November 1, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Moby Dick can be summed up with something like the following:
A man (the narrator) decides to join a whaling crew. The captain of his ship is possessed with thoughts of revenge. The man learns a lot about whales. The captain’s pursuit of vengeance gets everyone killed with the exception of the narrator (and perhaps the whale).
I’m sure you could boil it down further. My point is that the plot is not all that complicated. There are a few twists and turns, such as meeting Queequeg, encountering other Nantucket boats, and a few story-within-a-story episodes, but overall, the plot is simple. However, large interruptions occur throughout the story. Melville inserts all sorts of seemingly extraneous data in the form of definitions and detailed descriptions. Melville wants the reader to understand the very visceral experience of whaling, so he describes the tools, the ropes, the squalls, the types of whales. In fact, the entire middle section of the novel contains large amounts of non-story moving information.
The reader learns what Ishmael (the narrator) learns. From this hodge-podge of information, Ishmael finds himself attached to the Pequod and its crew in a very singular way. Although I’m not sure how he feels about Ahab overall, he understands that his life aligns with that of Ahab’s. The captain’s power, mystery, and drive seem appealing. Ishmael explains, “But Ahab, my captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching emperors and kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab, what shall be grand in thee, I must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!” In the reader’s eyes, Ahab may appear as somewhat impoverished, but aboard that ship he is king. In remembering Ahab this way, Ishmael connects himself with something grand and mysterious. Moby Dick also comes to inhabit this majestic space. To embrace the story, though, one must understand the details.
At sea, Ahab is majestical. He has great skill at sailing and whaling. For example, he tracks a single whale in all the vast oceans by following instinct and instrument. Ahab knows how long whales sound, he has studied their behavior, he knows about types of blowholes and pods. Ahab is courageous. Consider the moment when he grabs the harpoon after its been struck by lightning and fire pours from the tip (in “The Candles”). Ahab is bold, persistent, and intelligent.
Yet, in the previous quote, Ishmael exclaims, “what shall be grand in thee, I must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!” This foreshadows Ahab’s actual death. Ishmael first calls him a “poor old whale-hunter,” but finds this unsatisfactory in memory and also in the way that it characterizes the story’s end. How many regular people in our lives go unnoticed in the large scheme of the world! Ishmael recognizes Ahab’s brilliance, but also his tragic nature. But Ishmael also wants to validate this life altering journey of his own. He must find some redeeming quality in Ahab’s reckless voyage, otherwise Ishmael himself loses some aspect of importance.
So, in order to write the grand, tragic tale Melville uses all those messy middle chapters filled with data and information to build tension. He puts a singular spotlight on the whaling industry and these seemingly unimportant details give the story its strength. Imagine if we cut out the hundred or so chapters of data what shell we would be left with. We would have only a story, but none of the meat. Somehow, the odd, everyday details grant such power and purpose to an otherwise simple story of revenge that without them, the book might not actually work. Furthermore, in many of these chapters about the odds and ends of industry, Melville offers philosophical gems.
I submit the following as only one example from many that I could choose which. This quote comes from “Chapter 86: The Tail.”
“Nor does this – its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through a Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied tendons that all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.”
Ishmael aligns the use and shape of a whale’s tale with artistic beauty, divine beauty. From there, he continues to describe the particular motions a tale might make, slashing or curving, in peace or in anger. Ishmael seems to have greatly studied the motions and emotions of the whale’s tale. From this he explains that the whale never wriggles, as “wriggling is a sign of inferiority.” We also learn that the whale plays freely when unobserved: “you find him unbent from the vast corpulence of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays on the ocean as if it were a hearth.” And finally, in watching a whale breach, Ishmael writes, “[I]n gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the archangels.” And finally, he dissects the tale and talks of ligaments.
And this is only one example of many. Melville writes of bones and ligaments, of ritual and oil and skin. So, you see how Melville layers data into meaning. If the reader gives only a passing attempt at reading this novel then the chase, the vengeance, the sublimity is all lost. The details give the story purpose. I don’t pretend to understand this novel, but I have wrestled with it and gained much in the attempt. I am also very grateful for the group of readers who attempted it with me!
Photo credit: Shutterstock/ George Burba
