, so it is not exactly a trinity). They are not just the typical victims of God's wrath in the biblical stories, like the Sodom and Gomorra, the flood victims, etc that go down because a king do something to unplease God and Ishmael cannt explain all either.. They are part of the process, active (shakespearean) characters. I do not think Ahab is the devil, Pequod is hell, etc. (When i said about Melville and Lucifer characters, I meant part of their language, not exactly function).

[prendrelemick]

This was Starbuck's position: it is wrong to treat Moby-Dick as something other than a dumb animal. I don't think it was the author's. Ishmael is not an unreliable narrator, and as you observe, this was not his position either. Any "pathetic fallacy" must be laid at Melville's door, but since he was writing fiction, I'll give him a pass. (The whale that destroyed the Essex was just a whale, but Moby-Dick was anything Melville intended him to be). JC mentioned that Melville was fond of complicated/difficult symbolism and allegory in his other works. How likely is it that he would have abandoned this approach for Moby-Dick?

I sometimes hear readers who become exasperated with Melville's complexities ask why Moby-Dick can't be about a whale hunt. The answer, of course, is that it can be and it is. Symbolism allows meaning on more than one level, and those who want a whale hunt get it. But with Moby-Dick and other novels that use a lot of symbolism, I often hear that sort of comment thrown out as a veiled criticism of those who pursue symbolic meanings. Some feel intimidated by literary complexities, some feel analysis detracts from a story they love, and others have minds that just don't work that way. I'm not saying you are doing this, prendrelemick, just that (given Melville's literary predilections), I'd be careful how much of Moby-Dick we ascribe to "human conceit."

I love all those complexities and allegories and symbolism and they are definitely there in buckets throughout the book. Like the crew of the Pequod we believe in Moby Dick's supernatural myth - because we know him through Ahab. As I say, rereading the final encounters I was surprised by how like a whale he is. I think Melville intended that in the end.


I will take issue with you here, though, not only because I don't think this was Melville's point, but also because it feeds into a modern environmentalist reading that is fundamentally eisegetical (that is, brought to the text rather than derived from it). If Melville had been a transcendentalist like Emerson, the idea of human insignificance before nature would be more convincing. But Melville's ideas Often opposed Emerson's, and not least in his views on nature. As far as getting "a deadly dose of the real world" goes, remarks like the following make it clear that Melville (like most 19th century Americans) did not consider physicality to represent true being:

"...no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part."

"Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me."

In sum, your idea of "the real world" has been filtered through a 20th/21st century materialist outlook. It may or may not be ontologically valid, but it is not what Melville was talking about in 1851. The past is a foreign country (as has often been observed), they do things differently there.

I accept there may be a bit of that modern outlook going on with me, but a whale is all clayey parts,(not having a soul) and his violence trumps everything that has gone before.

[Pompey Bum]

Yeah, how much a french decadent poet Melville is. Yet, when we read his talks with Hawthorne about the book, it does not seem he was such rebel. He is sure he was doing something special, but perhaps not shocking. Sometimes I think, what is exotic or unique for us on Melville, was not so much at the time.

Well, you don't have to be decadent to have an independent voice--or even French. Melville got it right without Europe. In 1851, black families lived in chains across the south and were treated with hostility across the north. And homosexuality could get you killed. So give Melville some credit for courage or show me another antebellum American author who presents an interracial gay couple in a positive, even heroic light.


I should have been more ambitious with my narrative. Boomer would be in his last travel. Perhaps one day to reach land and retire. Old. Tired. Happy for his survival. And Moby would be shown on his path. Also old. More gray than white. Perhaps he would see Ahab harpoon on her back, or not see. Moby is sluggsh, slow. Her eyes could be blurred. It is an old whale, perhaps even suffering. Some young harpooner would be eager to catch her. Some will remember her. This kind of meeting.

Sounds postmodern. But you're not subverting the patriarchy nearly enough. I thought that was mandatory for rebels. :)


But there is something different between Blake and Melville. Blake talks with angels. He knows. Melville does not. He doubts.

Correct and well put. But I don't think he was getting it from Blake.


They are not just the typical victims of God's wrath in the biblical stories, like the Sodom and Gomorra, the flood victims, etc that go down because a king do something to unplease God and Ishmael cannt explain all either.

Yes, I don't understand it, either. They were all part of the whale hunt--why should Ishmael survive? Perhaps Melville wanted a first person perspective, but he also wanted the ship to sink, so he had to save someone. On the other hand, I think there may be something going on with Queequeg's coffin. I have to think about it some more.

[JCamilo]

Well, you don't have to be decadent to have an independent voice--or even French. Melville got it right without Europe. In 1851, black families lived in chains across the south and were treated with hostility across the north. And homosexuality could get you killed. So give Melville some credit for courage or show me another antebellum American author who presents an interracial gay couple in a positive, even heroic light.

I am joking, but I do not remember among the attacks (some personal) he received in XIX century to deal with the homossexual theme. He was a drunkward, coward, madman, etc. Melville wasnt openly out of closet and even the novels before Moby Dick have this kind of homossexual undertone. I think however (as most things about melville) the critics started to find this kind of reading after Billy Budd discovery and in the XX century. So, we may be saying something obvious but in the XIX i was not as we read today.


Correct and well put. But I don't think he was getting it from Blake.

No, Blake link, as far I know, was given by yoou only. Except some simialr source and attiude...




Yes, I don't understand it, either. They were all part of the whale hunt--why should Ishmael survive? Perhaps Melville wanted a first person perspective, but he also wanted the ship to sink, so he had to save someone. On the other hand, I think there may be something going on with Queequeg's coffin. I have to think about it some more.

If Ishmael is only a point of view, he must survive. But Queequegg relationship may have saved Ishmael?

About white, since the white whale was a theme given to Melville, I believe the white is used as something fantastic, not a symbol of purity.

[prendrelemick]

Now, I've said that before, and I don't want to beat a dead horse; I understand your position, and I think you understand mine. But since we have been talking and I have been rereading parts of Moby-Dick, I have had some new ideas (I can hear prendrelemick groaning now :) ), and I wanted to get your (plural) thoughts on them.

I wonder if the paradox of Moby-Dick (a monster whose distinguishing trait is its ineffable purity) is Melville exploring the idea that Blake described as "the marriage of heaven and hell" (not that he necessarily got the idea from Blake). Jonah and Ahab put their will before God's; both are driven over the sea where they encounter Leviathan. Jonah is swallowed; Ahab was symbolically swallowed when he lost his leg. Jonah repents and aligns his choices to God's will. Ahab remains (heroically) defiant and is dragged down to hell.

Okay, roger that, Houston, so the question is: who is Leviathan (mentioned several times in Moby-Dick's Etymology section)? By Melville's time, he/it would have been identified with the devil. But in strict monotheism, who must devil actually be (or who must be responsible for him on any case)? How many options are there? That was Blake's point--Heaven and hell are just opposite sides of the same thing, and the same God who made the Lamb made the Tyger.

In Melville's version (if I am right about this), God not only sends Leviathan to swallow Jonah and (symbolically) Ahab, God IS Leviathan or rather Leviathan is an aspect of God--the Tyger as opposed to the Lamb). For all its terrors, Leviathan's purpose was to bring Jonah's choice into alignment with God's will for his salvation (though Jonah's actual will was what it was--there was nothing to be done about it).

This, I am beginning to suspect, is the reason for the terrifying whiteness of the whale. Ahab was not the devil, he was just an egomaniacal sinner. But Moby-Dick was the same Leviathan who swallowed Jonah and (perhaps) for Melville an aspect of God Almighty. And since, for Trinitarians, the Father and Son are persons of the same godhead, Ahab's final piercing of Moby-Dick's side may resonate with the Crucifixion after all.

What do you think? I'm not completely convinced. It's certainly not my theology, but it may have been Melville's. Will this be the harpoon that finally makes it through? I don't know.

Sometimes Leviathan is just a whale

At least in this book. Melville seems to use whale/leviathan as interchangeble terms. Interestingly one time he should've used Leviathan, he uses whale (chapter 41)-

"Here then was this grey-bearded, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job's whale round the world..."

Then of course you look up Job and find God boasting that only he can handle and defeat Leviathan.

“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
or tie down its tongue with a rope?
2
Can you put a cord through its nose
or pierce its jaw with a hook?"

followed by a description that is very un whale-like. But it seems clear that Leviathan is God's buisness and should be left to God.

So then you look up Leviathan and find that at the end of days, God intends to kill the Leviathan and feed its flesh to the righteous.

You may've given up your harpoons in favour of a net, and spread it pretty wide there Pompey. I prefer the Miltonian explanation because I see hints in the text. But I shall have to think a bit more.

[Pompey Bum]

No, Blake link, as far I know, was given by yoou only. Except some simialr source and attiude...

No, I didn't mean he was getting it from Blake, just that they seem to be working with a similar idea.


If Ishmael is only a point of view, he must survive. But Queequegg relationship may have saved Ishmael?

Well, I think of the image. There's Ishmael left alive amidst the debris of the wreck. Why? To me he is like a Christian amidst the wreckage of the Church, although many interpretations are possible. I don't know why he alone has been spared; it seems arbitrary. But Melville says that jaws of the passing sharks have been "padlocked"," which sounds miraculous (like the angel closing the lion's mouth in the story of Daniel). So why Ishmael? Or is God's Grace simply inscrutable?

The coffin he clings to is an ambiguous symbol. At first it seems straightforward enough. Here is humankind cast adrift in a vast, unknowable cosmos, with only our mortality to cling to. This is the human condition. Action, heroic or otherwise, can achieve no more than this. And perhaps the image means no more than that.

But it is Queequeg's coffin, so maybe there is something else. Maybe mortality is not the only thing human beings are left with; maybe there is also the potential to love one another, even the memory or idea of one another. Maybe that is why Queequeg's coffin bears Ishmael up. Melville certainly emphasizes their love for one another from the novel's first chapters. What I am still working out is whether there is some special meaning to the coffin itself (which gets its own chapter after all).


About white, since the white whale was a theme given to Melville, I believe the white is used as something fantastic, not a symbol of purity.

I'm not sure what you mean about the white whale theme being given to Melville. Are you saying that because the Essex was destroyed by a white whale, Melville would not have been able to use a "white leviathan (inspired by the Essex whale) to represent the marriage of Heaven and hell? And if so, why not? As far as the idea of purity goes, Protestant churches in the Northeast during Melville's time were enormous structures painted ghostly white; many are still here--I grew up worshipping in them. During the winter, the ground and trees turn the same color white--but now blinding from the sun's glare. You go to church through white passageways cut in the deep snow. I don't think Melville's readers (however few they may have been) would have had any trouble recognizing "mystical and well nigh ineffable" whiteness of the whale. What is innovative and unsettling is that the Puritan white appears on a sea monster.

[Pompey Bum]

Sometimes Leviathan is just a whale

At least in this book. Melville seems to use whale/leviathan as interchangeble terms. Interestingly one time he should've used Leviathan, he uses whale (chapter 41)-

"Here then was this grey-bearded, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job's whale round the world..."

Then of course you look up Job and find God boasting that only he can handle and defeat Leviathan.

“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
or tie down its tongue with a rope?
2
Can you put a cord through its nose
or pierce its jaw with a hook?"

followed by a description that is very un whale-like. But it seems clear that Leviathan is God's buisness and should be left to God.

So then you look up Leviathan and find that at the end of days, God intends to kill the Leviathan and feed its flesh to the righteous.

You may've given up your harpoons in favour of a net, and spread it pretty wide there Pompey. I prefer the Miltonian explanation because I see hints in the text. But I shall have to think a bit more.

Look, it's just more complicated than that, prendrelemick. The Hebrew Scriptures were influenced by the Babylonian myth of combat between Marduk, the king of the gods and a primal sea monster, preserved in the cuneiform text usually called the Enuma Elish. References to some version of this cosmic heavy appear in Psalms, Prophecy and elsewhere (including Job) under a variety of names: Leviathan, Rehab, the crooked serpent, the serpent that is in the sea, and others. Some of the references are quoted by Melville in the introductory section of Moby-Dick called Etymology. Etymology refers to "a chronological account of the birth and development of a particular word or element of a word, often delineating it's spread from one language to another and its evolving changes in form and meaning." So it is reasonable to suppose that Melville alluded to at least some aspects of the Hebrew version of this myth in his vision of Moby-Dick.

As far as nets and harpoons go, as I said above my conversation with JC and rereading parts of Moby-Dick has given me new ideas I am tentatively pursuing. I hope that's not a bad thing.

[JCamilo]

Well, I think of the image. There's Ishmael left alive amidst the debris of the wreck. Why? To me he is like a Christian amidst the wreckage of the Church, although many interpretations are possible. I don't know why he alone has been spared; it seems arbitrary. But Melville says that jaws of the passing sharks have been "padlocked"," which sounds miraculous (like the angel closing the lion's mouth in the story of Daniel). So why Ishmael? Or is God's Grace simply inscrutable?

The coffin he clings to is an ambiguous symbol. At first it seems straightforward enough. Here is humankind cast adrift in a vast, unknowable cosmos, with only our mortality to cling to. This is the human condition. Action, heroic or otherwise, can achieve no more than this. And perhaps the image means no more than that.

But it is Queequeg's coffin, so maybe there is something else. Maybe mortality is not the only thing human beings are left with; maybe there is also the potential to love one another, even the memory or idea of one another. Maybe that is why Queequeg's coffin bears Ishmael up. Melville certainly emphasizes their love for one another from the novel's first chapters. What I am still working out is whether there is some special meaning to the coffin itself (which gets its own chapter after all).

I think it would be too weird using Ishmael and then relating him to Christ or Daniel. Relate to Ishmael, who is the son of Abraham, who had to deal with pagans, so maybe it is all about survival over paganism (but not against it) amid the profane act of Ahab or watever act we find God getting pissed at those times. How many times have God destroyed everything pissed in the OT and let alone a survivor? It may be a motif Melville followed. Queequeeg death is something unique too. Maybe we can relate Ishmael survival to Queequeeg death (Not that Melville could know, but Gilgamesh/Enkidu analogy - both also hunters that went in a profane quest) .


I'm not sure what you mean about the white whale theme being given to Melville. Are you saying that because the Essex was destroyed by a white whale, Melville would not have been able to use a "white leviathan (inspired by the Essex whale) to represent the marriage of Heaven and hell? And if so, why not? As far as the idea of purity goes, Protestant churches in the Northeast during Melville's time were enormous structures painted ghostly white; many are still here--I grew up worshipping in them. During the winter, the ground and trees turn the samme white--but blinding from the sun's glare. You go to church through white passageways cut in the deep snow. I don't think Melville's readers (however few they may have been) would have had any trouble recognizing "mystical and well nigh ineffable" whiteness of the whale. What is innovative and unsettling is that the Puritan white appears on a sea monster.

Yes, I mean that first he was impressed, atracted by the white whale (which was a just a whale). As purity, maybe this last line of yours suits me more : mystical and well nigh ineffable, as we kind agree in Moby dick we have together what is holy and profane, in Yaveh mode, OT. I think the White Whale is that: something fantastic, a great literary device that indicates something fantastic and impressive, unique. There is a motif for white being something not scary, but opressive or terrific, Blinding (Milton on whiteness in Aeropagitica , thinks about whiteness is sometimes a blank virtue, not always a pure one). Considering Melville humor, bleakness, complexity I do not see Moby as something pure or whole).

[Pompey Bum]

I think it would be too weird using Ishmael and then relating him to Christ or Daniel.

No, I wasn't saying that Ishmael was Christ (Moby-Dick is Christ/Leviathan, I suspect), just that his position in the wreck reminded me of a Christian fending for himself amidst the fragmentation of the Church. Similarly he has nothing to do with Daniel. But the description of sharks with padlocked jaws sounds miraculous, and that makes me wonder if Ishmael is being spared by God, and if so why? There doesn't seem to be any reason for him to have been the survivor.



Relate to Ishmael, who is the son of Abraham, who had to deal with pagans, so maybe it is all about survival over paganism (but not against it) amid the profane act of Ahab or watever act we find God getting pissed at those times.

I thought of this, too, but it doesn't really work. For one thing, the name Ishmael likely denoted no more than a wanderer or outcast. (The Biblical Ishmael and his mother Hagar were cast off by Abraham and had to wander the wilderness for a time). Yes, the Pequod is a pretty pagan ship. It's named for a group of American Indians, it is adorned in trophy whalebone and teeth and is referred to in this context as "a cannibal of a ship," and its captain is--well, Ahab.

On the other hand, Paganism doesn't come off very badly in Moby-Dick. Queequeg is an amiable, heroic pagan. Ishmael is in love with him and at one point participates in a pagan ritual with him. Ishmael is more sympathetic to other religious perspectives (including Paganism) than a pious Quaker like Starbuck would be. So even if God did strike the Pequod for its Paganism, there is still no reason Ishmael should have been spared. He was as guilty as the next man and probably more so. So why him?


How many times have God destroyed everything pissed in the OT and let alone a survivor? It may be a motif Melville followed.

I can't think of a single time, can you? Noah survived the flood with his family; and Lot got out of Sodom and Gomorrah with his daughters (though minus his wife "Salty"). This was ascribed to Lot's righteousness, and there is at least one Biblical reference to Noah's righteousness (though it is not mentioned in the much earlier Mesopotamian version of the story). But okay, Melville would have been familiar with the general model. It's just that Ishmael doesn't fit the model. So why him?


Queequeeg death is something unique too. Maybe we can relate Ishmael survival to Queequeeg death (Not that Melville could know, but Gilgamesh/Enkidu analogy - both also hunters that went in a profane quest).

Yes, Queequeg is analogous to Enkidu--the wild man/other and comrade/lover; less so Ishmael to Gilgamesh (unless it's the wandering Gilgamesh after Enkidu's death). But their relationship is just the same, which is truly remarkable since the texts never had anything to do with each other. The Bull of Heaven (slain by Enkidu) is a divine monster loosed by the gods to humble them; so it is a bit like Leviathan and therefore a bit like Moby-Dick. But these things are coincidence.

For the rest, I don't know, ghosts are white, death rides a pale horse (both examples are used by Melville in Chapter 42), and those Puritan churches of my youth shone a blinding white in the snow. You might as well have been standing before the throne of God. Maybe appalling or awesome would be effective adjectives for the whiteness of the whale. I know that doesn't sound like the user-friendly modern Jesus who helps Mom, I mean Dad, strap the kids into the safety seats before daycare. But I don't think Melville 's grandma ever mentioned that one to him. Her Jesus was probably more like Leviathan. Or close enough that the Essex whale made Melville think about it.

[prendrelemick]

Look, it's just more complicated than that, prendrelemick. The Hebrew Scriptures were influenced by the Babylonian myth of combat between Marduk, the king of the gods and a primal sea monster, preserved in the cuneiform text usually called the Enuma Elish. References to some version of this cosmic heavy appear in Psalms, Prophecy and elsewhere (including Job) under a variety of names: Leviathan, Rehab, the crooked serpent, the serpent that is in the sea, and others. Some of the references are quoted by Melville in the introductory section of Moby-Dick called Etymology. Etymology refers to "a chronological account of the birth and development of a particular word or element of a word, often delineating it's spread from one language to another and its evolving changes in form and meaning." So it is reasonable to suppose that Melville alluded to at least some aspects of the Hebrew version of this myth in his vision of Moby-Dick.

As far as nets and harpoons go, as I said above my conversation with JC and rereading parts of Moby-Dick has given me new ideas I am tentatively pursuing. I hope that's not a bad thing.

Well yes, but I was trying to simplify and as Babylonian Cuneform wasn't translated until 1857, decided to stop at the bible. What I am trying to get at, is why does he use "leviathan" at all, unless he wants us to remember the references in the bible. It may be that leviathan was in common use for whale at that time. But it may be that he is purposely invoking the relationship between God and the beast as found in Job in particular.

[Pompey Bum]

It may be that leviathan was in common use for whale at that time. But it may be that he is purposely invoking the relationship between God and the beast as found in Job in particular.

The point is not whether Melville knew the Enuma Elish (he did not), but whether he was familiar with the combat myth as expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures. He was, and demonstrates it (for example) in the Etymology/Extracts section by citing Isaiah 27:1:

"In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword,
shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

Yes, the word leviathan can mean a whale (Moby-Dick IS a whale, for goodness sake); but by citing this and other references to the word's mythological baggage Melville is showing that something else is intended, too. As I said before, resonances on a symbolic level do not in any way detract from the story of a literal whale hunt. But Moby-Dick is rich in symbolic meaning as well, and it seems to me that there is nothing wrong with pursuing that.

[Offeror]

Just a little thought about this one which I read a few years ago. In my mind the main theme of the book was the obsession with an idea (in this case obviously the whale) and that the obsession leading to inevitable disaster. How exactly it was going to end was revealed in the end but I remember the writer hinting at the fatality of the journey all along the novel. Even if there were any reference to native Indians which never crossed my mind, I still don't see how the themes of obsession and destiny link up.

[Pompey Bum]

Just a little thought about this one which I read a few years ago. In my mind the main theme of the book was the obsession with an idea (in this case obviously the whale) and that the obsession leading to inevitable disaster. How exactly it was going to end was revealed in the end but I remember the writer hinting at the fatality of the journey all along the novel. Even if there were any reference to native Indians which never crossed my mind, I still don't see how the themes of obsession and destiny link up.

Hello again, Offeror. It is nice to have you join our conversation. Ahab is certainly obsessed, but it seems to me the real issue is choice. Ahab has lost a leg to Moby-Dick. A similar accident led another captain (Boomer) to decide that fate or God's will was against his killing the whale. He still wants to kill him for his own fame and riches, but he chooses not to do so. But Ahab, whom Melville closely contrasts with this other captain, chooses to defy fate or God's will and pursue Moby-Dick to the death. This choice places Ahab in the category of a Classical Greek or Shakespearean tragic hero, with his obsessiveness best understood as a fatal flaw (as indecisiveness was Hamlet's fatal flaw or jealously Othello's). But it is the choice that seals Ahab's fate.

My question, however, is: does Melville really believe this is how fate works? He seems to me to doubt it when he has Ishmael say:

"Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage...yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment."

And as you mention, there are hints of the fatalism from the start. When Ishmael and Queequeg reach Nantucket, the former reflects on what seem to be ill omens for the coming journey:

"Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses’ ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It’s ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel, and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?"

There is also Elijah, the prophetic madman who accosts Ishmael and Queequeg before the Pequod sets sail, telling them (among other things):

"Well, well, what’s signed, is signed; and what’s to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it won’t be, after all. Any how, it’s all fixed and arranged a’ready; and some sailors or other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity ’em!"

So Melville subverting his own notions of free will? Does he believe that will and fate can coexist? What exactly is Melville's theory of fate? These are things I am trying to understand now.

[JCamilo]

No, I wasn't saying that Ishmael was Christ (Moby-Dick is Christ/Leviathan, I suspect), just that his position in the wreck reminded me of a Christian fending for himself amidst the fragmentation of the Church. Similarly he has nothing to do with Daniel. But the description of sharks with padlocked jaws sounds miraculous, and that makes me wonder if Ishmael is being spared by God, and if so why? There doesn't seem to be any reason for him to have been the survivor.

I do not think there is any motive that is good (there is motives of all kinds anyways) to related Moby with Jesus. She is not a willing sacrifice (her sacrifice is not even relevant, clear), she is not a rethoric master, she is not a representative ideal of ethic man, as Jesus. Leviathan fine, i think it is clear one of her aspects. As Prendrelemick pointed, she either behaves as an animal or as an idea, never like a character. Again, I think Moby Dick ideas are more about OT, something more primitive than the nature of the Gospels. You have point some hints at that, the WIlliam Blake similarity for example or Gilgamesh similarity.

As he being the survival... Sometimes, the tell-tale survivor is just a tell-take survivor :D




I thought of this, too, but it doesn't really work. For one thing, the name Ishmael likely denoted no more than a wanderer or outcast. (The Biblical Ishmael and his mother Hagar were cast off by Abraham and had to wander the wilderness for a time). Yes, the Pequod is a pretty pagan ship. It's named for a group of American Indians, it is adorned in trophy whalebone and teeth and is referred to in this context as "a cannibal of a ship," and its captain is--well, Ahab.

You are obviously forgeting Ishmael is a sailor. They are not part of society and they are wanderers. But would be disapointing to see Melville using something so dull, right? :D


On the other hand, Paganism doesn't come off very badly in Moby-Dick. Queequeg is an amiable, heroic pagan. Ishmael is in love with him and at one point participates in a pagan ritual with him. Ishmael is more sympathetic to other religious perspectives (including Paganism) than a pious Quaker like Starbuck would be. So even if God did strike the Pequod for its Paganism, there is still no reason Ishmael should have been spared. He was as guilty as the next man and probably more so. So why him?

God struk the Pequod for heresy, not paganism, but frankly, I do not believe the point as about paganism. I think, if there is anything, is that there are two survivors of Pequod: Queequeeg and Ishmael. Sure, Queequeeg dies, but his death is something unusual. He almost accepted his death (how easy is to make it the Comedy, he accepted to stop, just like Virgil did). I am not sure if it is something we can explain, but if there is a motive beyond the literary device for Ishamel survival, it is because of his relationship with Queequeeg.

I recall Borges again. He once said that perhaps the main theme of literature is friendship. The theme of the Comedy is Virgil and Dante friendship. Perhaps the theme is Ishmael and Queequeeg friendship. That would be nice.




I can't think of a single time, can you? Noah survived the flood with his family; and Lot got out of Sodom and Gomorrah with his daughters (though minus his wife "Salty"). This was ascribed to Lot's righteousness, and there is at least one Biblical reference to Noah's righteousness (though it is not mentioned in the much earlier Mesopotamian version of the story). But okay, Melville would have been familiar with the general model. It's just that Ishmael doesn't fit the model. So why him?

Well, he does and does not. The role is similar. Survive, tell the tale.




Yes, Queequeg is analogous to Enkidu--the wild man/other and comrade/lover; less so Ishmael to Gilgamesh (unless it's the wandering Gilgamesh after Enkidu's death). But their relationship is just the same, which is truly remarkable since the texts never had anything to do with each other. The Bull of Heaven (slain by Enkidu) is a divine monster loosed by the gods to humble them; so it is a bit like Leviathan and therefore a bit like Moby-Dick. But these things are coincidence.


yes, Arquetypical. Would be funny if it was possible for Melville to actually know the Gilgamesh myth, so we coudl say Ahab is Gilgamesh before Enkidu's death, Ishmael after and whole story was about the futile quest for immortality.


For the rest, I don't know, ghosts are white, death rides a pale horse (both examples are used by Melville in Chapter 42), and those Puritan churches of my youth shone a blinding white in the snow. You might as well have been standing before the throne of God. Maybe appalling or awesome would be effective adjectives for the whiteness of the whale. I know that doesn't sound like the user-friendly modern Jesus who helps Mom, I mean Dad, strap the kids into the safety seats before daycare. But I don't think Melville 's grandma ever mentioned that one to him. Her Jesus was probably more like Leviathan. Or close enough that the Essex whale made Melville think about it.

No, I think Jesus was more like Jesus. Billy Budd seems closer to Jesus/Judas allegory. Granted it was later, but I do not think he would go as far as turning Jesus in a monster without control. He knew Emerson, Dante, etc. I think Jesus is present in Moby Dick by absence.

[Pompey Bum]

I do not think there is any motive that is good (there is motives of all kinds anyways) to related Moby with Jesus.

I guess the simple way to articulate my position (which as I said earlier is not my actual theology) is that Melville is exploring the idea that God's wrath and God's mercy are both realities of God (as, for example, Blake also did when he placed the Tyger in counterpoint to the Lamb). I suspect that, for Melville, Christ and Leviathan were opposite sides of the same coin, and both were aspects of God. And this idea, as I said before, that idea is manifested by the shocking image of Leviathan in Puritan white.

With that preface, then, please understand that I am not speaking of the human Jesus of the Gospels (to follow the Trinitarian principle that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, but the cosmic Christ--Christ Pantocrator, the Son of Man, Christ as a divine manifestation of God's wrath. So the willing sacrifice, the masterful teachings, and the ideal man are not relevant to Melville's analogy (as important as they are to Christian theology).


As he being the survival... Sometimes, the tell-tale survivor is just a tell-take survivor

Yeah, maybe. I still feel like we're missing something, though.



You are obviously forgeting Ishmael is a sailor. They are not part of society and they are wanderers. But would be disapointing to see Melville using something so dull, right?

No, that's exactly what I meant. But the name has nothing to do with conflict with Paganism (which is something you tentatively suggested).


God struk the Pequod for heresy, not paganism

So Ishmael is orthodox? He performs pagan rituals with his boyfriend! And how is Starbuck unorthodox? It still doesn't make sense.


Well, he does and does not. The role is similar. Survive, tell the tale.

That's not the Biblical motif you suggested Melville would have been familiar with. Neither Noah nor Lot tell the story of their survival. Moses was the (traditional) author of those stories. Melville certainly knew that tradition. The sole survivor may be a literary motif, but how is it a Biblical one?


Granted it was later, but I do not think he would go as far as turning Jesus in a monster without control.

But the point of the marriage of Heaven and hell ideology would be that, as in the Jonah story, Leviathan is only doing God's work. However terrifying, he is a ultimately force for redemption (so not a monster out of control).

[prendrelemick]

You are both making excellent points. I'm enjoying rereading bits of the book much more than I did in January.



But the point of the marriage of Heaven and hell ideology would be that, as in the Jonah story, Leviathan is only doing God's work. However terrifying, he is a ultimately force for redemption (so not a monster out of control).

But where is the redemption?

The Heaven and Hell and the absolute omnipotence of God are themes at the back of so many controversies and theological catch 22s. "If God's all powerful, why does he allow...? and what then of free will..? and so on.

Is claiming Heaven, Hell, God and the Devil (and why not the Pequod, the ocean, the land and the sky.) are different aspects of the same coin a kind of cop out? - like saying God is everything, we don't need to understand more than that or take any responibility. I think that Melville is exploring this question like many before him. But I'm not sure that's the model he builds his narrative around. I prefer the whale as an instrument, possibly The Son, probably just a whale, but not as the Devil. (It's not the devil who casts the damned into hell). Whereas I agree with the surrounding ineffable whiteness in the idea of the whale , I think his paranormal aura is quickly shed when he becomes manifest. He becomes all too effin effable as a sailor might say.

I was reading a few pages last night and came upon a very sexy, very pagan account of the day. (chapter132) We haven't discussed much the pagan themes of the story, but it is suprising how Christian and Pagan stories carry the same philosophical explorations. This chapter is I think one of the key ones. and is reminicent of all those Greek tragedies set in a pagan landescape, where the Hero is invited to turn aside one last time, he feels his doom approaching, but seems to choose his fate. (But of course he doesn't really - see paragraph above)

Back to Literature, I suppose it isn't a surprise that we can find so many parallels between Moby Dick and other classic works, from Gilgamesh to Harry Potter, because the themes of Tragedy and Hubris and people locked into their fate (as the Greeks had it )and also stories of Monsters, journeys, deeds and Deities, have been told for as long as people have sat down together.

Bt the way, isn't a narrator always omnipotent and immortal?

[Pompey Bum]

But where is the redemption?

For Jonah, the redemption comes when he repents in the belly of the beast and is vomited onto the shore (nobody said redemption was pretty :) ). The beast is instrumental to his redemption. There is no redemption for Ahab because there is no repentance. But what's the deal with Ishmael?


Is claiming Heaven, Hell, God and the Devil (and why not the Pequod, the ocean, the land and the sky.) are different aspects of the same coin a kind of cop out? - like saying God is everything, we don't need to understand more than that or take any responibility.

You can take that up with Blake. As I've said, it's not my theology. But I don't see Melville's ideas as pantheistic (which is what you're talking about) in any case. He is not a transcendentalist like Emerson and Thoreau (he even excoriates what he sees as dreamy pantheism at the end of Chapter 33). And as far as personal responsibility goes, isn't there a difference between what Jonah does and what Ahab does? Or between the way Ahab responds to his desire to kill Moby-Dick and the way Boomer does? The choice and responsibility are still ours. I don't see Melville's ideas interfering with that


I think that Melville is exploring this question like many before him. But I'm not sure that's model he builds his narrative around. I prefer the whale as an instrument, possibly The Son, probably just a whale, but not as the Devil. (It's not the devil who casts the damned into hell). Whereas I agree with the surrounding ineffable whiteness in the idea of the whale , I think his paranormal aura is quickly shed when he becomes manifest. He becomes all too effin effable as a sailor might say.

That sounds like an interesting approach, and I wish you luck with it. My hypothesis that Moby-Dick is Leviathan and Christ rolled into one (again, not my theology) is certainly a shocking one, but I suspect that was rather Melville's point. While considering these ideas, I remembered a 1980s movie called Time Bandits. In it, David Warner plays a supernatural being who is more or less the devil. At one point he is complaining about what an incompetent God is. One of his lackeys says, "But he made you, Evil One, so he can't be totally..."--at which Warner raises a hand and blasts him into oblivion. I suspect Melville was looking for a better solution to the same problem.


Bt the way, isn't a narrator always omnipotent and immortal?

No, narrators are not omnipotent. They cannot bring a dead lovers back or make a smashed up ship reassemble itself and carry them to safety. But if you mean omniscient, few if any first person narrators are (note Melville has to change persons for scenes in which Ishmael is not present). I suppose first person narrators are immortal as long as they keep talking, but they can always announce their impending doom and secure their manuscript in a drawer of bottle or something. None of that explains why Melville didn't either write in the third person in the first place and kill Ishmael with everyone else or at least give some reason for his salvation (even a hint).

I love the last scene, though. There is a novel called The Middle Passage (about the horrific Atlantic slave trade) that has a consciously similar scene. The narrator is left bobbing for his life in the debris of a wreck with sharks all around--a metaphor for the predicament of blacks in the New World. He decides that if that is what it means to be a black man, then it is exactly what and where he wants to be. My feeling about Melville's ending are similar. Whatever the terrors, I would rather be a free individual taking my chances amidst the sharks and waves than the slave of a madman on a ship bound for hell.

As far as Paganism goes, yes it is a major theme in Moby-Dick. But Melville treats it so differently in various places that I'm often not sure I understand what his point is. I'll check out the passage you mention and see what I think.

P.S. "Effin effable" was pretty funny. :)

[JCamilo]

I guess the simple way to articulate my position (which as I said earlier is not my actual theology) is that Melville is exploring the idea that God's wrath and God's mercy are both realities of God (as, for example, Blake also did when he placed the Tyger in counterpoint to the Lamb). I suspect that, for Melville, Christ and Leviathan were opposite sides of the same coin, and both were aspects of God. And this idea, as I said before, that idea is manifested by the shocking image of Leviathan in Puritan white.

With that preface, then, please understand that I am not speaking of the human Jesus of the Gospels (to follow the Trinitarian principle that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, but the cosmic Christ--Christ Pantocrator, the Son of Man, Christ as a divine manifestation of God's wrath. So the willing sacrifice, the masterful teachings, and the ideal man are not relevant to Melville's analogy (as important as they are to Christian theology).

But then, there is nothing about Jesus in the whale. We have other examples of God's mercy in OT (Albeit the rupture between the Gospels and OT is a historical complicated matter. We may argue there was any mercy before Jesus), I mean, even in Ishmael biblical history god banish him but sent an angel after him. In modern world, Islamic world may show Ishmael survives because he is the one linked to god :D (A side note, versions of Abraham sacrifice sometimes places Ishmael as the intented victim, so you could easily say his survival is the survival of the patriarch sacrifice, which is basically the convenant. Of course, such pro-islam bias is beyond Melville)

I do not get much white as purity, as a I said before, but I think it is more important is how Jesus is absent from Moby Dick. More or less, how progressively the pequod moves away from him. Jesus is in safe land and the Pequood is progressing back to the past where Jesus is not present yet. Maybe that is due to Melville bleakness, the romantic was first very optmistic, Melville generation is already a critic of all developments of XIX century half.




No, that's exactly what I meant. But the name has nothing to do with conflict with Paganism (which is something you tentatively suggested).

Not conflict, but simple evolution, abrahamic religions survived over the wrecks of paganism. Not that I really think Melville was giving that much importance to this.


So Ishmael is orthodox? He performs pagan rituals with his boyfriend! And how is Starbuck unorthodox? It still doesn't make sense.

Well, I meant exactly that Paganism (mostly I think, because Melville have a personal positive experience with pagans) is mostly benign in Moby Dick. It is challenging what was linked with God/Nature, which is the pursuit of Moby.




That's not the Biblical motif you suggested Melville would have been familiar with. Neither Noah nor Lot tell the story of their survival. Moses was the (traditional) author of those stories. Melville certainly knew that tradition. The sole survivor may be a literary motif, but how is it a Biblical one?

My suggestion is the "bear witness" that are in the bible, even if the authorship of those stories are not a first person narrative. (Honestly I do not think it was even something that development back then, first person narratives? I cannot recall any work such as this)




But the point of the marriage of Heaven and hell ideology would be that, as in the Jonah story, Leviathan is only doing God's work. However terrifying, he is a ultimately force for redemption (so not a monster out of control).

Yes, but Jesus and Leviathan are hardly the only beings doing God's work (The Pharoh with the harder heart, The angels, the Sinedrium leaders, most prophets) so we do not have to reduce this to Jesus/Leviathan only.

[JCamilo]

About Narrators, Melville is exactly developing the not reliable narrator, that would be better structured in first person by Dostoievisky, Nabokov, Henry James, etc. Ishmael is a mix between this omnipresent narrator (therefore, sometimes he tell us part of the stories he shouldnt because he was not witness of the events) and this psychological narrator. If you have the oportunity to read his other works, he will see how Melville uses the perspective of the narrator to "manipulated" the reader. Moby is a massive and ambitious work of literature, he is exploring the language, style and techniques all the time.

[Pompey Bum]

But then, there is nothing about Jesus in the whale.

Except insofar as the cosmic Christ/Son of Man can be said to have been in the Jesus who preached in Galilee (something I personally believe). I think the Christ-Leviathan that Melville envisions is more like the seven-eyed lamb who kills everyone at the end of the New Testament (talk about an ending I didn't see coming!), who is also identifiable with Jesus--and, come to think of it, is also pure white.


In modern world, Islamic world may show Ishmael survives because he is the one linked to god :D (A side note, versions of Abraham sacrifice sometimes places Ishmael as the intented victim, so you could easily say his survival is the survival of the patriarch sacrifice, which is basically the convenant. Of course, such pro-islam bias is beyond Melville)

Ishmael also has a miraculous deliverance while in the wilderness, but that tells me more about why Melville named him Ishmael than why he did not go down with the Pequod.


I do not get much white as purity, as a I said before, but I think it is more important is how Jesus is absent from Moby Dick. More or less, how progressively the pequod moves away from him. Jesus is in safe land and the Pequood is progressing back to the past where Jesus is not present yet. Maybe that is due to Melville bleakness, the romantic was first very optmistic, Melville generation is already a critic of all developments of XIX century half.

If this is so (I respect your view even if I do not entirely share it), then the Pequod is journeying from Christendom into Paganism and not just the religion of ancient Israel. Ahab himself is named for an Israelite King who adopted the Paganism of his wife, Jezebel. And the drinking ceremony in which the Christian mates are forced to offer grog to the pagan harpooners in cups made from inverted lance heads, and Ahab touches the conjunction of three harpoons (and at one point talks about putting his electrical energy into things), is meant to portray a pagan/Dionysian ritual. If that is the kind of journey you mean, I can see it.

The problem, of course, is that other kinds of Paganism (especially Queequeg's brand) is treated by with sympathy, common sense, and humor throughout the novel. This goes to something prendrelmick and I discussed briefly above: Paganism was a theme in Moby-Dick, but Melville's attitude towards it is baffling. It is as if he needs it to be bad for the narrative he wants to tell, but personally he thinks it's pretty cool. His ambiguity is probably worth trying to understand.


Well, I meant exactly that Paganism (mostly I think, because Melville have a personal positive experience with pagans) is mostly benign in Moby Dick. It is challenging what was linked with God/Nature, which is the pursuit of Moby.

Yup, that's the problem. Only it isn't "mostly benign," it's sometimes benign and sometimes malignant. So there's another mystery for us.


(Honestly I do not think it was even something that development back then, first person narratives? I cannot recall any work such as this)

Ecclesiastes (while admittedly not a narrative) is written in the first person. And there are smaller texts redacted into larger ones here and there. But I think we agree it would not have been a familiar Biblical motif for Melville.


Yes, but Jesus and Leviathan are hardly the only beings doing God's work (The Pharoh with the harder heart, The angels, the Sinedrium leaders, most prophets) so we do not have to reduce this to Jesus/Leviathan only.

Melville used the symbol of the white Leviathan to demonstrate that the principle that good and evil function in unison. I don't see how that's reductive. But even if one doesn't agree with him (and I sure don't), it doesn't mean that wasn't his point.

Here is how the theology actually works:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jmS_hMnFNVM

[prendrelemick]

Moby is a massive and ambitious work of literature, he is exploring the language, style and techniques all the time.


My favourite parts are the Shakespearian soliloquies, where characters speak out their thoughts and refer to themselves by their proper nouns. Also those spoken rhythmic poem/chants they voice as they are at some task or other. Those are things that lift the book out of the ordinary and, I think, lift the story out of the real world.

[Offeror]

Ahab is certainly obsessed, but it seems to me the real issue is choice

The underlying question most probably is about choice and I agree with all you've said however the tone of the novel (keeping aside the parts that sound encyclopaedic) as shown from couple of quotes you've shared is about the inevitable doom that was awaiting the Pequod. I don't know but I never felt that Ahab had a choice. He was portrayed like a madman with only one thing on his mind who couldn't do anything but get back at the whale. In the beginning Ahab sounded like a villain up to no good but I ended up being sympathetic with the old man who was only doing what had to be done for him to fulfill his destiny. Man wanted to subjugate Nature but this battle never favors him.

[Pompey Bum]

My favourite parts are the Shakespearian soliloquies, where characters speak out their thoughts and refer to themselves by their proper nouns. Also those spoken rhythmic poem/chants they voice as they are at some task or other. Those are things that lift the book out of the ordinary and, I think, lift the story out of the real world.

They also tie the narrative to Shakespearean tragedy and provide a kind of balance to the more Biblical elements. If it weren't for the special effects challenges, Moby-Dick would make a great play.

[Pompey Bum]

The underlying question most probably is about choice and I agree with all you've said however the tone of the novel (keeping aside the parts that sound encyclopaedic) as shown from couple of quotes you've shared is about the inevitable doom that was awaiting the Pequod. I don't know but I never felt that Ahab had a choice. He was portrayed like a madman with only one thing on his mind who couldn't do anything but get back at the whale. In the beginning Ahab sounded like a villain up to no good but I ended up being sympathetic with the old man who was only doing what had to be done for him to fulfill his destiny. Man wanted to subjugate Nature but this battle never favors him.

I agree that there are strong fatalistic shadings in this novel, but they accompany a recognizable tragic hero motif. It is as if Melville gives his reader a choice about how fate works. Perhaps he was only trying give his tragic narrative an eerie, otherworldly tone, or perhaps he was ambivalent bout the subject himself. Even Elijah (obviously named for the Biblical prophet persecuted by King Ahab) hedges a bit when he says, "what’s to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it won’t be, after all." On the other hand this sub-theme of fate is the only explanation I can find for Ishmael's survival at the end. The only inference to draw is that it just wasn't his time.

You make a good point about Ahab's madness, too. He is said to have been raving after the loss of his leg, and even afterward his madness is described as coiled up deceptively within him. Using modern standards, one might conclude that since he was mad he could not have made a true choice (as opposed to the sane Captain Boomer, who could). But in 1851, Ahab's obsessiveness would have been seen as a character flaw (and artistically a fatal flaw) rather than "mental illness." Boomer was also dismembered, but he did not succumb to obsessive vengeance. Instead he chose to accept fate/God's will while Ahab chose to defy it. For Melville that would have been a choice, even if a modern jury would need to debate it.

I am curious what you mean by: "Man wanted to subjugate Nature but this battle never favors him." I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think it was Melville's point in 1851. In fact, Melville's America took great pride in defying nature. It had recently redrawn longstanding trade routes and supercharged the wealth of eastern cities by digging the Erie Canal system system and navigating the Great Lakes; and it had harnessed the power of steam for ships to transport people and goods over North American Rivers and built train tracks far into the wilderness. These developments (and radical new communication provided by the telegraph) were allowing America's vast interior forest to be hacked down for new settlement, much to most European Americans' delight. At the same time (as Melville proudly marvels) provincial eastern places like Nantucket and New Bedford were sending out fleets of whaling ships to circumnavigate the globe; they would butcher the ancient beasts to near extinction in a generation. It is tempting to read 21st century environmentalist values into Moby-Dick, but the mid-19th century zeitgeist was quite the other thing. Melville's conflict in Moby-Dick was man vs. fate or (in my opinion) man vs. God. Man vs. nature, I think, is something modern environmentalists tend to bring to the text rather than derive from it. But perhaps I misunderstood what you meant.

[prendrelemick]

What we would excuse as madness and obsession, Melville sees as the sin of pride. That is what Ahab is punished for (and the Greeks called that Hubris.) But Ahab vs Nature is something I thought was going on before following this thread. Now I accept in terms of this book "Nature" is a kind of modern Deity. So Ahab vs whatever name we wish to give our higher power will do.

As to whether or not he had a choice, that is a question at the heart of the plot. The Greeks would say not, man's life is in the hands of The Fates from first to last. The Christian view has been argued over for Millenia - we feel we have free choice, but if God is everywhere and knows everything how can we have?

This is why we read good books and why they are worth reading.

Now ,I'm typing this before the thought is fully formed, but here goes - Take a Greek tragedy with all the traditional ingredients (Gods Fates Furies Fatal Flaws ect.) and rewrite it to encompass an 1850's point of view of Christian Theology and morality. (taking account of Dante, Milton, Bunyon et al.) Would you end up with something like Moby Dick ?

[JCamilo]

Nature is there, but Pompey is correct that we are giving a modern reading if we think it is literary Man vs.Nature and not Man vs.Creation. For once, we can see Melville, despite his attempts to sound modern and aligned with the Evolution Debate, is hardly someone who understood it, as he seems to imagine an infinite supply of whales for hunting. And another point is that literary wise, the relation of America to Nature is different. We have the Feenimore Cooper books, the civilized man is heroic to face nature and find the good stuff there.

I would say, Melville reacts to this myth and this is something quite important to the book theme: Melville seems to make a critic about the romantic view of non-europeans, in the sense, despite the claim that civilization is corrupt and the selvages are the pure/good, the relation still to colonize and christianize the selvages and not exactly respect the diversity (an awful modern word, but in this an in many other works melville seems to adress to the point that civilization is not making the world any better or that world was nto that bad in first place).


Except insofar as the cosmic Christ/Son of Man can be said to have been in the Jesus who preached in Galilee (something I personally believe). I think the Christ-Leviathan that Melville envisions is more like the seven-eyed lamb who kills everyone at the end of the New Testament (talk about an ending I didn't see coming!), who is also identifiable with Jesus--and, come to think of it, is also pure white.

I understand the theology and the idea you propose. My point it is that is not necessary. An allegory inside an allegory, seems to be too much for Melville, I mean, beyond the Baroque, specially considering Melville is good crafter. If you remove the christ part, you still have all the same meaning. Why adding Christ? Is there anything else that make it necessary?



Ishmael also has a miraculous deliverance while in the wilderness, but that tells me more about why Melville named him Ishmael than why he did not go down with the Pequod.

Maybe that was imposed because of that. While I am not sure if there is a special meaning on Ishmael being the one that survives.




If this is so (I respect your view even if I do not entirely share it), then the Pequod is journeying from Christendom into Paganism and not just the religion of ancient Israel. Ahab himself is named for an Israelite King who adopted the Paganism of his wife, Jezebel. And the drinking ceremony in which the Christian mates are forced to offer grog to the pagan harpooners in cups made from inverted lance heads, and Ahab touches the conjunction of three harpoons (and at one point talks about putting his electrical energy into things), is meant to portray a pagan/Dionysian ritual. If that is the kind of journey you mean, I can see it.

Let's just play with your idea of Leviathan/Jesus coin. It even fits, if the pequod is traveling away from Jesus, journeying to the past, they are basically flipping the coin and it is more elegant than having to merge Jesus and Leviathan in Moby Dick (the whale) and not in the whole journey. Now, of course we are just playing with the interpretations, because I am not sure if everything in Melville resumes to religious symbolism. I think he is a writer with social concerns (and his bleak vision is a critical vision that allow him a different perspective from his peers, which give him insights to social conflicts and problems that were overlooked by the most optimistic vision) and also with a great literary "awareness". His message conveys a concious work to be writting against (if I am souding too much like Bloom, I blame him from reading D.H.Lawrence, but this against is a bit like those oriental martial arts, where you use the strength of the oponent to prepare your attack) the themes and styles from american literature (and english, italian, jewish, etc.). You have pointed that the approach of americans towards nature was positive, it was not a modern "we cannot domain nature", Melville certainly subverts this tendency. Whitman was positive towards diversity and paganism already, Melville was critical to a society that claimed to be democratic but was not so keen on diversity, and he seemed to be rather negative about the social conflicts being naturally solved by good will and love like Whitman. Even being a huge admirer of Hawthorne, he was a bit critical of moralism.

Sometimes I think the religious part is more in how it was done, as one of the literary influences for Melville, than what it means. Because of that I feel the references of Moby Dick have a tendencies towards Old Testament and not the New. The lack of carthasis you noticed is almost the lack of closing that the Gospels give with Jesus. (Not saying the OT didnt had carthatic momments inside their narratives, but OT was a work in progress, if you understand me). That is why the similarity of Kafka and Melville, both seem to address to the OT topics and God. It is part of the style, the not conclusive style and even the persistense of mystery.


The problem, of course, is that other kinds of Paganism (especially Queequeg's brand) is treated by with sympathy, common sense, and humor throughout the novel. This goes to something prendrelmick and I discussed briefly above: Paganism was a theme in Moby-Dick, but Melville's attitude towards it is baffling. It is as if he needs it to be bad for the narrative he wants to tell, but personally he thinks it's pretty cool. His ambiguity is probably worth trying to understand.

Well, good or bad, those are the worst words to use. I think Melville shows a great deal of tolerance, a groundbreaking tolerance, towards pagans (and therefore to other non-christian cultures) because he truly felt this way. His experiences taught this, so it would be impossible for him to paint the non-christian as naturally evil. In fact, it was not hard to paint non-christians well at that time. Rousseau give people this right, but what is groundbreaking for Melville and perhaps what makes you feel baffling is that Melville work is not a work trying to do a moral judgment on non-christians and therefore, there is no objective to convert them to a more tolerable light, which was the usual way they were treated before. Modern post-colonial reading is missing a huge twist on Melville, probally because he does not santify the non-christian to attack the christians, he leave it be. So, I think, the most positive thing is not paganism is good, it is that Ishmael tolerance is good.

Perhaps that makes Ishmael a good man and that is why he survives, but not that sure if we need to find such motive.



Melville used the symbol of the white Leviathan to demonstrate that the principle that good and evil function in unison. I don't see how that's reductive. But even if one doesn't agree with him (and I sure don't), it doesn't mean that wasn't his point.

Here is how the theology actually works:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jmS_hMnFNVM

The link didnt open for me (I watched Time Bandits a long time ago), but I agree (not about the white) that Melville blends good and evil, that he almost plays with the gnostic idea of god, but my point, God as the source of good and evil is a Old Testament logic, Jesus is not there. If you just tell me Look the leviathan I will already understand this. I am sure, when you suggested the similarities with Blake is because you know that between christians and jews there is an essential philosophical difference about the nature of evil and God. I do not think Melville would blend in single symbol both things, albeit, as I suggested, he could suggest this in his narrative with different symbols.

[Pompey Bum]

What we would excuse as madness and obsession, Melville sees as the sin of pride. That is what Ahab is punished for (and the Greeks called that Hubris.)

I think you are correct, if you mean aligning choices to one's own will rather than God's (that's how I see the sin of pride in any case). In Moby-Dick, the idea may apply in both its Greek and Hebrew forms.


But Ahab vs Nature is something I thought was going on before following this thread. Now I accept in terms of this book "Nature" is a kind of modern Deity. So Ahab vs whatever name we wish to give our higher power will do.

I understand what you are saying, and if by modern you mean today's then of course anyone may bring their own notions of divinity to the text for any sort of elucidation. The scene from The Middle Passage I mentioned had nothing to do with Melville's intent, but the author managed to throw light on the black American experience by adopting Moby-Dick's ambiguous ending. A 21st-century author might very well want to write an environmentalist version of Moby-Dick. It would probably sell. Um, I mean resonate with a lot of people. :)

But if you mean that nature had become "a kind of modern Deity" by Melville's (comparatively modern) time, you are going to have problem. That is because the divinity of nature was actually a very ancient idea that came to be called Paganism (in distinction from the Abrahamic religions which worship the Creator to the exclusion of the created). As we have discussed, Melville's attitude towards Paganism seems rather schizophrenic at times. He uses it to foreshadow and doom the "cannibal" Pequod and the proud Ahab (named for the paganizing King who persecuted Elijah); but he finds Queequeg's sympathetic magic quaint and charming. Whatever his ultimate view, Ahab's sin of pride cannot be seen as failing to have aligned his choices to the will of a pagan "higher power." That is a book that will have to be written today.


This is why we read good books and why they are worth reading.

Asking these questions and looking for answers is exactly why I read literature. It's nice to know there are others. :)


Now ,I'm typing this before the thought is fully formed, but here goes - Take a Greek tragedy with all the traditional ingredients (Gods Fates Furies Fatal Flaws ect.) and rewrite it to encompass an 1850's point of view of Christian Theology and morality. (taking account of Dante, Milton, Bunyon et al.) Would you end up with something like Moby Dick ?

Perhaps. But they would not mix smoothly, and this may be why there are so many apparent contradictions in the novel.

[kev67]

Congratulations, Kev. And I beg your pardon. I (stupidly) did not even consider that you might not have known know how Moby-Dick ended. I'm glad to see that you stayed away from the site as you were finishing the novel, and I hope that I didn't spoil anything for you. I apologize if I did.



No doubt he'll use them as fishing lines. Squid love human flesh.

Thanks, I was not spoiled. I have not responded for a while because I was on holiday (cycling around Yorkshire) and could not work out how to post on this site with my smart phone.

I have read that Melville regarded Moby Dick as the hero of that book. I certainly did myself, and I suppose most readers rooted for him. That is a little odd since Melville used to be a whaler himself. Maybe he got sick of the enterprise. The same chapter in which he recounts the young whales coming up to be scratched, and then those horrible two ended cutting spades being stuck into other whales so that they thrashed around injuring each other might suggest so. I have read that the story may be an allegory for slavery. I suppose so in that it was a callously carried out enterprise on victims not considered fully human by people who had a profitable motive for not doing so. The end of the story does not really fit that analogy, but the book does not have to be an exact analogy. Anyway, maybe it was just a book about whaling.

Regarding Ahab’s views on Moby Dick. He obviously considers him exceptional. His behaviour has made him regard him as a thinking animal. Moby Dick’s malignity towards whalers is understandable if he is more than a brute creature that Starbuck thinks whales are. But if Moby Dick is exceptional just for being very aggressive or cunning, then he is still a whale. Only if he a demon can whales not be considered more than brute creatures. All that black magic hocus pocus with harpoons forged in blood make me think that Ahab thinks he is up against a supernatural being, but that is a more comforting thought than what he would other have spent his working life doing.

[prendrelemick]

I have a Mole in the medows that is exceptional, I cannot catch it, it has been avoiding my traps for a year - well not avoiding them but filling them with soil and uprooting them. I am becoming like Ahab - obsessed - but also like Melville in that I have a deep regard for it's supernatural cleverness. How will it end? I'm secretly hoping I never get it. But I have to keep trying as a matter of pride.

Thus life follows art.

[Pompey Bum]

Thanks, I was not spoiled. I have not responded for a while because I was on holiday (cycling around Yorkshire) and could not work out how to post on this site with my smart phone.

Welcome back, Kev. Glad I didn't spoil the ending for you. And I assumed your silence just meant you were deep into your next read. (After Yorkshire you may like Nicholas Nickleby). Anyway, thanks for inspiring my third reading of Moby-Dick. I notice new things everytime I read it.

[Pompey Bum]

I have a Mole in the medows that is exceptional, I cannot catch it, it has been avoiding my traps for a year - well not avoiding them but filling them with soil and uprooting them. I am becoming like Ahab - obsessed - but also like Melville in that I have a deep regard for it's supernatural cleverness. How will it end? I'm secretly hoping I never get it. But I have to keep trying as a matter of pride.

Thus life follows art.

Write the book, prendrelemick! Moleby-Dick, man vs. nature at last! :)

[prendrelemick]

Welcome back, Kev. Glad I didn't spoil the ending for you. And I assumed your silence just meant you were deep into your next read. (After Yorkshire you may like Nicholas Nickleby). Anyway, thanks for inspiring my third reading of Moby-Dick. I notice new things everytime I read it.

Let me second that. I'm rereading too even though I read it in January (Ok I'm missing out the whale facts sections this time). You should've called in for a cuppa while you were up here Kev!

[Pompey Bum]

I would say, Melville reacts to this myth and this is something quite important to the book theme: Melville seems to make a critic about the romantic view of non-europeans, in the sense, despite the claim that civilization is corrupt and the selvages are the pure/good, the relation still to colonize and christianize the selvages and not exactly respect the diversity (an awful modern word, but in this an in many other works melville seems to adress to the point that civilization is not making the world any better or that world was nto that bad in first place).

Yes, diversity is an awful modern word, but what Melville embraces approximates that idea. Obviously his version would not have been the same as Hillary Clinton's. Understanding Moby-Dick requires understanding Melville's thoughts. I know what you mean, though, and yes, Melville's diversity is a startling aspect of the novel.


I think Melville shows a great deal of tolerance, a groundbreaking tolerance, towards pagans (and therefore to other non-christian cultures) because he truly felt this way. His experiences taught this, so it would be impossible for him to paint the non-christian as naturally evil.

I agree that Melville tolerance was informed by personal experience. My impression is that he (like Ishmael) had seen enough of the world and its inhabitants to know the dread secret that we all bleed the same color. Melville seems amused that common sailors (and worse, whalers) should understand something their social "superiors" were ignorant about; but the comradeship of humankind was something he took seriously. Tolerance is an important theme in Moby-Dick (though only one of several).

I would add that Melville's religious tolerance is limited to his own times. The no-longer-existing paganisms of Jezebel and of Nero are still anathema. But that didn't affect his view of aboriginal animists in 1851. While I agree this was groundbreaking tolerance, I don't know how far he extended it. I am not aware of Melville's attitude towards Catholics, Jews, and Muslims, are you?

On reflection, I have decided that Melville's attitude towards pagans is confusing because he was really taking about three separate things: 1) ancient Paganism, which he saw as a morally corrosive influence; 2) aboriginal animism (like Queequeg's), to which he was sympathetic and tolerant; and the (essentially hypocritical) literary ideal of the noble savage, with you say he critiqued and I say he critiqued by lampooning. If these distinctions are kept clear, the many of the apparent contradictions vanish.

A word about the lampoon: I mentioned that the Spouter Inn bedroom scenes were a kind of farce. I think that Chapter 17 (The Ramadan) may continue the joke. It is a strange chapter in any case. Ishmael is usually not too subjective a narrator, but here his comments (if I am reading them as intended) hold an irony that probably lampoons the condescending sort of tolerance of others that you mention:

"I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical."

"I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects."

"[I] could “could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool;"

If Melville is not being ironic, then he may be guilty of the very thing you say he was critiquing. But I think it's satire. Ishmael is made more foolish when, becoming alarmed that Queequeg does not answer their door, he smashes it in (much to his landlady' objections) only to find him sitting quietly in a state of religious devotion. Queequeg looks pretty silly, too, holding his idol on his head, but I think that's just another part of the overall joke.


I understand the theology and the idea you propose. My point it is that is not necessary. An allegory inside an allegory, seems to be too much for Melville, I mean, beyond the Baroque, specially considering Melville is good crafter. If you remove the christ part, you still have all the same meaning. Why adding Christ? Is there anything else that make it necessary?

What makes it necessary is the instrumentality of the whale in Jonah's redemption. The beast is not there to punish Jonah without hope of redemption but in fact to an be agent of his salvation. Moby-Dick (the whale, not the book) is not an allegory within an allegory but a dual symbol: Jonah's sea beast in holy white. That is elegant even for Melville, who as you know was stylistically baroque.


Sometimes I think the religious part is more in how it was done, as one of the literary influences for Melville, than what it means.

I disagree. Three chapters are laid aside for the Father Mapple episode, where the whole thing could easily have been handled in a paragraph. Each chapter foreshadows something essential to Melville's narrative. Chapter 7 (The Chapel), as Melville later admits, evokes the coming doom of the voyage, Chapter 8 (The Pulpit) presents a model of leadership in accordance with the will of God to which the narratives of Captains Ahab and Boomer stand in comparison. And Chapter 9 (The Sermon) presents the theology discussed above that Melville expresses in the central symbol of the white whale. Tolerance is an important theme in Moby-Dick, but so is Melville's religious vision. In no way was it contextual or a matter of mere literary influence.

I will say this, though. The idea that Christ could be presented as unified in some way with Leviathan, a figure that came to be considered demonic in normative Christianity, is understandably offensive to many Christians. It is also a deeply radical position. A very great many 19th century Christians would have seen tolerance toward aboriginal animists without thought of conversion as unacceptably radical and the idea of sleeping with one as just as offensive. My point is simply that Melville was capable of bucking the system that hard. You and I may have to agree to disagree about whether he is doing this in terms of religion in Moby-Dick, but it's not a particularly far-fetched hypothesis. I was not convinced when I began, but all I have found in my third reading of this novel has inclined me to think this was exactly what Melville was doing. He is not throwing flowers at a Blakean marriage of Heaven and hell, he is just trying to see if life and fate functions as an integral phenomenon. Avast, he is asking, Hast seen the white whale?

[JCamilo]

Yes, diversity is an awful modern word, but what Melville embraces approximates that idea. Obviously his version would not have been the same as Hillary Clinton's. Understanding Moby-Dick requires understanding Melville's thoughts. I know what you mean, though, and yes, Melville's diversity is a startling aspect of the novel.

Yes, in many aspects he is the only american that did what Whitman did. The true american novelist all the way.


I agree that Melville tolerance was informed by personal experience. My impression is that he (like Ishmael) had seen enough of the world and its inhabitants to know the dread secret that we all bleed the same color. Melville seems amused that common sailors (and worse, whalers) should understand something their social "superiors" were ignorant about; but the comradeship of humankind was something he took seriously. Tolerance is an important theme in Moby-Dick (though only one of several).

I would add that Melville's religious tolerance is limited to his own times. The no-longer-existing paganisms of Jezebel and of Nero are still anathema. But that didn't affect his view of aboriginal animists in 1851. While I agree this was groundbreaking tolerance, I don't know how far he extended it. I am not aware of Melville's attitude towards Catholics, Jews, and Muslims, are you?

Well, you have to consider that the "fog" Melville places on his works, his crazy personal life (he was not outspoken as his characters), have made him a victim of a lot of political correct interpretations. Some of his works are deemed racists, but I think it is only because he is a very hard writer, even considering how he is basically an adventure's writer. Anyways, again his experience helps him to approach Jews. After a trip to Jersusalem (he was a bit disapointed, eager to find signals of OT prophets and at some point wonder if the desolate city he found was like that because a tight embrace from a god) he seemed to develop a sympathetic view on jews (and muslims). There is a poem, Clarel, which is notable for his very positive and not steryotipical view on jews. No Shylocks here.

Muslims are more complciated. While he never seemed to held them on negative ways, he certainly knew little about them. At first, he used what he picked from literature, they are exotic or sensual, but at the end, he was also neutal, even changing the way he spelled Muhammad to something closer to the arabic pronouce. In other words, he was quite the nice chap. Probally, would be the nicest writer of XIX century if there wasnt Robert Louis Stevenson (funny enough, both with a few similar traits). I suspoect that besides the obvious over literary experience (Somehow, Moby was the Finnegans Wake of XIX century), Melville tolerance was a bit of slap on the face of the public.

Now, I do not know much else about his public life (his alcoholism made him a bit of coward) and he came from a conservative family. So, he was never very strong about political positions, which may explain how protected he felt by the allegories.


On reflection, I have decided that Melville's attitude towards pagans is confusing because he was really taking about three separate things: 1) ancient Paganism, which he saw as a morally corrosive influence; 2) aboriginal animism (like Queequeg's), to which he was sympathetic and tolerant; and the (essentially hypocritical) literary ideal of the noble savage, with you say he critiqued and I say he critiqued by lampooning. If these distinctions are kept clear, the many of the apparent contradictions vanish.

Somehow, i think that in his mind, the new american (the americans) are different from others, because they werent exposed to the Bible, so they couldnt be blamed, as Ahab. The point about the Heresy here.


A word about the lampoon: I mentioned that the Spouter Inn bedroom scenes were a kind of farce. I think that Chapter 17 (The Ramadan) may continue the joke. It is a strange chapter in any case. Ishmael is usually not too subjective a narrator, but here his comments (if I am reading them as intended) hold an irony that probably lampoons the condescending sort of tolerance of others that you mention:

"I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical."

"I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects."

"[I] could “could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool;"

If Melville is not being ironic, then he may be guilty of the very thing you say he was critiquing. But I think it's satire. Ishmael is made more foolish when, becoming alarmed that Queequeg does not answer their door, he smashes it in (much to his landlady' objections) only to find him sitting quietly in a state of religious devotion. Queequeg looks pretty silly, too, holding his idol on his head, but I think that's just another part of the overall joke.


Yeah, i agree there is an attempt to make the reader feel the ridicule of the sittuation, a bit because of Ishmael reactions.



What makes it necessary is the instrumentality of the whale in Jonah's redemption. The beast is not there to punish Jonah without hope of redemption but in fact to an be agent of his salvation. Moby-Dick (the whale, not the book) is not an allegory within an allegory but a dual symbol: Jonah's sea beast in holy white. That is elegant even for Melville, who as you know was stylistically baroque.

If I remove Christ from Jonah tale, the whale still is his salvation. Also, I am not quite sure about Ishmael redemption (unless telling the tale is redemption), but no point having this argument back and forth.





I disagree. Three chapters are laid aside for the Father Mapple episode, where the whole thing could easily have been handled in a paragraph. Each chapter foreshadows something essential to Melville's narrative. Chapter 7 (The Chapel), as Melville later admits, evokes the coming doom of the voyage, Chapter 8 (The Pulpit) presents a model of leadership in accordance with the will of God to which the narratives of Captains Ahab and Boomer stand in comparison. And Chapter 9 (The Sermon) presents the theology discussed above that Melville expresses in the central symbol of the white whale. Tolerance is an important theme in Moby-Dick, but so is Melville's religious vision. In no way was it contextual or a matter of mere literary influence.

I do not mean that Melville is not religious (there is a moral tale in the story after all), but that the religious symbolism is the main guide for melville, his literary symbolism and the narrative are. He is making choices based on that, it is the central structure of the story. If every motiff or technique present needs to be a religious allegory, he wouldnt dedicated that much space for the "scientific" chapters.


I will say this, though. The idea that Christ could be presented as unified in some way with Leviathan, a figure that came to be considered demonic in normative Christianity, is understandably offensive to many Christians. It is also a deeply radical position. A very great many 19th century Christians would have seen tolerance toward aboriginal animists without thought of conversion as unacceptably radical and the idea of sleeping with one as just as offensive. My point is simply that Melville was capable of bucking the system that hard. You and I may have to agree to disagree about whether he is doing this in terms of religion in Moby-Dick, but it's not a particularly far-fetched hypothesis. I was not convinced when I began, but all I have found in my third reading of this novel has inclined me to think this was exactly what Melville was doing. He is not throwing flowers at a Blakean marriage of Heaven and hell, he is just trying to see if life and fate functions as an integral phenomenon. Avast, he is asking, Hast seen the white whale?

I think Melville (talking beyond Moby Dick) was really curious about God's Manifestation. That may explain his tolerance towards paganism (and not the kind of Ahab paganism, as it is about somehow who found god and denied it), he is genuinely trying to find God and communicate with him. He is just not mystical enough to find it or be a prohet like Blake or Whitman. He is a pratical bloke, down to earth that had a massive literary talent, but found that talent would put him in a lot of troubles.

[Pompey Bum]

Somehow, i think that in his mind, the new american (the americans) are different from others, because they werent exposed to the Bible, so they couldnt be blamed, as Ahab. The point about the Heresy here.

I don't understand what you mean. Midcentury American religion was Bible-centric/Biblical literalist. Am I misunderstanding you?


If I remove Christ from Jonah tale, the whale still is his salvation. Also, I am not quite sure about Ishmael redemption (unless telling the tale is redemption), but no point having this argument back and forth.

But Melville did not remove Christ (who in Trinitarian theology is coeternal with the Father and a Person of the Trinity) from Jonah's salvation. For a Christian, Christ is necessarily the agent of Salvation. What Melville does is to add Leviathan, a combination he expresses in the symbol of the holy whiteness (think Christ's Transfiguration) of the whale. The image of Moby-Dick has become such a familiar part of popular culture that we tend to forget what a paradox it is.

This theology does not work for me at all. In fact, I see it as a kind of paganizing because it elevates the created (Leviathan) to the level of the Uncreated (Christ). I just don't think Melville saw it that way.

But okay, yes, time to agree to disagree. I have other things to say about the novel, but first I want to thank you for an intelligent and thoroughly enjoyable theological discussion--and online! Typically religious discussions end in rancor or bring out nut jobs from every corner. Thank you, I really appreciate it.

At this point I think I understand Melville's attitude towards Paganism and also his theological symbolism. Offeror's posts have made me think about Melville's theory of fate. The problem, as we have discussed, is that there is a recognizable Shakespearean tragedy going on, with its combination of choice and fate; but there also many purely fatalistic overtones to the narrative. These episodes are sometimes expressed in terms of Biblical Prophecy (Elijah vs. Ahab, etc.). I suggested (baffled as usual) that it almost seems like Melville was giving his reader a choice.

I refined that opinion recently when I remembered the scene from Chapter 47 in which Ishmael and Queequeg are weaving together (a la the Fates). There is no reason to debate symbolism because Ishmael explains it all:

"As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn; I say so strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage’s sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance— aye, chance, free will, and necessity—no wise incompatible— all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course— its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events."

So there on the surface of it is Melville's theory of fate or, more accurately, Augustine's. Melville is willing to accept "chance, free will, and necessity—no wise incompatible— all interweavingly working together." This combination allows Ahab's tragedy to unfold within the western literary model.

But then the darnedest thing happens. As they are weaving away on deck, Tashtego, the Gay Head Indian, sings out the Pequod's first sighting of whales. Ishmael says: "you would have thought him some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate," and notes "the ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing."

So perhaps the reader does not get a choice between theories of fate. Perhaps Melville is expressing a distinction in terms of mode. There is the "limited will mode" (chance, free will, and necessity) which permits Ahab in his cabin or back in Nantucket to weave his own destiny, and then there is--the combat model?; the Biblical model?; the whaling model? What happens, in any case, when one is so removed from the possibility of meaningful choice that the ball of free will drops right out of the boat and there is only necessity and chance.

This modular approach to fate would (finally) explain why Ishmael survived the Pequod's destruction. He was fated to survive; others were not. So perhaps I have made progress with that mystery as well. And perhaps it is compatible with your idea that there was no special reason that he survived--unless fate--blind or otherwise--can be thought of as a special reason.

[JCamilo]

I don't understand what you mean. Midcentury American religion was Bible-centric/Biblical literalist. Am I misunderstanding you?

Well, it was more or less a /XVIIIXIX theme, with the new world. The pagans they found in American could not be exposed to the holy texts, therefore they are more pure/forgiven than the pagans from orient, like those described in the Bible, who choose to ignore God. One is guilty of ignorance, other of rebelion/denial. So I think it was easier in a christian mind to have more sympathy for american indians. That is probally the difference, Queequeg is pure, Ahab is corrupted.



But okay, yes, time to agree to disagree. I have other things to say about the novel, but first I want to thank you for an intelligent and thoroughly enjoyable theological discussion--and online! Typically religious discussions end in rancor or bring out nut jobs from every corner. Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Probally because I wasnt discussing theology :D


At this point I think I understand Melville's attitude towards Paganism and also his theological symbolism. Offeror's posts have made me think about Melville's theory of fate. The problem, as we have discussed, is that there is a recognizable Shakespearean tragedy going on, with its combination of choice and fate; but there also many purely fatalistic overtones to the narrative. These episodes are sometimes expressed in terms of Biblical Prophecy (Elijah vs. Ahab, etc.). I suggested (baffled as usual) that it almost seems like Melville was giving his reader a choice.

I refined that opinion recently when I remembered the scene from Chapter 47 in which Ishmael and Queequeg are weaving together (a la the Fates). There is no reason to debate symbolism because Ishmael explains it all:

"As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn; I say so strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage’s sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance— aye, chance, free will, and necessity—no wise incompatible— all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course— its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events."

So there on the surface of it is Melville's theory of fate or, more accurately, Augustine's. Melville is willing to accept "chance, free will, and necessity—no wise incompatible— all interweavingly working together." This combination allows Ahab's tragedy to unfold within the western literary model.

But then the darnedest thing happens. As they are weaving away on deck, Tashtego, the Gay Head Indian, sings out the Pequod's first sighting of whales. Ishmael says: "you would have thought him some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate," and notes "the ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing."

So perhaps the reader does not get a choice between theories of fate. Perhaps Melville is expressing a distinction in terms of mode. There is the "limited will mode" (chance, free will, and necessity) which permits Ahab in his cabin or back in Nantucket to weave his own destiny, and then there is--the combat model?; the Biblical model?; the whaling model? What happens, in any case, when one is so removed from the possibility of meaningful choice that the ball of free will drops right out of the boat and there is only necessity and chance.

This modular approach to fate would (finally) explain why Ishmael survived the Pequod's destruction. He was fated to survive; others were not. So perhaps I have made progress with that mystery as well. And perhaps it is compatible with your idea that there was no special reason that he survived--unless fate--blind or otherwise--can be thought of as a special reason.

Well, for once, I do not think Melville give us answers, so I am not sure how much those options are really ours. Anyways, Free Will and Fate are already too complicated before Melville. I think Melville has a point, something about Fate that is misterious to us. In our limited perception, we cannot see all the links, all the waving, like the net between Ishmael and Queequeg (otherwise, we can say, Ishmael does not see how his friendship with Queequeeg would bring him the means of his salvation - I think this is very literal), therefore our Free Will, when used, can lead us adrift and it is more an option we do or how we do our "choices", how we take our fate or accept it. I think he means at that point Ishmael (a bit like Ahab, in the examples you posted before) see what he thinks it is fate and recognize it and in the best way of prophets, notice the past signals and identify his fate. A bit like a mode (a prophet mode?)

If Ishmael had to survive because his part on this drama, what he was designed to do, perhaps we can say free will is a tool for existensialism and Melville is man of XIX century, so he could be leaning towards it. (Also, the omens and such, present also in the Greek/Shakespeare plays, can be a form of perception, in the sense, the plays are teaching us the mood/way to read those omens and there is a lot on Ishmael that is about his function as the reader's guide).

[Pompey Bum]

Well, it was more or less a /XVIIIXIX theme, with the new world. The pagans they found in American could not be exposed to the holy texts, therefore they are more pure/forgiven than the pagans from orient, like those described in the Bible, who choose to ignore God. One is guilty of ignorance, other of rebelion/denial. So I think it was easier in a christian mind to have more sympathy for american indians. That is probally the difference, Queequeg is pure, Ahab is corrupted.

Oh, I see what you are saying. Yes, maybe Melville felt that way. I mean, historically it sure wasn't born out. Spaniards in Mexico burned apostate converts alive and Jesuit missionaries in Canada knew better than to expect noble savages where they were going. But I do think that for Melville the difference between Ahab's Paganism and Queequeg's is that one is opposed to YHWH and the other is just what it is. So yes, as a literary conceit it works.


Probally because I wasnt discussing theology :D

Well, it's like history, you know? Sometimes people don't see it, but that's exactly
what they're discussing. :)


In our limited perception, we cannot see all the links, all the waving, like the net between Ishmael and Queequeg (otherwise, we can say, Ishmael does not see how his friendship with Queequeeg would bring him the means of his salvation - I think this is very literal), therefore our Free Will, when used, can lead us adrift and it is more an option we do or how we do our "choices", how we take our fate or accept it. I think he means at that point Ishmael (a bit like Ahab, in the examples you posted before) see what he thinks it is fate and recognize it and in the best way of prophets, notice the past signals and identify his fate. A bit like a mode (a prophet mode?)

Now there you go getting theological again. :)

My question at this point is whether Melville really believed in the old "limited choice" mode, or if he thought (or strongly suspected) that everything--including one's supposed choices--was preordained. Given the Ahab story, and especially the Father Mapple and Captain Boomer comparisons, I am still holding to the former. But sometimes Melville confuses the issue. Maybe he felt confused about it himself.

[JCamilo]

Oh, I see what you are saying. Yes, maybe Melville felt that way. I mean, historically it sure wasn't born out. Spaniards in Mexico burned apostate converts alive and Jesuit missionaries in Canada knew better than to expect noble savages where they were going. But I do think that for Melville the difference between Ahab's Paganism and Queequeg's is that one is opposed to YHWH and the other is just what it is. So yes, as a literary conceit it works.

Yeah, there is the rousseau thing working here. Funny, maybe there is something there about this. One of his short stories are quite a bit like Swift Satyre, or Voltaire's. Moby Dick has some elements of carnival there, a Bakhtin concept while analysing Dostoievisky, which according to Bakhthin is a path of novel development, from Cervantes to Rabelais to Voltaire and that in XIX century went to a more darker social critic style. It lose a bit of comedy, but not of adventure. The crew of Pequod seems to be so unique and yet, strange, that resembles one or another of those social groups Dostoievisky could create. So, maybe, there is a matter of literary "Perdigree" also behind his reaction to Rousseau. I am sure Melville fits in the dialogism model too, always taking past literature, voices and using them in oposite sites to express himself, It would not be stranger to think the most american novelist was also the most russian.




Well, it's like history, you know? Sometimes people don't see it, but that's exactly what they're discussing. :)

Well, I am joking, but I just do not see Melville mystical enough (like Blake, Bunyan) to give us a great religious discussion. Not saying it is not his theme, just that he is not able to go deeper on it, as you said, sometimes he was confusing and confused. We end talking more about our perspectives, I guess.




Now there you go getting theological again. :)

My question at this point is whether Melville really believed in the old "limited choice" mode, or if he thought (or strongly suspected) that everything--including one's supposed choices--was preordained. Given the Ahab story, and especially the Father Mapple and Captain Boomer comparisons, I am still holding to the former. But sometimes Melville confuses the issue. Maybe he felt confused about it himself.

I do think Melville had a lot of "trust" on the individual. He is fascinated I guess by characters and he separate them from their fate. His first concern is probally what we do to be Christians/Deal with God, but that probally God is one thing (albeit in many forms), and Fate is God's will, therefore cannot be changed. So, I would say, no limited choice, but this does not go against Will, because what matters is how their perform. Somehow, Ahab and Ishmael fate is almost the same until the last two pages anyways...

[prendrelemick]

Those Nineties to One Hundred chapters are fantastic, much of what we have been discussing on here are in there.

Homo-erotism.
Paganism.
Old Testement Christianity.
Visions of Hell.
Prophesies.
symbolism.
Monomania.
Ahab's choices.
And Whaleing.

I look forwards to Pompey reaching them in his read through...

[Pompey Bum]

Finished my third read already, prend. Which haven't we discussed?

[Pompey Bum]

The crew of Pequod seems to be so unique and yet, strange, that resembles one or another of those social groups Dostoievisky could create. So, maybe, there is a matter of literary "Perdigree" also behind his reaction to Rousseau. I am sure Melville fits in the dialogism model too, always taking past literature, voices and using them in oposite sites to express himself, It would not be stranger to think the most american novelist was also the most russian.

I'm a little skeptical about recreated literary pedegrees, but I'm sure Melville considered and responded to the ideas of his times (and obviously earlier ones). And perhaps he ended up being the "most Russian" of American writers. Ishmael is the sort of guy who could easily have lived beneath Raskolnikov, and a more nihilistic version of Ahab (say, someone just as obsessed) would have been right at home in The Possessed. And Melville was at least demonstrating the limits of the Augustinian theory of fate, although I don't think he had quite worked things out as far as Tolstoy did.


His first concern is probally what we do to be Christians/Deal with God, but that probally God is one thing (albeit in many forms), and Fate is God's will, therefore cannot be changed. So, I would say, no limited choice, but this does not go against Will, because what matters is how their perform. Somehow, Ahab and Ishmael fate is almost the same until the last two pages anyways...

I doubt Melville rejected the limited choice model of fate. If he did, that elaborate explanation of the loom and its symbolism must be entirely ironic. It could have been I suppose; I mean, Melville could have been saying, I used to think I had at least some say in what happened to me, but once I got in among those whales I understood it was all preordained. But I don't think so. The dangers of the voyage--even Ishmael's ultimate survival--seem more like the luck of the dice than God's will. And the stories of Father Mapple and Captain Boomer demonstrate that it is Ahab's choice (unaligned with God's will) that determines his destiny. I just think Melville is saying that there are limits to that kind of fate. Sometimes it's all chance and necessity. so limited choice governs Ahab's fate, but blind luck or God's inscrutable will governs Ishmael's. That's where I am with it at the moment.

[prendrelemick]

Finished my third read already, prend. Which haven't we discussed?

Well not much really, but my reread has faltered and I just keep going over and over that section -it's terrific stuff. In particular Ishmael's Dantesque vision of Hell in "The Try Works" where he falls asleep and turns his back on it. Then there is "The Doubloon" where various characters try and read the meaning of the image stamped on the gold coin and reveal traits of themselves and ends with Pip's unheard prophesy of doom. Plus the captain Boomer episode and the homo erotic sperm squeezing where the guys get oiled up.

[Pompey Bum]

Plus the captain Boomer episode and the homo erotic sperm squeezing where the guys get oiled up.

Heh. Stubb (my favorite character by far) also has some pretty funny banter with the men in his boat along those lines ("Pull! Pull I say! Don't ye want sperm?"--that sort of thing). I was thinking it's probably made for some good laughs in freshman women's dormitory or two.

There is also an utterly bizarre (and gross) scene in which Tashtego falls into a giant severed sperm whale head and is drowning in the spermaceti until Queequeg cuts gash in its side and delivers him like a child. You just can't make this stuff up.

[JCamilo]

I'm a little skeptical about recreated literary pedegrees, but I'm sure Melville considered and responded to the ideas of his times (and obviously earlier ones). And perhaps he ended up being the "most Russian" of American writers. Ishmael is the sort of guy who could easily have lived beneath Raskolnikov, and a more nihilistic version of Ahab (say, someone just as obsessed) would have been right at home in The Possessed. And Melville was at least demonstrating the limits of the Augustinian theory of fate, although I don't think he had quite worked things out as far as Tolstoy did.

I am being facetious with the most russian, but since Melville was overlooked by the american critics until XX century (even the early revision was about his merits as enterteiment novelist), his influence and status didnt went at the level of the Russians for the development of the modern novel. I think something similar happens with Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights, also a novel with psychological shades of gray, some opening and unsetting realism. (Emily shadowed by the early feminism, Charlotte, and we well, a bit of the flaws of youth age, not her fault). It would be Natural if we said , for example, Melville to be a model of Conrad, but the truth it is less than real.




I doubt Melville rejected the limited choice model of fate. If he did, that elaborate explanation of the loom and its symbolism must be entirely ironic. It could have been I suppose; I mean, Melville could have been saying, I used to think I had at least some say in what happened to me, but once I got in among those whales I understood it was all preordained. But I don't think so. The dangers of the voyage--even Ishmael's ultimate survival--seem more like the luck of the dice than God's will. And the stories of Father Mapple and Captain Boomer demonstrate that it is Ahab's choice (unaligned with God's will) that determines his destiny. I just think Melville is saying that there are limits to that kind of fate. Sometimes it's all chance and necessity. so limited choice governs Ahab's fate, but blind luck or God's inscrutable will governs Ishmael's. That's where I am with it at the moment.

What Mallarmé would tell you? A throw of dice will never abolish chance.

I think, Melvile works in two levels of perspective (I think he is good at irony too), one is about individual choices and other is about fate. At some point, he wants to show individuals choosing their actions and suffering the consequences for it. At other, he seems to imply the consequences of their actions is part of design none can avoid. Freedom does not seem to be exactly a think so important to him, i guess because of that. (Not saying he was against freedom, but not something he was so elaborate as diversity).

In the end, I think to Melville there is the a Great Scheme and a small scheme. We can perceive the small, sometimes a glimpse of the big and that is important to him.

[Pompey Bum]

I am being facetious with the most russian, but since Melville was overlooked by the american critics until XX century (even the early revision was about his merits as enterteiment novelist), his influence and status didnt went at the level of the Russians for the development of the modern novel.

So the most American of 19th century authors was coincidentally the most Russian? That I can probably buy.


It would be Natural if we said , for example, Melville to be a model of Conrad, but the truth it is less than real.

Right. It is a beguiling falsehood. In fact, during my recent reread, I was struck with how unlike Conrad Melville's "brotherhood of the sea" was. In a Conrad novel the Europeans would have stuck together to the exclusion of others, and they would be trying to dominate one another like animals. Ahab is a little like a Conrad character when he concerns himself with keeping the mates under his thumb, especially when he uses his raw egotism to try to control Starbuck's (essentially weaker) conventional morality (and Starbuck does briefly consider killing Ahab). But Starbuck and Ahab do not hate each other and even cry together one time. In a certain way, Stubb is more of a Conrad character, but only because he is willing to embrace the world he finds it, "Live in the game, and die in it!" he tells Starbuck; but Stubb responds to all aspects of life--moral or immoral--with joviality. Sometimes he reminds me of Zorba the Greek. Who is jolly in a Conrad novel?

So given a choice between Russian coincidences and Conrad coincidences, I'll take the Russian. :)


I think, Melvile works in two levels of perspective (I think he is good at irony too), one is about individual choices and other is about fate. At some point, he wants to show individuals choosing their actions and suffering the consequences for it. At other, he seems to imply the consequences of their actions is part of design none can avoid. Freedom does not seem to be exactly a think so important to him, i guess because of that. (Not saying he was against freedom, but not something he was so elaborate as diversity).

In the end, I think to Melville there is the a Great Scheme and a small scheme. We can perceive the small, sometimes a glimpse of the big and that is important to him.

I'll have to give Melville's ideas about freedom some thought. But for the rest, I couldn't agree with you more. The trouble is that the grand scheme and the small scheme are twisted tightly together (even though they are separate modes) and Melville's irony makes it difficult to decide what he really believes. Ahab chides Starbuck for his belief in omens while accepting Fedallah's prophecies as blindly as Macbeth. Then he chooses to fight Moby-Dick while proclaiming that all is preordained. But okay, okay, choice and fate. I can see that much. Maybe someday I will see how he actually thinks it works in the story. I doubt I'll read this book again for another 10 years or so. Maybe I'll get it then.

[JCamilo]

So the most American of 19th century authors was coincidentally the most Russian? That I can probably buy.

In a way, it is something not flattering to the russians and Melville. It seems like "Fate". After the french, someone had to put together all those minor novels, the wannabe epic, the burgouise family story, the gothic, the social critic novel, the farse/adventure novels, etc and try to put them together in a new form. Dostoievisky, Melville, Tolstoy had to do it, either they could or not. Luck for them they could. :D


Right. It is a beguiling falsehood. In fact, during my recent reread, I was struck with how unlike Conrad Melville's "brotherhood of the sea" was. In a Conrad novel the Europeans would have stuck together to the exclusion of others, and they would be trying to dominate one another like animals. Ahab is a little like a Conrad character when he concerns himself with keeping the mates under his thumb, especially when he uses his raw egotism/ force of personality to control Starbuck's (essentially weaker) conventional morality; and Starbuck briefly considers killing Ahab. But Starbuck and Ahab do not hate each other and even cry together on once. In a certain way, Stubb is more of a Conrad character, but only because he is willing to embrace the world he finds it, "Live in the game, and die in it!" he tells Starbuck; but Stubb responds to all aspects of life--moral or immoral--with joviality. Sometimes he reminds me of Zorba the Greek. Who is jolly in a Conrad novel?

Yeah, Conrad is too european and a XX century man. The omens that Melville suggests are already reality for him. But both had a talent to use the perspective of the narrator to make suggestions and leave plenty of doubts without having to use the internal monologue, you know. How they set the mood and it is not just to fill the page, but pure manipulation, a way to guide the reader feelings. Ahab and Cpt.Kurtz have more similarities that differences I think. Both have some critical view on civilization or progress, so naturally they share some lineage from where they draw their characters. Of course, to Conrad Melville doubts about God are totally gone, but such is XX century.


Obviously, just like seemed natural the coming of the novels such as Moby Dick in XIX century that we would have novelists in XX century that took advantage of those new waters.



I'll have to give Melville's ideas about freedom some thought. But for the rest, I couldn't agree with you more. The trouble is that the grand scheme and the small scheme are twisted tightly together (even though they are separate modes) and Melville's irony can make it difficult to decide what he really believes. Ahab chides Starbuck for his belief in omens while accepting Fedallah's prophecies as blindly as Macbeth. But okay, okay, choice and fate. I can see that much. Maybe someday I will see how he actually thinks it works in the story. I doubt I'll read this book again for another 10 years or so. Maybe I'll get it then.

It is less about what he thought of Freedom (specially considering he lived during the Civil War, so eventually, you had to think about it), more like it is something not that important to him. He have characers who want or fight for freedom, but it is like you have characters who hunt whales. Just a surface of another story. As Fedallah, I always thought it was an obvious shakespearean touch by Melville. Anyways, what you say about twisting together the two schemes, yeah, it is pretty much what he loves to do. If you have oportunity to read Benito Cereno, you will see how he does it in the begining of the book. He uses the descriptions of the initial meeting between the two ships, to mix those omens from the great scheme and the considerations of the narrator, for the small scheme in such subtle way, that you think it is just a writer still unsure of how to give start to the story. Sadly, only after you finish the book, you are aware of his technique, as you discover what happened (or not sadly, who said you have to be aware anyways). There is echoes of Heart of Darkness, the calm description of the Thames in the frame story, that some way, bring shadows of the story in Congo, but since you do not like Conrad that much, I will leave it here. You should, jsut as you are not going to hunt whales again so soon, give other Melville's books a chance. Do not make him a one white whale writer ;)

[Pompey Bum]

Ahab and Cpt.Kurtz have more similarities that differences I think. Both have some critical view on civilization or progress, so naturally they share some lineage from where they draw their characters.

Yes, good point about Kurtz. Was thinking more of a Conrad novel called Victory, in which white expatriates form a loose society that is ultimately governed by brute domination of one another. Some will do favors for other whites, but all (except the protagonist) accept the predatory nature of the world as a given. I can see Stubb thriving in that world. He would be one of those who would go out of his way to do a favor for someone, but confronted with an Ahab, a Kurtz, or even a Fedallah (who he thinks is the devil), his reaction is going to be: Yeah, that's just the way it is. Live in the game. But Conrad's vision is much bleaker. His atheism means people are just another kind of predatory beast. We have become the sharks.


If you have oportunity to read Benito Cereno, you will see how he does it in the begining of the book. He uses the descriptions of the initial meeting between the two ships, to mix those omens from the great scheme and the considerations of the narrator, for the small scheme in such subtle way, that you think it is just a writer still unsure of how to give start to the story. Sadly, only after you finish the book, you are aware of his technique, as you discover what happened (or not sadly, who said you have to be aware anyways). There is echoes of Heart of Darkness, the calm description of the Thames in the frame story, that some way, bring shadows of the story in Congo, but since you do not like Conrad that much, I will leave it here. You should, jsut as you are not going to hunt whales again so soon, give other Melville's books a chance. Do not make him a one white whale writer ;)

My father likes Melville and also recommended Benito Cereno. I'm sure I'll read it, but it has to get in line. I don't dislike Conrad, by the way. I found Heart of Darkness a little over-rated, but Victory was powerful and moving. Nostromo and Lord Jim are in line, too, but I think I'm ready to come home from sea for now.

[JCamilo]

I have read Victory this year. And yeah, he is another side of spectrum. Bur I find Heart of Dakrness admirable. Truth to be told, until this thread I didnt link Heart of Darkness with Moby Dick and they have such similarity. I am starting to think people read Melville in secret :D

i really suggest Benio Cereno, Bartleby and Benito Cereno. The rest is irregular, but it is interesting. He was a very rich writer, very human also.

[Pompey Bum]

I have read Victory this year. And yeah, he is another side of spectrum. Bur I find Heart of Dakrness admirable. Truth to be told, until this thread I didnt link Heart of Darkness with Moby Dick and they have such similarity. I am starting to think people read Melville in secret :D

I was recovering from a fractured neck when I read The Heart of Darkness. My doctor was giving me these nasty painkillers that kept me from concentrating on books, so I had to switch to novellas. In other words, although I have read The Heat of Darkness (I say this as a middle-aged man who doesn't do street drugs), I was pretty stoned at the time. I should probably give it another chance.

Here is my old post on Victory if you are interested. I had just joined LitNet when I wrote it so bear with me if I said anything stupid.


I read Victory and enjoyed it despite some flaws. Conrad is an interesting case. While his works continue to be critically well regarded, I know many 21st century readers who disdain them. His works do contain crude racial caricatures with a general belief in European superiority and racial solidarity. They are relentlessly pessimistic and seem to preclude even the possibility of redemption--secular or otherwise--from what people naturally are. None of these things seem to sit well with "Millennial" readers and some of course should not.

Conrad is also disturbing. He understands how bullying works. He believes that beneath the veneer most human intercourse is a dominance and submission game. Those who try to cut a separate peace though intellectual or spiritual detachment, he believes, have lost "the readiness of mind and the turn of the hand that come without reflection." In such a world, "Thinking is the great enemy of perfection. The habit of profound reflection...is the most pernicious of all the habits formed by the civilized man." It also leaves one vulnerable to destruction (almost inevitable) by the less reflective. Why look into the blinding sun of such pessimism when it is easier (and more fun) simply to dismiss Conrad for his racism and jingoism?

I like Victory (which, in a Conrad novel, means I find Victory especially disturbing) because it deals with the supposed futility of building personal enclaves against Unreflective Readiness--red of beak and claw. I hasten to add that I do not agree with Conrad; but I like to hear what he has to say. In my view it is best to understand a dangerous position, especially if one opposes it. (And many, of course, don't oppose it).

Note: There are no big spoilers in what follows, but if you don't want to know the plot of Victory--without giving away the ending--you should stop reading now.

Much of Victory is set on a (psychologically allegorical) island near Indonesia, where a European former merchant named Axel now lives in relative isolation. He had first gone there on a business scheme with an oil company; when that failed, he preferred to stay on amidst the industrial junk piles rather than rejoin the community of his fellow merchants. Most of them find him a bit odd, but visit him occasionally, and do not especially judge him for his isolation. Axel's decision to remain apart from them is largely informed by his personal philosophy that human beings are fundamentally evil and that watchful separatism is a moral imperative.

On a brief trip from his island, however, Axel falls foul of one of the less savory members of the expatriate community, a violent lout called Schomberg (a minor but repeating character in some of Conrad's other stories). Schomberg has opened a cheap hotel and bar where he connives with the proprietors of a shady "female orchestra" to provide music for his guests. The band members--young women who were led overseas in the naive belief that they would be playing with a professional orchestra--are now being coerced under the threat of violence to mix among the clientele (and presumably arrange professional liaisons) during their breaks.

Axel, who is staying at Schomberg's hotel, comes to the defense of a woman named Lena, who refuses to play the whore, and is later sexually assaulted by Schomberg. Axel spirits Lena away to his island, where the two eventually become lovers. But Axel's involvement in the world he was supposed to have left has consequences: he becomes subject to a number of revenge schemes of the humiliated Schomberg. The worst of these involves a gang of three sadistic killers who reduce Schomberg's clip joint to a wholly owned subsidiary and make him their virtual slave. Desperate to rid himself of the predators--and hoping to kill two birds with one stone--Schomberg entices them to the island with the lie that Axel is hiding a fortune there. This sets the stage for a final confrontation between the unreflective readiness of the killers and the moral isolation of Axel, who has been unable to separate himself from the world without his love for Lena and the responsibilities it entails.

Thereafter Victory becomes something of an action thriller, exciting enough, though somewhat impaired by an oddly rushed ending--a little like an early movie in which the producers discover was they are about to run out of film.

As I said, I enjoyed Victory without agreeing with many of Conrad's ideas. His style reminded me a bit of Ford Madox Ford in some of its modernist elements. The final scene, for example, is told second hand, something that Ford, a one-time mentor of Conrad's (despite, oddly enough, being the younger man) would have appreciated. Victory reminded me even more of Graham Greene (who claimed to have been influenced by both Conrad and Ford), although in truth it lacked Greene's charm. If Axel had had even a fraction of a Greene anti-hero's flawed humanity, Victory would have been a much better book. In some ways, it seems too allegorical to be quite real.

But in the end Conrad is Conrad. There are many good reasons for not liking him, but for me, disagreeing with his ideas about the human potential for redemption is not one of them. I recommend Victory to any who dare to sail his seas.

Anyway, I'm glad you feel you got something new out of the Moby-Dick thread. I learned a lot, too. One last shot at the last scene: maybe it has more to do with the ship that picks Ishmael up than the "grand scheme" detail that he happened to survive. The Rachel was the ship Ahab refused to help when her captain begged for aid finding his missing-in-action son. Ahab did this with calculated selfishness, saying he would try to forgive himself. obviously did not treat the captain or his son as he would have wanted to be treated. Perhaps this was the sign of Ahab's final abandonment of Christ, which is followed by his utter destruction. In that context, the Rachel's captain's exemplary compassion in coming to the aid of the ship that had abandoned his son to death may be meant as a final contrast with the damned Ahab.


i really suggest Benio Cereno, Bartleby and Benito Cereno. The rest is irregular, but it is interesting. He was a very rich writer, very human also.

I'll add them to my ebooks, but I may not get to them for a while. I'm rereading Crime and Punishment now, and I'll probably try some more Conrad soon. I also read A Christmas Carol every December, and that will be here before we know it. So many books.

[JCamilo]

I was recovering from a fractured neck when I read The Heart of Darkness. My doctor was giving me these nasty painkillers that kept me from concentrating on books, so I had to switch to novellas. In other words, although I have read The Heat of Darkness (I say this as a middle-aged man who doesn't do street drugs), I was pretty stoned at the time. I should probably give it another chance.

Yeah, seems like you got prepared for Apocalypse Now and not Heart of Darkness.


Here is my old post on Victory if you are interested. I had just joined LitNet when I wrote it so bear with me if I said anything stupid.

Just one thing I often consider. Conrad is not an advocate of european superiority, rather an advocate of Civilization (which, sure, can be a lot of like do like england do on his time, but there is a slighty difference), because I think Conrad point is that european is "weak" and failed. I think he oftens reduces humans to "animals", because he is almost saying "this is hell, where we live". Specially in books like Heart of Darkness or Victory, those books with a clear conflict, no human model. We say we will find Ahab there, but will be an Ahab after the end of Moby Dick.



Anyway, I'm glad you feel you got something new out of the Moby-Dick thread. I learned a lot, too. One last shot at the last scene: maybe it has more to do with the ship that picks Ishmael up than the "grand scheme" detail that he happened to survive. The Rachel was the ship Ahab refused to help when her captain begged for aid finding his missing-in-action son. Ahab did this with calculated selfishness, saying he would try to forgive himself. obviously did not treat the captain or his son as he would have wanted to be treated. Perhaps this was the sign of Ahab's final abandonment of Christ, which is followed by his utter destruction. In that context, the Rachel's captain's exemplary compassion in coming to the aid of the ship that had abandoned his son to death may be meant as a final contrast with the damned Ahab.

Why Christ? Isnt Ishmael clearly a survivor that is rescued in the wilderness too? But yeah, should work as the whole plan of God, not exactly on the whale, but in the whole picture, as Rachel is somehow the mother of the god's tribe and Ishmael is rescued to her.

[Pompey Bum]

Yeah, seems like you got prepared for Apocalypse Now and not Heart of Darkness.

HA HA. I liked the novella better than the movie, though. It just didn't seem to be saying anything I didn't already know. And I wasn't sure about the scene at the end where Marlow lies about Kurtz's last words. Was that meant to be a comment on civilization? That it is essentially a pretty lie? How then could it have any power against "the horror"?


Just one thing I often consider. Conrad is not an advocate of european superiority, rather an advocate of Civilization (which, sure, can be a lot of like do like england do on his time, but there is a slighty difference), because I think Conrad point is that european is "weak" and failed.

I agree, but he also succumbs to the dumb-*ss racist pseudoscience of the day: phrenological and morphological typeology, racial memory, etc. Your point about a weak and failed Europe is interesting, though. The barely human alligator hunter in Victory works with a cruel, effete, and probably homosexual (female hating in any case) European who is an even scarier crook than he is. Although Jones (the European) is the boss and brains of the outfit, there is no moral superiority. Both are monsters.


I think he oftens reduces humans to "animals", because he is almost saying "this is hell, where we live". Specially in books like Heart of Darkness or Victory, those books with a clear conflict, no human model. We say we will find Ahab there, but will be an Ahab after the end of Moby Dick.

Yes, that's what he's saying. Civilization may or may not be the cure in Heart of Darkness, but in Victory hell is there is no place to hide. No man is an island, not because he owes his company to his fellow man, but because his fellow man is bound to come for his life sooner or later. Ultimately Conrad's atheism means that hell is all there is.


Why Christ? Isnt Ishmael clearly a survivor that is rescued in the wilderness too? But yeah, should work as the whole plan of God, not exactly on the whale, but in the whole picture, as Rachel is somehow the mother of the god's tribe and Ishmael is rescued to her.

Because "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" along with a father forgiving those who abandoned his son to death are an epitome of the Christian faith. So perhaps Ahab's small scheme story ends with his final renunciation of Christ's message in contrast to the captain of the Rachel. Maybe Ishmael is just a means of showing that.

[JCamilo]

HA HA. I liked the novella better than the movie, though. It just didn't seem to be saying anything I didn't already know. And I wasn't sure about the scene at the end where Marlowe lies about Kurtz's last words. Was that meant to be a comment on civilization? That it is essentially a pretty lie? How then could it have any power against "the horror"?

Well,I like the movie a lot, many aspects of what we should find in a movie, but there is something I like is how it captures the book spirit while changing quite a lot. I think Copolla was a very good reader for the book, if someone asks why this books persists, it is because of this essence Copolla noticed. I dunno if it is a lie, maybe we arent prepared for it (humans). I always think, that despite their capacity to work with ideas, novelists good as Conrad or Melville are great when they show not this idea, but the man affected by the idea. That is why someone like Henry James seems so precise and yet dull, he often show us his ideas ahead of the characters.




I agree, but he also succumbs to the dumb-*ss racist pseudoscience of the day: phrenological and morphological typeology, racial memory, etc. Your point about a weak and failed Europe is interesting, though. The barely human alligator hunter in Victory works with a cruel, effete, and probably homosexual (female hating in any case) European who is an even scarier crook than he is. Although Jones (the European) is the boss and brains of the outfit, there is no moral superiority. Both are monsters.

And Kurtz is clearly a fallen angel. A great man corrupted to the soul and I think Conrad meant to imply he was corrupted by africans or Congo, rather by his burden. But yes, Conrad is a man of his time. I can easily see how Chinua Achebe targeted so well a classicist. Conrad darkness only make it worst, because he seems like that kind of writer without compromisse. If he feels that something will be better fit for his book, he will go for it. However, Conrad seems to me one of those writers, while biased towards the metropolis, had a world's experience and is able to turn the board, because he does not feel as true the whole superiority story. He is not philosophical enough to discern what is wrong, to correct his mind and language, but his interest on humanity is genuine. A bit like Kipling (of course, there is something interesting about them not being exactly what would be a pure european, so it adds some perspective).




Yes, that's what he's saying. Civilization may or may not be the cure in Heart of Darkness, but in Victory hell is there is no place to hide. No man is an island, not because he owes his company to his fellow man, but because his fellow man is bound to come for his life sooner or later. Ultimately Conrad's atheism means that hell is all there is.

One of the worst points of Heart of Darkness (and how I think it is so well directed at europeans) is how there is not attempt to cure. Marlowe is not even well informed to make such attempt and he is one of the few characters with genuine good intentions, but even he lies to preserve a false image, but the only attempt to preserve something human or decent about Kurtz. No redemption, nothing.




Because "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" along with a father forgiving those who abandoned his son to death are an epitome of the Christian faith. So perhaps Ahab's small scheme story ends with his final renunciation of Christ's message in contrast to the captain of the Rachel. Maybe Ishmael is just a means of showing that.

Well, since i proposed that Ahab and pequod move away from Christ (and hence the whale is not christ), this rescue (which is another movement from Christ from Ahab) could mean Ishmael return. Albert I will point out, even if hebrew philosophy was not so forgiving as this one, the whole meaning of Ishmael and his rescue, plus a father able to forgive those who banished his son are part of OT (like in joseph story). But this idea is more simple to me, The path to hell is filled with good intentions, which meant they were abadoned. The path to hell is a path that leads away from Christ because he is the good (or the pure good) side of God. So, abandoning Rachel may work as this.

Maybe you are doing like Ishmael. He spend a good time trying to find God or maybe Jesus and starts to link them with any signal :D

[Pompey Bum]

Well,I like the movie a lot, many aspects of what we should find in a movie, but there is something I like is how it captures the book spirit while changing quite a lot. I think Copolla was a very good reader for the book, if someone asks why this books persists, it is because of this essence Copolla noticed.

The movie wasn't bad, but I was disappointed by Kurtz when he finally turned up. I found Dennis Hopper's character more interesting. I liked that character in the novella, too, although Coppolla
and Hopper didn't follow him very closely. In the film, he was sort of an overawed hippie dropout--dangerous but not too bright. I remember the Conrad character (the Russian) as being smarter and less predictable. He'd help you out, but then again he might kill you. He was more of a free agent. And he didn't get how incongruous he was--this weird loner out in the woods.


I dunno if it is a lie, maybe we arent prepared for it (humans).


One of the worst points of Heart of Darkness (and how I think it is so well directed at europeans) is how there is not attempt to cure. Marlowe is not even well informed to make such attempt and he is one of the few characters with genuine good intentions, but even he lies to preserve a false image, but the only attempt to preserve something human or decent about Kurtz. No redemption, nothing.


And Kurtz is clearly a fallen angel. A great man corrupted to the soul and I think Conrad meant to imply he was corrupted by africans or Congo, rather by his burden.

See, this is why the ambiguity of Marlow's lie is so frustrating. Maybe the point is that after his recent experience in the primal darkness, he clings to the redemptive force of civilization enough to care about a lady's feelings. That would fit in with the opening Turneresque image of light emanating from the Thames estuary and illuminating the darkness. Now he returns to the light and the hope it affords a dark world. Maybe. That interpretation works best if you see Kurtz as corrupted--as a fallen angel as you say.

But maybe there is nothing corrupted about Kurtz. Maybe Kurtz is just what human beings are without the pretty lie of civilization. Maybe his atrocities are the real human norm, and his illness is just his Europeaness: the part of him that cries, "The horror! The horror!" If that is the case, then perhaps Marlowe was not entirely lying after all. If "The horror! The horror!" expressed a revulsion at the darkness and a longing for the light, then calling for his fiancee may have expressed a similar yearning. He wanted the light of their promised life together (in civilization). But if so, the dying Kurtz was only grasping at illusion. That is because Europeans are as animalistic as anyone else.

Your interpretation seems to hold elements of both these arguments, but I don't see them as being very easily harmonized.

[JCamilo]

See, this is why the ambiguity of Marlowe's lie is so frustrating. Maybe the point is that after his recent experience in the primal darkness, he clings to the redemptive force of civilization enough to care about a lady's feelings. That would fit in with the opening Turneresque image of light emanating from the Thames estuary and illuminating the darkness. Now he returns to the light and the hope it affords a dark world. Maybe. That interpretation works best if you see Kurtz as corrupted--as a fallen angel as you say.

But maybe there is nothing corrupted about Kurtz. Maybe Kurtz is just what human beings are without the pretty lie of civilization. Maybe his atrocities are the real human norm, and his illness is just his Europeaness: the part of him that cries, "The horror! The horror!" If that is the case, then perhaps Marlowe was not entirely lying after all. If "The horror! The horror!" expressed a revulsion at the darkness and a longing for the light, then calling for his fiancee may have expressed a similar yearning. He wanted the light of their promised life together (in civilization). But if so, the dying Kurtz was only grasping at illusion. That is because Europeans are as animalistic as anyone else.

Your interpretation seems to hold elements of both these arguments, but I don't see them as being very easily harmonized.

Well, perhaps there is two words that may be causing a problem. I used corruption and you lie. Now, I do not think Conrad theme is exactly ethical, for example like Melville, it is not about Good vs. Evil. It is perhaps a lesser problem, a moral problem. I am sure Conrad knows where is evil, there is not exactly in Heart of Darkness a search for good, what we see in Ishmael. Marlowe is not that inquisitive, he pretty much accepts how things turn to be and well, watever came to him. I do not think there is a lie. A lie would be a deliberate falsehood and I think Conrad is expressing something true in the core, as dark as it is.

I do not mean Kurtz is corrupted by evil, I think he lost his so called brilliant future. He is corrupted as self, I think the misterious horror, twice said, is a mirror-like recogninition of his failure and his failure meant all the european system. Kurtz cannt even maintain the mask - everyone can, if he could, he would be rulling his post, doing watever he wanted and nobody would bother with him. Probally give him medals, because that was what he was meant to be. I think Kurtz feels Marlowe will not be a man to bring the truth about what happened to England. So, it will happen again.

Marlowe action with the woman is a minor reflection of this. He cared enough with maintaining humanity, but he does it at which cost? Holding up the mask, as Marlowe cann't understand what happened, so he prefers the self-preservation. I do not see light on hope on Thames or back to Europe, I see him grasping the illusion. Marlowe knew the truth but in name of a lesser good, he prefered to hide it. Something like this.

[Pompey Bum]

By a lie I mean when Marlow told Kurtz's fiancee that his last words were her name. That was a deliberate falsehood, wasn't it? So why did he do it? And why does he remove from Kurtz's writing his direction to "Exterminate the brutes"? Isn't he trying to protect civilization from Kurtz by preserving the memory of him as a civilization's golden boy while obliterating the memory of what he became? I don't think this is a minor detail. In the first chapter, Marlow says: "There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies--which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world." So something changed in him after his experiences with Kurtz. I think he got scared and is now lying futility--even if it makes the lady feel better--because he can not stop the human heart from being what it is. Kurtz has not been corrupted by the Congo and he cannot corrupt "civilization" (whether Marlow lies or not); all were always corrupt. This is something Marlow comes to understand by the end of the last chapter, when he (or the outer narrator rather) concedes that the Thames estuary, whose waters flow to all the world, lead INTO "a vast heart of darkness." It is the very mirror image of the first chapter's illuminated waters. The heart of darkness is London itself.

[JCamilo]

By a lie I mean when Marlow told Kurtz's fiancee that his last words were her name. That was a deliberate falsehood, wasn't it? So why did he do it? And why does he remove from Kurtz's writing his direction to "Exterminate the brutes"? Isn't he trying to protect civilization from Kurtz by preserving the memory of him as a civilization's golden boy while obliterating the memory of what he became? I don't think this is a minor detail. In the first chapter, Marlow says: "There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies--which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world." So something changed in him after his experiences with Kurtz. I think he got scared and is now lying futility--even if it makes the lady feel better--because he can not stop the human heart from being what it is. Kurtz has not been corrupted by the Congo and he cannot corrupt "civilization" (whether Marlow lies or not); all were always corrupt. This is something Marlow comes to understand by the end of the last chapter, when he (or the outer narrator rather) concedes that the Thames estuary, whose waters flow to all the world, lead INTO "a vast heart of darkness." It is the very mirror image of the first chapter's illuminated waters. The heart of darkness is London itself.

I do not think Marlow was trying to deceive the lady. He is giving her a placebo, which is also a placebo for him. He does not want to convice her about a false Kurtz, he just cannot deal with the real Kurtz and in a way, try to keep him back in Africa. Kind a way that it is not enough that europe did all they did, but they left behind their leftovers.

Also I do not think Conrad wants to say Civilization is bad. He wants to say we failed to be civilized. There was no civilization in the book, just the illusion (which is the contrast with the thames indeed). That is why I said his work is a critic to the european, who is confortable in the illusion while scrapping under the carpet the Kurtz of life. In a way that is why Copolla movie worked, because in the end the Vietnã needed a big carpet, but by the end of 70's all kurtz were back home.

I think you are right, Marlow has a big fear. He would feel better in his insignificance, but he cannot grasp a world where a "notable man" like Kurtz goes down in such spiral. There is impotence, there is a failure. The atheism is also expressed by the absence of leadership (or one you can trust, because Kurtz in the book is past the capacity of leadership.). I am not saying Conrad was writting about the absence of God (which is a form of faith anyways, very jewish), but his social organization is the same cynical form, there is an emptiness of reference (maybe that is why the men turn in such beasts).

As why he erases the order, maybe because he couldn't be sure who those brutes are. Maybe he was afraid it was himself and that a guy like Kurtz would bother with those africans (all the racial steriotype usually implies the european superiority fails to see the capacity among the natives. Melville uses this trick quite well in Benito Cereno). if it is possible to see Conrad writing about the european flaws, this is a good guess.

[Pompey Bum]

I do not think Marlow was trying to deceive the lady. He is giving her a placebo, which is also a placebo for him.

Well, he tells her Kurtz's last words were her name. They weren't, they were: "The horror! the horror!" That sounds like a deception to me. And a placebo against even the grimmest reality (which is after all a kind of false optimism) is distinctly un-Conradly, I doubt that is what's going on. But I think you and I agree that whatever Marlow is doing is futile and based on fear after his experience with Kurtz.


Also I do not think Conrad wants to say Civilization is bad. He wants to say we failed to be civilized. There was no civilization in the book, just the illusion (which is the contrast with the thames indeed).

Right, he didn't say civilization was bad, just superficial and insufficient; and that it was effectively inconsequential where Europeans and people Europeans thought of as uncivilized were concerned. The heart of darkness is a universal.


He does not want to convice her about a false Kurtz, he just cannot deal with the real Kurtz and in a way, try to keep him back in Africa. Kind a way that it is not enough that europe did all they did, but they left behind their leftovers.


That is why I said his work is a critic to the european, who is confortable in the illusion while scrapping under the carpet the Kurtz of life. In a way that is why Copolla movie worked, because in the end the Vietnã needed a big carpet, but by the end of 70's all kurtz were back home.


I think you are right, Marlow has a big fear. He would feel better in his insignificance, but he cannot grasp a world where a "notable man" like Kurtz goes down in such spiral. There is impotence, there is a failure. The atheism is also expressed by the absence of leadership (or one you can trust, because Kurtz in the book is past the capacity of leadership.). I am not saying Conrad was writting about the absence of God (which is a form of faith anyways, very jewish), but his social organization is the same cynical form, there is an emptiness of reference (maybe that is why the men turn in such beasts).


As why he erases the order, maybe because he couldn't be sure who those brutes are. Maybe he was afraid it was himself and that a guy like Kurtz would bother with those africans (all the racial steriotype usually implies the european superiority fails to see the capacity among the natives. Melville uses this trick quite well in Benito Cereno). if it is possible to see Conrad writing about the european flaws, this is a good guess.

We have to part ways a little bit on this, but not entirely. As you know, after Achebe, many critics dismissed The Heart of Darkness as racist; but some have since considered it a critique of imperialism. My own opinion is that either of these readings are possible (Conrad was racist on some ways and he knew well the rottenness of colonialism and imperialism) and that both may be helpful ways to look at the texts; but that both readings miss the heart of Conrad's meaning.

For Conrad, men do not (as you say) turn into beasts. Men are beasts. Europeans, Africans, everyone. However they dress it up, they are just brutes trying to dominate one another. Note how closely this is paralleled in the novella: the horrific tree with the dead and dying slaves beneath it at the Company's compound and the tree-like posts with heads on them at Kurtz's; the dubious designation of the Company's victims as criminals and of Kurtz's as rebels; the river journey up the Congo and Marlow's comments at the beginning of the story about the Romans sailing up the Thames estuary.

It is not that even superior civilized man has a vestige of the savage in him (that is, in effect, the racist reading), but that there is no significant difference between the the so-called civilized man and the so-called savage. That is what Kurtz learns. That is the horror. And it is what Marlow tries to lie about when he returns. But it is futile, because (as the story concludes) the heart of darkness is a much London as it is the Congo. The heart of darkness is the human condition. For Conrad, this is just what human beings are.

[JCamilo]

That is just semantics (or just my english), it is ok that they are already beats when the novel begins, albeit, Kurtz was not a beast at some point in the past. (Does not means he became this beast in africa and not previously, as he was already a man of status when he goes to Congo and this status could be beastility).

The point of Achebe is another - he does a lot of noise in some other point, which is the racist - Conrad is not presentative of african literature. He is an european bias as it was all previous literature that people were studying or giving vallue. It wouldnt matter if they were racist (which can be Kipling, Conrad or Haggard kind of writers or Stevenson, Melville or watever). They weren't an african point of view. They werent african literature, so in way they were just the empire with a sympathetic view (even when they didnt consider sympathetic view, as Achebe ended leading the debate).

But the discussion about Conrad racism - as you pointed, even his very language is tainted - is different. He is not imperialist and he pretty much shots as humankind, not africans. Achebe I think was smart to direct his critic to a work that would generate such fuzz. Obvious racism would probally just get him some nods, no argument, which probally prompted a review of Conrad, which was more complex that the "his racism was the typical racism in early XX century"to a bit about conrad was kicking out the human condition in such pessmistic manner that would make him a very represenative novelist of the period of Waste Land.

I vallue post-colonial reading not as political correctness. Political correctness is attitude towards the non-existence of debate and without conflicts. It is a conservative imposition. Post-colonial reading is new perspective, many times imposed, but if they can bring something interesting it is as good as structuralism.

[Pompey Bum]

That is just semantics (or just my english), it is ok that they are already beats when the novel begins, albeit, Kurtz was not a beast at some point in the past. (Does not means he became this beast in africa and not previously, as he was already a man of status when he goes to Congo and this status could be beastility).

I'm not sure if we are saying the same thing, but Kurtz was a man of status as a rising star in Europe and he was a man of status when he was worshipped as a god in the Congo. Yes, he ordered head hunting raids, but the Company that employed him enslaved Africans and worked them to death in prison camp conditions. There was a change in Kurtz, but it wasn't a downward spiral; it was a lateral move. The veneer of civilization turned out to be mighty thin.

I'm convinced this was Conrad's point. To make it, he had to show how brutal the Company's imperialism was. That's helpful to (and in fact legitimizes) post-colonial hermeneutics. But it was only part of the point Conrad was making. I agree the post colonial reading is worthwhile, though. I also agree that political correctness seeks to impose itself by delegitimizing debate. Personally I don't distinguish between left and right PC. It's all the imposition of (interested-) party line on individual thought. But I digress.


The point of Achebe is another - he does a lot of noise in some other point, which is the racist - Conrad is not presentative of african literature. He is an european bias as it was all previous literature that people were studying or giving vallue. It wouldnt matter if they were racist (which can be Kipling, Conrad or Haggard kind of writers or Stevenson, Melville or watever). They weren't an african point of view. They werent african literature, so in way they were just the empire with a sympathetic view (even when they didnt consider sympathetic view, as Achebe ended leading the debate).

I've never actually read the Achebe essay. In fact, the only thing of his I've read Things Fall Apart. That was 30 years ago while I was living in a remote part of central Africa. It didn't impress me stylistically, but I was just a dumb 20-something at the time, so who knows? It certainly didn't resemble the African world I saw on a daily basis. The novel that did--quite precisely--was V.S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River. But I was an outsider, of course, as was Naipaul's narrator, and I only stayed for a few years.

It would be ironic if Achebe attacked or dismissed Conrad for his pessimism, especially given how nightmarishly wrong so much of African independence went. Maybe Conrad knew a thing or two about human nature.

[JCamilo]

I'm not sure if we are saying the same thing, but Kurtz was a man of status as a rising star in Europe and he was a man of status when he was worshipped as a god on the Congo. Yes, he ordered head hunting raids, but the Company that employed him enslaved Africans and worked them to death in prison camp conditions. There was a change in Kurtz, but it wasn't a downward spiral; it was a lateral move. The veneer of civilization turned out to be mighty thin.

Yeah, perhaps I expressed myself badly, but it is a bit of what I meant, when you say men are already beast to conrad, this mean no character Kurtz or Marlowe have some changes. They would be born like this, so it would be a bit like locke. There is those small changes on Marlowe and well, we cannot expect Kurtz big changes, he is not the main character and it is a small novella. The status i mean is that Kurtz was notable from the militar academy, kind like a star and , maybe we can say, the empire changed him. Maybe Conrad aspired the Empire to be better, dunno, and was unhappy with that.


I'm convinced this was Conrad's point. To make it, he had to show how brutal the Company's imperialism was. That's helpful to (and in fact legitimizes) post-colonial hermeneutics. But it was only part of the point Conrad making. I agree the post colonial reading is worthwhile, though. I also agree that political correctness seeks to impose itself by delegitimizing debate. Personally I don't distinguish between left and right PC. It's all the imposition of (interested-) party line on individual thought. But I digress.

I do not think there is left PC (and yeah, i am ignoring watever political party this may imply, so perhaps may point is there is no left or right, just conservative...)




I've never actually read the Achebe essay. In fact, the only thing of his I read Things Fall Apart; that was 30 years ago while I was living in a remote part of central Africa. It didn't impress me stylistically, but I was just a dumb 20-something at the time, so who knows? It certainly didn't resemble the world I saw on a daily basis. The novel that did--quite precisely--was V.S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River. But I was an outsider, of course, as was Naipaul's narrator, and I only stayed for a few years.

It would be ironic if Achebe attacked or dismissed Conrad for his pessimism, especially given how nightmarishly wrong so much of African independence went. Maybe Conrad knew a thing or two about human nature.

I think he does. Despite all beastiality of his characters, they (the real characters, those he bothers to use, name, give life and not just place in a scene as part of the furniture) are very human.

Anyways, I was talking more beyond the essay. Once created the controversy, Achebe lived by it. I saw interviews were he refused a dialogue, but frankly, why so. He managed to change things with his attitude, he put the sittuation on the table to be addressed. He choose well Conrad, which literal reading is indeed very close to racism, a guy who was not ahousehold name (as could be an attack on Joyce, it would raise an army to defend him) and Conrad is very nasty, in the sense, he wants to place his reader in many troubles.

[Pompey Bum]

Yeah, perhaps I expressed myself badly, but it is a bit of what I meant, when you say men are already beast to conrad, this mean no character Kurtz or Marlowe have some changes. They would be born like this, so it would be a bit like locke. There is those small changes on Marlowe and well, we cannot expect Kurtz big changes, he is not the main character and it is a small novella. The status i mean is that Kurtz was notable from the militar academy, kind like a star and , maybe we can say, the empire changed him. Maybe Conrad aspired the Empire to be better, dunno, and was unhappy with that.

I don't think Conrad has many hopes for people--imperialists or otherwise. His major idea (at least in the novels and stories I've read) is something like: if you want to know what people are like look at the way they are at sea. We can contrast this with Melville's idea that sea normal and land normal are just different. For Conrad sea normal is all there is, but people find superficial ways (like civilization and notions of cultural superiority) to prettify it. Or perhaps I'm putting it too strongly. What Axel and Lena experience in their love for each other and their need to separate from the predatory world is not superficial. Perhaps insufficient is a better word. But their island unto themselves is just a wasteland of failed projects, and in the end it does not prevent predators from coming after them. I think for Conrad the world is just what it is and there is no other way. As I said before, Melville's Stubb had a similar idea. His response was to laugh.


Anyways, I was talking more beyond the essay. Once created the controversy, Achebe lived by it. I saw interviews were he refused a dialogue, but frankly, why so. He managed to change things with his attitude, he put the sittuation on the table to be addressed.

Yes, Africans got a whole new kind of misery. He may have changed things for a minuscule number of intellectual elites, but for everyone else the troubles just kept on going. No wonder he didn't want to talk about it.


Conrad is very nasty, in the sense, he wants to place his reader in many troubles.

That's a good point. Achebe needed an underlying optimism for the dream of independence. He wasn't going to get it from The Heart of Darkness. But I think he would have been wise to have heeded Conrad's caveats instead of throwing him to the sharks. Or is it lions now? :)

[JCamilo]

I don't think Conrad has many hopes for people--imperialists or otherwise. His major idea (at least in the novels and stories I've read) is something like: if you want to know what people are like look at the way they are at sea. We can contrast this with Melville's idea that sea normal and land normal are just different. For Conrad sea normal is all there is, but people find superficial ways (like civilization and notions of cultural superiority) to prettify it. Or perhaps I'm putting it too strongly. What Axel and Lena experience in their love for each other and their need to separate from the predatory world is not superficial. Perhaps insufficient is a better word. But their island unto themselves is just a wasteland of failed projects, and in the end it does not prevent predators from coming after them. I think for Conrad the world is just what it is and there is no other way. As I said before, Melville's Stubb had a similar idea. His response was to laugh.

Well, I think "the world is just what is" and people being "just what is" are two different things. I agree that the world is a hell for Conrad, where people are set for suffering and there are things bigger than man that mess with men's condition. But I think he is moving those characters in this world, showing those characters are failing because of those powers to be (the empire, the company, etc). It is a time for a lot of despair in europe and mistrust on the kind of society existed in europe (freud was around for example), because we can see some characters are not beast. Marlowe for example (albeit, somehow mediocre) or in other books, in Narcisus we have a conflict between the crew, some worry with the sick sailor, some dont (and all is pointless, not because of their action, but because he would die anyways) and Nostromo is a story about a man being corrupted, so there is some use for humanity for Conrad there.

I think you get right when you mention "But their island unto themselves is just a wasteland of failed projects, and in the end it does not prevent predators from coming after them.", it is a bit like people who for some motive disobey the warning and keep carrying their hopes when they are in hell. Hell will come and prove over and over again that our individual hopes and dreams are a wasteland of failed projects, in Heart of Darkness, i think this project is Civilization. No matter how we have rules, there come back the world to shove up the proverbial *** that all will go wrong.

I am reading D.H.Lawrence essays and his mindset is very similar. Despite his claim of love for life, he talks predicting a huge bloodbath in europe and while, he hopes the circle of destruction will lead to construction he sundenly see it will not be the case. Destruction will not build up a better man to strive, because what happened in Russia didnt bring better russian, just more scared folks. He is writing before the second world war, but I think this echoes well with Conrad. It was probally the mood for those writers, the feeling of end of empire.



That's is a good point. Achebe needed an underlying optimism for the dream of independence. He wasn't going to get it from The Heart of Darkness. But I think he would have been wise to have heeded Conrad's caveats instead of throwing him to the sharks. Or is it lions now? :)

I think he helped Conrad. His reading is now linked with Achebe's view, so most people will pay attention to the undertones of the novels, in such way, that those aspects Achebe left with be highlighted. (Of course, some people will read - or just not read - Conrad in the most simplistic way). Imagine if it was with Kipling? His reading would be alive again (beyond the children fables) because would have to discuss the complexities beyond Kipling and just not accept the notion he was some servile slave of British Empire. He cannt be even considered great enough to be hated.

[prendrelemick]

Interesting stuff. I would just say that Achebe was wrong in taking Marlowe for Conrad. Perhaps on purpose if as you say he was pursuing a political agenda. It does not follow at all that a main character must have the veiws of the author or that a story he writes reflects his attitude. What was happening in 70's America though was Heart of Darkness was being examined mainly as a psycological drama as it pertained to the white men, with Africa merely the backdrop - 'Oh dear all those dead natives have traumatised poor me and brutilized my white pals,' approach. This wasn't Conrad's fault or his intention. So at least Achebe put the emphasis back on what was being done to Africa. In fact Heart of Darkness would be a more awkward unsettling read for his contempory audience than it is for us. Just as Conrad intended it to be.

[Pompey Bum]

Well, I think "the world is just what is" and people being "just what is" are two different things. I agree that the world is a hell for Conrad, where people are set for suffering and there are things bigger than man that mess with men's condition. But I think he is moving those characters in this world, showing those characters are failing because of those powers to be (the empire, the company, etc). It is a time for a lot of despair in europe and mistrust on the kind of society existed in europe (freud was around for example), because we can see some characters are not beast. Marlowe for example (albeit, somehow mediocre) or in other books, in Narcisus we have a conflict between the crew, some worry with the sick sailor, some dont (and all is pointless, not because of their action, but because he would die anyways) and Nostromo is a story about a man being corrupted, so there is some use for humanity for Conrad there.

Well in all fairness, I have to defer to you in some of this because you have read more Conrad than I have. I would point out that, for Conrad, the world is what it is (a phrase I actually stole from Naipaul) BECAUSE people are what they are--at heart. That doesn't mean that his characters are not differentiated or do not change in some ways. They just can't stop being human; and for Conrad that has a lot of negative implications. Actually one of my complaints about The Heart of Darkness is that there isn't enough distinction between characters. Kurtz is obviously sui generis, but Marlow is rather indistinct, and who are these Company men he meets in the field? They all seem like the same person to me. Maybe Conrad was trying to show the deadening effect of imperialism on its perpetrators, or that they were not intrepid heroes but indistinct mediocrities, or maybe it was just a flaw in the writing; but as I said before I found the Russian free agent the most interesting character in the story--more so even than Kurtz. But I don't think that is typical of Conrad. Certainly there are important moral distinctions between most of the characters in Victory. I need to read more novels about Marlow to decide whether there was something about him I was missing in Heart of Darkness.


It was probally the mood for those writers, the feeling of end of empire.

Maybe. But Conrad had also been to sea, so maybe he just knew what people are like (or thought he did).


He cannt be even considered great enough to be hated.

Heh. Well, they say karma's a b*tch. And at least he's got his Nobel Prize. He and Dylan. :)

[Pompey Bum]

Interesting stuff. I would just say that Achebe was wrong in taking Marlowe for Conrad. Perhaps on purpose if as you say he was pursuing a political agenda. It does not follow at all that a main character must have the veiws of the author or that a story he writes reflects his attitude. What was happening in 70's America though was Heart of Darkness was being examined mainly as a psycological drama as it pertained to the white men, with Africa merely the backdrop - 'Oh dear all those dead natives have traumatised poor me and brutilized my white pals,' approach. This wasn't Conrad's fault or his intention. So at least Achebe put the emphasis back on what was being done to Africa. In fact Heart of Darkness would be a more awkward unsettling read for his contempory audience than it is for us. Just as Conrad intended it to be.

Welcome back, prendrelemick. :) I agree that the approach was Eurocentric (although the United States hardly had a monopoly on that) and Achebe succeeded in giving Africans their part, but I still believe Conrad's intent was universal. Note the ending where the outer narrator describes the Thames estuary flowing into a heart of darkness. That is not because Africans have traumatized white imperialists (as we agree) but because all humans share a single nature. And it ain't pretty. :)

I imagine you are right about there being at least some distinction between Conrad and Marlow, but until I read more of the Marlow stories I had better let you discuss that with JC. He knows more about Conrad than I do.

[prendrelemick]

I remember the attitude to Empire was sorry that we lost it in the 60's, to sorry we ever had it in the 70's. When I did O level English, Heart of Darkness was taught to us with lashings of guilt for what "we" had done.

I think Conrad goes a little further than you say. He is saying we are worse than the savages, because we are able to hide behind the word "civilisation" or "progress" or "manifest destiny" or "unsound method of trade" or whatever. Marlowe holds the gone native Kurtz in higher regard than the other traders - at least he is honest. (exterminate the brutes.)
There is a passage I'm trying to remember where he compares modern imperialism to Roman, but says we are more efficient, and that although colonialism is agrivated murder, at least we (British) have a redeeming idea ... and never says what that idea is.

[JCamilo]

Prendrelemick is right about the confusion between Marlow and Conrad. It was a bit usual back then, the critics werent used with the First Person Narrator that well and many read those novels as something related to the writer. It happened with Melville also.

One thing about the Thames. While Conrad was not planning such thing (he was framing the narrative to an european audience), there is a message that europeans went to africa, screwed and returned home to look at their belly buttons and whine about their petty problems again! They made our river be their river!


Well in all fairness, I have to defer to you in some of this because you have read more Conrad than I have. I would point out that, for Conrad, the world is what it is (a phrase I actually stole from Naipaul) BECAUSE people are what they are--at heart. That doesn't mean that his characters are not differentiated or do not change in some ways. They just can't stop being human; and for Conrad that has a lot of negative implications. Actually one of my complaints about The Heart of Darkness is that there isn't enough distinction between characters. Kurtz is obviously sui generis, but Marlow is rather indistinct, and who are these Company men he meets in the field? They all seem like the same to me. Maybe Conrad was trying to show the deadening effect of imperialism on its perpetrators, or that were not intrepid heroes but mediocrities, or maybe it was just a flaw in the writing; but as I said before I found the Russian free agent the most interesting character in the story--more so even than Kurtz. But I don't think that is typical of Conrad. Certainly there are important moral distinctions between most of the characters in Victory. I need to read more novels about Marlow to decide whether there was something about him I was missing in Heart of Darkness.

I think it is the nature of the writing. He does not develop many characters except those he needs. Marlow is indistinct, average, because he is a bit Ishmael a bit a joyce character (just some chap). It is a short novella after all.


Maybe. But Conrad had also been to sea, so maybe he just knew what people are like (or thought he did).

But that is an imperial trate: guys that belonged to the world. Look how many of those british writers adventurers: burton, kipling, stevenson, conrad... they were travelers, but stevenson and burton from empire in the prime, so positive, Kipling is all awe and love until the wars killed his boy and Conrad is already pessimism. In a way there is chronology.

[Pompey Bum]

I think Conrad goes a little further than you say. He is saying we are worse than the savages, because we are able to hide behind the word "civilisation" or "progress" or "manifest destiny" or "unsound method of trade" or whatever.

You may be right (or perhaps those are your teachers talking :)). Certainly the pretenses of civilization and progress are shown to be ineffective.


There is a passage I'm trying to remember where he compares modern imperialism to Roman, but says we are more efficient, and that although colonialism is agrivated murder, at least we (British) have a redeeming idea ... and never says what that idea is.

I think he says all that makes the British different is a greater degree of efficiency. I don't remember a redemptive idea either. In that same exchange (it's near the beginning) he compares British civilization to a bolt of lightning: impressive to see but ultimately ephemeral.

[Pompey Bum]

Prendrelemick is right about the confusion between Marlow and Conrad. It was a bit usual back then, the critics werent used with the First Person Narrator that well and many read those novels as something related to the writer.

It makes sense that there would be a degree of distance between Conrad and Marlow, especially in light of an outer narrative in which Marlow's first person narrative was nested. That is also a first person narrative, but since it is anonymous, I suggest it can be taken as even closer to Conrad's voice than Marlow's. I notice that the anonymous narrator twice compares Marlow's appearance to the Buddha's. He does this when Marlow begins talking and again just as he finishes and remains silent. This image--that of Marlow discoursing to his shipmates like the Buddha to his disciples--must be important because it is repeated in this quite small outer narrative, and in fact forms a symmetrical frame for Marlow's story about Kurtz. I suggest that Conrad is not only referring to the authority and wisdom that Marlow has gained in Africa, but also (and especially) to the illusory quality of the light on the waves and of pretenses of civilization and cultural superiority. (The Buddha, of course, taught that apparent existence was illusion). This, implies the outer narrator (in effect, Conrad) was the wisdom Marlow learned on the Congo.

I really suspect Conrad is mostly about how "we" are no better than the people we call savages. To show that he has to show the stupidity and brutality of imperialism. But despite (post) modern post colonial hermeneutics, I doubt it was his first priority. I don't think his pessimism was as political as all that.

[prendrelemick]

Right. I'm going to have to re read now.

You could be right about my teachers. In junior school that would be Mrs. Pacey, born in india, daughter of Empire, who's natives, she said, loved and respected us. I remember her once saying that if the Russians killed our Queen we would go to war with them, even though we wouldn't win! She wasn't the only one of that ilk either. She probably thought Kurtz lacked backbone through too much contact with Belgians. Then in senior school my English teacher was an ex hippy chick in a mini skirt.

[tailor STATELY]

lol...
Then in senior school my English teacher was an ex hippy chick in a mini skirt.. One of mine too.

[Pompey Bum]

Then in senior school my English teacher was an ex hippy chick in a mini skirt.


lol... . One of mine too.

I went to elementary school in the late 60s. My teachers wore what they used to call microskirts--their immodesty relieved only by the occasional stylish addition of go-go boots. We were all hippies is the Summer of Love.