Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Discussion - Moby Dick
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Week 2 - through Chapter 40
"Is it Melville's intent to provide for his reader, a character, who not only believes all these things are true, but is interested and eager to propagate his ideas on these things?"I find it difficult to view "Cetology" and "The Advocate" in a slightly satirical, character-building light, because they simply are not interesting enough. Personally, I think that MELVILLE is eager to propagate his ideas on these things, and he uses dashes of humor such as the Huzza porpoise to make it sufferable. I don't see anything in either chapter that is far enough off-base to suggest that Melville is not, in a broad sense, in earnest when he talks about these things. To us, the assertion that whales are fish immediately sets off an alarm bell, because we all learned that they are mammals when we were in first grade. However, I'm not sure it would have meant the same to Melville's contemporaries. Linnaeus aside, they did still call whale hunting the whale fishery.
In light of some of the discussion of Ahab, I was struck upon re-reading this quote about Starbuck:"And brave as he might be, it was that sort of bravery, chiefly visible in some intrepid men, which, while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man."
Two chapters later, we finally meet Captain Ahab, who pretty clearly fits this description. And, indeed, Starbuck doesn't vocally oppose Ahab when he makes his announcement that they have sailed to kill Moby Dick. But I get the feeling that it's more significant than that, because Melville brings it up, not as a reaction to Ahab, but as a part of his character.
Audrey wrote: "As far as the chapters on whale classification, etc. are concerned, I think it's important to remember that information wasn't as easily accessible in the 19th century as it is now. If we're curio..."That's an excellent point. After all, with no TV or radio, no Discovery or History channel to show Deadliest Catch of its day (which I'm sure whaling was), and whaling happening thousands of miles from home, I expect that it was pretty mysterious to moss people. No aquariums or Sea World shows, either, to acquaint people with the reality of whales. What they probably had, in addition to the Bible story of Jonah, was dramatic woodcuts in a few books.
Bill wrote: "But is itA. Melville's intent to provide an education on these matters? "
I think it is that plus an apology (in the classic sense of the word) for whaling. I keep in mind that Melville himself was a crewman on several whalers, but also a very educated man back in Massachusetts hobnobbing with the intellectual set, so he would have known both the reality of the whaling life and, I am sort of assuming, the lack of respect with which the middle and upper classes (those who would be most likely to read his book) thought of whalers and whaling. A homily on whaling, sort of.
I think that's why the sermon is important; it gives the imprimatur of religious legitimacy to the business.
Adelle wrote: "Signing on for shares (lays?) might have been somewhat akin to the poor buying lotto tickets."I don't get that impression. If the voyage was successful, I suspect that the crew members could get quite nice paychecks to balance off the danger of not coming back at all.
Even today, that same shares system is used in the Alaskan fishing business. I had a client who was an Alaska fisherman on a fishing (not crabbing) vessel, and he got paid a percentage of the net take. His income from a four month fishing season was on average in excess of $60,000. Hard work, for sure, and dangerous, but lucrative.
Zeke wrote: "For the record, let me put out the idea that there is a Marxist reading to be taken from Moby Dick."
There's a Marxist reading of almost everything! [g]
But I get you point, and look forward in the final two weeks to your expounding on that in the context of the book as a whole (or sooner if you can do it without needing to include spoilers).
I'm interested in the different ways in which the three mates approach the issue of courage. They are all quite different. Starbuck: "'I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whale.' By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward. ... in him courage was not a sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. "
Stubb? A much more direct and simple approach to courage: "A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests."
And Flask? "somehow seemed to think that the great leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honour with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it;"
Three totally different approaches to the dangers of whaling. I would call them the thoughtful, the indifferent, and the pugnacious.
Bill wrote: "So this would imply you think Melville personally believed everything he wrote in The Advocate and Cetology was factual. Including this:It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies;."
Sometimes truth is conveyed through exaggeration. I think he has a point, which he touches up with overstatement. But maybe not all that much overstatement. Whalers did establish ports on various points around the ocean, and as they stopped in various ports to reprovision were probably much more frequent visitors than the official Spanish vessels -- didnT Melville say that there were some 7,000 whalers? I'm sure that Spain didn't have nearly that large a blue water navy in the 1800s.
Everyman wrote: "I'm interested in the different ways in which the three mates approach the issue of courage. They are all quite different. Starbuck: "'I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whal..."
I quite enjoyed the chapters in which introduced the various different crew members and their approach to whaling. I thought there was a good bit of humor within the chapter, and particularly in talking about Flask made me almost laugh out loud at points.
It seems that Ishmael does create a rather eccentric assortment of characters of this strange voyage in which he is about to embark upon.
Also I really enjoyed the introduction of Tashtego and Daggoo.
On a side note that I found to be interesting, I was doing some research, because some of the names used within the book do strike as being quite strange and many of them are Biblical in nature and some seem intended to be purely comical, and I happened to find out that there was an actual historic whaling family of the name Starbuck who resided within Nantucket.
I cannot help but to wonder particularly after the chapter The Advocate in which Ishmael does create this noble image of whaling/whalers, if in the way in which he akin the whalers to being like Knights. if Ishmael/Melville, are being a bit tongue and cheek.
Bill wrote: "Audrey wrote: "In light of some of the discussion of Ahab, I was struck upon re-reading this quote about Starbuck:"And brave as he might be, it was that sort of bravery, chiefly visible in some i..."
I love how Melville portrays the officers in a way that seems almost hierarchical, as if they could be classified like whales. Starbuck as the highest in rank is the closest to Ahab, and while he is "uncommonly conscientious" and superstitious he seems to be the most intelligent and the one most sensitive to Ahab's malady. He seems to already know from the start what Ahab is up to. Stubb is depicted as fearless, happy-go-lucky, but he does not know when to steer clear of Ahab. He does learn. Flask is the least mature, ignorant, unconsciously fearless, and he receives the most minimal introduction. When they go to eat with Ahab, Starbuck is the first in and spends the most time with the silent Ahab, then Stubb, and Flask, who enters the cabin "in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave." They're like Folio, Octavo, and Duodecimo.
Thomas wrote: "BWhen they go to eat with Ahab, Starbuck is the first in and spends the most time with the silent Ahab, then Stubb, and Flask, who enters the cabin "in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave." They're like Folio, Octavo, and Duodecimo. "Very cute. And acute.
Bill wrote: I find the mention of old Cervantes very interesting here. We see right here that he gets the title of these two chapters Knights and Squires from Cervante's Don Quixote and Sancho..."I almost forgot about the reference to Cervantes, and I was just thinking that the title Knights and Squires made me think of Don Quixote and Sancho.
Bill wrote: Unfortunately, I haven't read Don Quixote yet so I am deprived of all the allusions in this text that Melville has clued us into with this..."haha I am acutally reading it right now
Bill wrote: For the first time? Maybe I should start reading it simultaneously with this."Yes it is my first time reading it. Its beastily size has kept me at bay for a while but I decided to finally tackle it since it has been sitting on my shelf and I keep thinking that I eventually plan on reading it.
I'm not doing the Moby Dick read, because I hate whaling, but I admit to not having read Don Quixote myself, though I've wanted to for a long time.I know one of the groups have already done a discussion. Why don't we DQ laggers read it asap and go and continue with that discussion? Just an idea...
I'm trying to get caught up this weekend - working long hours I didn't read as much as I would have liked. I was tempted to skip the ceotolgy chapter and I'm glad I didn't. This footnote made me laugh out loud:regarding pig-fish...
"I deny their credentials as whales; and have presented them with thier passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology"
Melville tucks in so many odd little references that to skim as I usually do, I would miss everything. It is hard though to believe I am still hearing from Ishmael in chapter 32. Our boisterous whaleman has been replaced by Melville himself. Are we really to believe that Ishmael was this much a scholar?
Ordinarily, an author would not get away with such contradiction, but it seems that he entertains us so well we indulge anything he does.
CK wrote: "Melville tucks in so many odd little references that to skim as I usually do, I would miss everything. It is hard though to believe I am still hearing from Ishmael in chapter 32. Our boisterous whaleman has been replaced by Melville himself. Are we really to believe that Ishmael was this much a scholar? I think Ishmael is a professional student.
Adelle wrote: "Laurele wrote: "A thought about Melville's catalogue of the whales: it seems to me that he is following the epic tradition. Homer catalogued the ships, Milton the fallen angels, etc. Even all the "..."Adelle: I'm impressed with your ability to see between the lines, an impression Melville may have hidden for us.
This comment struck me, having just finished The Masthead:
"And it keeps us busy on a surface level so we don’t have to ponder deeper truths."
from Ishmael:
"With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how could I - being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering altitude - how could I but lightly hold my obligations..."
Perhaps the need to bring order out of chaos was in part to give his own mind something tangible to hold onto.
Laurele wrote: "CK wrote: "Melville tucks in so many odd little references that to skim as I usually do, I would miss everything. It is hard though to believe I am still hearing from Ishmael in chapter 32. Our boi..."He is certainly a student of life.
Zeke wrote: "I want to put in a vote for The Masthead (Chapter 35) as one of my favorite chapters in the book. For me, it is a nice combination of character, philosophy and humor.Ishmael warns Nantucket owne..."
Standing watch is a lesson in balance(pun not intended but there's a tiny bit of humor).
Our family boat was no great ship with a mast to climb, just a simple cabin cruiser. My favorite place to sit was on the bow, legs dangling over the edge. Here, as on the masthead, one escapes all cares and conversations and is embraced by water, wind and sun. This was also my post anytime we were caught in a storm. With hail beating my skin and wind trying to rip me from the bow, I had to be the watch and call out anything I saw in our path.
Thoughts that come to my mind are that the thing we desire most can also pose our greatest jeopardy. Also, being trusted with responsibility can mean sacrifice. Flask being perpetually hungry (Ch 34) comes to mind.
Bill wrote: "Traveller wrote: "I'm not doing the Moby Dick read, because I hate whaling, but I admit to not having read Don Quixote myself, though I've wanted to for a long time. I know one of the groups have ..."
Thanks, Bill. I think we should best move this to the tearoom so as not to hijack the MD thread. My biggest problem with DQ is that it has always seemed such a large volume to get through - but more about that in the social thread, ok?
See you there! :)
This Ishmael writes like no sailor I've ever heard of. He does not write much about what a common sailor would experience--sail-handling, swabbing, laboring, messing, and so forth. And most of all I would expect to hear more about his peers. We get more about whales than about the other sailors, and much more about the ship's officers. We know how things go at the captain's table, which Ishmael would normally know nothing of, but nothing about the crew's mess, where he would eat three times a day. I would expect to hear more about the ordinary seamen, and maybe especially about their astonished puzzlement at this young Polonius among them who is so prone to launch into elevated philosophical monologues. Even for a sailor who has been a schoolmaster, this Ishmael must have seemed very odd to his shipmates, but we don't hear anything about it.
Everyman wrote: "Like slavery, like the denial of basic rights to woman, like serfdom, like the Holocaust, there are evils in our historical past which we have learned to discuss even while the very idea that humans could do such things is deeply distressing. As we did with slavery in Huck Finn, I hope that we can deal with whaling, as it appears in this book as something which deeply disturbs us, but which at the same time we need to accept was a normal and generally accepted activity at the time the book was written. "You know, of course I feel awfully sorry for the whales in Moby Dick, but I'm not convinced that it's any more awful than either what we do today for oil (BP spill anyone?), or what we do to animals today (like eating them after they've lived their lives on a nasty industrial farm).
Now, the morality of all three of those things (whaling, deep sea oil drilling, and farm-raised animals for meat) can be debated twenty ways to next Tuesday (and I'm not a fan of any of them), but I wouldn't compare any of them to the Holocaust or slavery. Perspective!
Frank wrote: "I've been put off discussion."Not sure what you mean by that. Has something here put you off? Or the book? Or something else?
Everyman wrote: "What thinkest thee of his character now? How dost thed think that original readers meeting Ahab for the first time, with no further knowledge of the book, would at this point have thought of him?"I thought Melville's portrait of him as a man driven, devoured from within,, was nothing short of brilliant. He's painted as a martyr to his own obsession."
"He looked like a man cut away from the stake . . . " and of course he is that, exactly- Moby Dick is his cross.
"Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance . . . moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face, in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe."
It's martyrdom, but it's a perversion of what martyrdom is supposed to be. Martyrdom looks outward, is about something bigger than the self. Ahab's martyrdom is internal- more like a suicide. (Does anyone remember GK Chesterton's comments on the martyr and the suicide in Orthodoxy? This is just like that.)
Tangentially, I'm super impressed by Melville's ability to pile on those adjectives and carry it off. That's one of the things students are taught never to do- overload sentences with adjectives. But Melville does it perfectly, even hanging it all off a verb like "to be," which is REALLY something you're not supposed to do! Admiration, applause, adulation.
"Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pasing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect." Bigotry of purpose. How perfect is that?
Even little physical details about Ahab go to his character- Melville doesn't give us much that's irrelevant here. When he hums, it "seem[s] the mechanical humming of the wheels of vitality in him." His emotions are accumulated in the "Leyden jar of his own magnetic life."
He's such a tragic figure- Shakespearian, really- I just loved this bit of his monologue in chapter 37-
"Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise!"
How tragic and awful is that? That, to me, is a perfect description of Hell.
Traveller wrote: "I know one of the groups have already done a discussion [of DQ]."Actually, it was our group which did it, very early on. But as to revisiting it, with MD and then the side read of Gibbon, I'm not sure we can sustain three quality discussions here simultaneously.
Everyman wrote: "How many of you look on wildcatters, on those who want to drill for oil in ANWAR and off the California costs, on the owners and operators of the Exxon Valdez, or the Deepwater Horizon, with respect and appreciation for their contributions to your life? "Oh, I should read more thoroughly before I post! Good point, Everyman.
No matter how much I deplore the petroleum industry, of course I am entirely dependent on it.
My husband, among his many fine qualities, has a degree in structural geology. For some time he worked for a mining company in Alaska- in "minerals exploration." It wasn't oil, but it's the same sort of brutally difficult and environmentally deplorable labor that is fundamental to society (can't do much without copper wires and pipes!)
It's easy for us to sit here comfortably and condemn it all, but we'd probably advance our cause much more easily if we DID have a bit more respect for those workers!
Silver wrote: "I think another interesting thing about this, is the fact that I cannot help but find it somewhat amusing that up to this point Ishmael is not truly a whaler, they have barely even began to ship off to sea, and he has had zero experiences with the trade thus far and yet he is already speaking as if he is indeed some seasoned veteran and weaving this somewhat romantic view of whaling. "Silver, my impression was that this is Ishmael telling us this story after a lapse of many years and many other whaling expeditions.
Okay, this is a first for me. In Chapter 38, Melville writes "The white whale is their demigorgon."Demigorgon? Never heard of it. So I googled it. Nothing useful. No definition of it. So I went to my OED< and by golly, it's not in there! A word used by a major writer and not in the OED -- I've never seen that before.
Demogorgon is a word -- did Melville just misspell it?-- meaning the name of a terrible and mysterious deity, but I'm not sure that this is what Melville meant.
Demi as a prefix means half. Did Melville mean that the whale was half a Gorgon? The Gorgons were women who had snakes for hair and faces so horrid that men who looked on them were turned to stone. Is this what Melville intended to reference -- that the white whale was so terrible that it turned the men half to stone?
Anybody else have another idea here?
Roger wrote: "This Ishmael writes like no sailor I've ever heard of. "But keep in mind that when he isn't sailing, he's a schoolmaster, so he is more educated than most other sailors.
Patrice wrote: "Moby dick is rotated with Don Quixote. This is one of the reasons I was dying to read Moby Dick. Each book is chosen for it's "great idea" so there must be a parallel between the two books. I'd love to know what the idea is. Obsession? Idealism? Just guessing. Enjoy! "At this point, I would guess that it's because both are dealing with obsessive quests that overwhelm and drive them. At least, I know that's what happens with DQ, and it looks as though, even from what we've read so far, it's what's going to happen with MD (see Stubb's comments especially in Chapter 39, not to mention Ahab in Chapter 38 saying "hey think me mad—Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! ").
Everyman wrote: "I'm interested in the different ways in which the three mates approach the issue of courage. They are all quite different. Starbuck: "'I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whal..."
I think it's interesting how clearly each mate's approach to courage reflects on him as an entire man.
Starbuck I find quite admirable. I wonder if he is supposed to Symbolize Something, or whether he is just an ordinary admirable sort of man.
Laurele wrote: "I think Ishmael is a professional student. "Yes, Laurele, and I love that about him!
Traveller wrote: "I'm not doing the Moby Dick read, because I hate whaling..."Is there any way we could convince you to change your mind, Traveller? It's about so much more than whaling!
S. Rosemary wrote: "Tangentially, I'm super impressed by Melville's ability to pile on those adjectives and carry it off. That's one of the things students are taught never to do- overload sentences with adjectives. But Melville does it perfectly, even hanging it all off a verb like "to be," which is REALLY something you're not supposed to do! Admiration, applause, adulation."
Excellent point. It's the great writers who are the ones who can break the rules successfully. (And wait until you get, if you haven't gotten there yet, to the third paragraph of Chapter 42 (no, this isn't a spoiler!) -- a sentence whose length rivals the most elongated of James.
Everyman wrote: "(And wait until you get, if you haven't gotten there yet, to the third paragraph of Chapter 42 (no, this isn't a spoiler!) -- a sentence whose length rivals the most elongated of James. "I had gotten there, and it speaks even more highly to Melville's skill that I hadn't even NOTICED how ridiculously long that sentence was- until just now, when you pointed it out and I went back to look!
I'm defeated by Chapter 40. I have no idea what it's doing here, why Melville sticks what is essentially a script for an act of a play in here. If anybody has made sense of this chapter or figured out what it's doing, please share!It reminds me only too vividly of Tristam Shandy.
Bill wrote: "Adelle wrote: "Now, I'm going to flail about here, but Everyman seems to think that that's the only way I'm going to learn to swim. (Swimming probably being important when one is on a boat on open ..."
LOL, Bill, thanks for throwing me a floating device!
I'm going to read thru the new posts. Someone might already have addressed this: I was wondering if other readers had question marks in Chapter 33, The Specksynder.
LOL, Bill, thanks for throwing me a floating device!
I'm going to read thru the new posts. Someone might already have addressed this: I was wondering if other readers had question marks in Chapter 33, The Specksynder.
M wrote: "
For one thing, what the heck is going on with the narrator..."
I found that I had begun to miss Ishmael.
So I liked Chapter 24, The Advocate, in that it re-established contact with him. "As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling..."
I was actually predisposed the take the words of the advocate to heart JUST BECAUSE Ishmael was walking me through, talking true, in his own "voice" again.
I thought the begining of the chapter the weaker half of his advocacy (it was such a negative argument): Ishmael kind of saying, whalers and soldiers both deal intimately with death and both spill quantities of blood...but whalers aren't as bad as soldiers...So why shouldn't whalers be honored, too?
I thought the advocacy infinitely more powerful and persuasive when he started enumerating the positive aspects of whaling.
{I also appreciated the foreshadowing that closed the chapter:
"And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime --(oh, I loved that word choice: Prime as in prime numbers: real numbers that can't be reduced down any further...that aren't written in any fancified manner...numbers filled with the absolute truth of what they are)---
[if there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me.........if hereafter I shall do anything that upon the who a man might rather have done than to have left undone (Yes!).....then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard" (127).}
For one thing, what the heck is going on with the narrator..."
I found that I had begun to miss Ishmael.
So I liked Chapter 24, The Advocate, in that it re-established contact with him. "As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling..."
I was actually predisposed the take the words of the advocate to heart JUST BECAUSE Ishmael was walking me through, talking true, in his own "voice" again.
I thought the begining of the chapter the weaker half of his advocacy (it was such a negative argument): Ishmael kind of saying, whalers and soldiers both deal intimately with death and both spill quantities of blood...but whalers aren't as bad as soldiers...So why shouldn't whalers be honored, too?
I thought the advocacy infinitely more powerful and persuasive when he started enumerating the positive aspects of whaling.
{I also appreciated the foreshadowing that closed the chapter:
"And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime --(oh, I loved that word choice: Prime as in prime numbers: real numbers that can't be reduced down any further...that aren't written in any fancified manner...numbers filled with the absolute truth of what they are)---
[if there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me.........if hereafter I shall do anything that upon the who a man might rather have done than to have left undone (Yes!).....then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard" (127).}
@ Message 25 Everyman wrote: "For example, I loved the final comments..."
Absolutely! Especially dear to me was, "Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts."
Another great line from that chapter (#22, Merry Christmas):
"The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows" (119).
"It was a short, cold Christmas." I've tried and tried but I can't imagine what it must have been like to sail out on Christmas, the day fast merging into night...a day so traditionally spent with kith and kin, warm hearts and warmer fires...thankful for what we have.
Here's this crew of largely unacquainted men heading out in the cold and the dark with little in their pockets, all their focus on what the future might bring.
And yet.....
Perhaps there is something to life onboard a whaling ship not to be found ashore...
Ahab, broken in body, is still a-whaling.
And it struck me that Captain Peleg must have loved the whaling life. He seems to want to stay aboard the Pequad as long a possible.
I know the phrases could be differently interpreted, but I was stopped in my tracks when I read "Captain Peleg was now alive" (118). Like, on the ship, aye, friend, THAT is where and when Peleg was alive. Why, it's like he's channeling a different personality, ripping and swearing "in the most frightful manner," reinforcing the import of his directives with the impact of a direct kick in the behinds to various crewmen.
And both Peleg and Bildad were "loath to depart," very loath to leave," "loath to say good-by"...that's a good deal of loathness on a cold Christmas night when food and friends and family await back ashore.
(MMM, any significance, do you think, in there being a "leg" in Peleg's name?)
Absolutely! Especially dear to me was, "Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts."
Another great line from that chapter (#22, Merry Christmas):
"The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows" (119).
"It was a short, cold Christmas." I've tried and tried but I can't imagine what it must have been like to sail out on Christmas, the day fast merging into night...a day so traditionally spent with kith and kin, warm hearts and warmer fires...thankful for what we have.
Here's this crew of largely unacquainted men heading out in the cold and the dark with little in their pockets, all their focus on what the future might bring.
And yet.....
Perhaps there is something to life onboard a whaling ship not to be found ashore...
Ahab, broken in body, is still a-whaling.
And it struck me that Captain Peleg must have loved the whaling life. He seems to want to stay aboard the Pequad as long a possible.
I know the phrases could be differently interpreted, but I was stopped in my tracks when I read "Captain Peleg was now alive" (118). Like, on the ship, aye, friend, THAT is where and when Peleg was alive. Why, it's like he's channeling a different personality, ripping and swearing "in the most frightful manner," reinforcing the import of his directives with the impact of a direct kick in the behinds to various crewmen.
And both Peleg and Bildad were "loath to depart," very loath to leave," "loath to say good-by"...that's a good deal of loathness on a cold Christmas night when food and friends and family await back ashore.
(MMM, any significance, do you think, in there being a "leg" in Peleg's name?)
@ Message 48 Silver wrote: quoted When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, ..."
I agree, that was a beautiful passage.
I've noticed that the Pequod is more than once described as vindictive.
I agree, that was a beautiful passage.
I've noticed that the Pequod is more than once described as vindictive.
S. Rosemary wrote: "Everyman wrote: "What thinkest thee of his character now? How dost thed think that original readers meeting Ahab for the first time, with no further knowledge of the book, would at this point have ..."
Excellent. I loved seeing Ahab thru the passages that spoke to you. Just lovely.
Excellent. I loved seeing Ahab thru the passages that spoke to you. Just lovely.
Bill wrote: "Adelle wrote: "Someone might already have addressed this: I was wondering if other readers had question marks in Chapter 33, The Specksynder.
..."
It seems to me the Specksnyder stands for the emptiness of formal worthiness or respectability in itself. ..."
You may well be onto something. I read that darn chapter twice and haven't been able to come to terms with it.
Yes,mmmm, so there's that title...but as you say, pretty much empty. If there had still been any real influence or power in the postition, then Ahab wouldn't have had such absolute control of the ship...he would only have been the navigator.
That passage with all the talk of forms ... "Ahab was by no means unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea"
"behind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself"
"through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible dictatorship"
Forms can be empty?
Forms can be corrupted? Like the title itself by the British?
Empty forms now devoid of active life can be used as a substitute (a crutch? a wooden leg?) for actual living?
????? Somehow, I think it's an important chapter.
That's a powerful quote you posted must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!
and I know it's important....but this chapter still gets away from me.
..."
It seems to me the Specksnyder stands for the emptiness of formal worthiness or respectability in itself. ..."
You may well be onto something. I read that darn chapter twice and haven't been able to come to terms with it.
Yes,mmmm, so there's that title...but as you say, pretty much empty. If there had still been any real influence or power in the postition, then Ahab wouldn't have had such absolute control of the ship...he would only have been the navigator.
That passage with all the talk of forms ... "Ahab was by no means unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea"
"behind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself"
"through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible dictatorship"
Forms can be empty?
Forms can be corrupted? Like the title itself by the British?
Empty forms now devoid of active life can be used as a substitute (a crutch? a wooden leg?) for actual living?
????? Somehow, I think it's an important chapter.
That's a powerful quote you posted must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!
and I know it's important....but this chapter still gets away from me.
Bill wrote: "I was struck with the fact that Ishmael is quite caught up in the celebratory departure. I think he sees it through the wide eyes of a novice and a dreamer which can only add those subjective perceptions to whatever objective reality there was--his exhilaration and anticipation is quite remarkable and, I suspect, incommensurate with the reality ahead of him.
That's true, isn't it. He doesn't have any reality related references in which to frame his idea of what whaling IS. And yet, he is specifically looking for a whaling ship. He must have imagined positives into the whaling experience.
Mmm. Gotta head off to bed. Mmmm. Since I'm still obsessing (lol) over "forms," [I confess, I also thought about Plato at this juncture. Patrice??] perhaps Ishmael fell in love with the storybook "forms" of whaling that he read into it himself. Perhaps reality will grab him by the lapels of his shabby pea coat and shake him up.
Ahgggh. Too late.
That's true, isn't it. He doesn't have any reality related references in which to frame his idea of what whaling IS. And yet, he is specifically looking for a whaling ship. He must have imagined positives into the whaling experience.
Mmm. Gotta head off to bed. Mmmm. Since I'm still obsessing (lol) over "forms," [I confess, I also thought about Plato at this juncture. Patrice??] perhaps Ishmael fell in love with the storybook "forms" of whaling that he read into it himself. Perhaps reality will grab him by the lapels of his shabby pea coat and shake him up.
Ahgggh. Too late.
Adelle wrote: "I've tried and tried but I can't imagine what it must have been like to sail out on Christmas, the day fast merging into night...a day so traditionally spent with kith and kin, warm hearts and warmer fires...thankful for what we have."
But Ishmael and Qweequeg, at least, seem to have no kith and kin to spend Christmas with, and when we see much of the rest of the crew in Chapter 40, it seems that maybe they don't, either, being long ways from home. So maybe Christmas isn't that significant to whalers, and maybe that's the point Melville is making by having them leave on Christmas?
Everyman wrote: " But Ishmael and Qweequeg, at least, seem to have no kith and kin to spend Christmas with, and when we see much of the rest of the crew in Chapter 40, it seems that maybe they don't, either, being long ways from home. So maybe Christmas isn't that significant to whalers, and maybe that's the point Melville is making by having them leave on Christmas?
..."
True, they don't seem to have family.
Captain Ahab is leaving his wife Charity behind.
3 years.
Edit: I had mistakenly thought that Charity was Ahab's wife. It looks as though, actually, Ahab's wife is never mentioned by name; she and her son weren't there to see Ahab off.
..."
True, they don't seem to have family.
Captain Ahab is leaving his wife Charity behind.
3 years.
Edit: I had mistakenly thought that Charity was Ahab's wife. It looks as though, actually, Ahab's wife is never mentioned by name; she and her son weren't there to see Ahab off.
I found the final emergence of captain Ahab to be quite an interesting scene, particularly in the way in which it seems his moods were so closely linked to the changing of the seasons, and while to a certain degree this may be true, it seems more defined within Ahab, and it did point me in the mind of several different things. I have to admit the first thing that popped into my head when they described him coming out of his final seclusion, and his starting to gradually become more sociable and agreeable with the coming of spring, was the image of a bear coming out of hibernation. Particularly in Ishmael's reference that it seemed as if winter was the only thing keeping him secluded in his cabin.
"as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded"
Than I began to think of the myth of Persephone, and once again being able to come back up into the light, and brining life and brightness to the world after her long captivity in the dark land of the dead, in which winter falls upon the land.
The whole image of Ahab's finally coming back out into sight, and its being connected to the seasons of winter and spring, gave it this vision of being like a sort of rebirth, and also put in my mind the story of Lazarus. Particularly considering the way he had been shut away for so long with some apparently mysterious ailment, to finally reappear in what seems the perfect picture of health and robustness.
Everyman wrote: "Okay, this is a first for me. In Chapter 38, Melville writes "The white whale is their demigorgon."
Demigorgon? Never heard of it. So I googled it. Nothing useful. No definition of it. So I ..."
Powermobydick.com, a site with the entire text of the book which has handy definitions of unfamiliar words and terms in the margins [which can be turned off if not wanted], also says Melville means demogorgon. But they add a twist:
Demigorgon: demogorgon, an ancient god or demon of the underworld
Don't know where they got that, but it does seem appropriate for a "demonic" (in Ahab's eyes) deep-ocean whale to be connected with demons of the underworld.
Demigorgon? Never heard of it. So I googled it. Nothing useful. No definition of it. So I ..."
Powermobydick.com, a site with the entire text of the book which has handy definitions of unfamiliar words and terms in the margins [which can be turned off if not wanted], also says Melville means demogorgon. But they add a twist:
Demigorgon: demogorgon, an ancient god or demon of the underworld
Don't know where they got that, but it does seem appropriate for a "demonic" (in Ahab's eyes) deep-ocean whale to be connected with demons of the underworld.
For the record, let me put out the idea that there is a Marxist reading to be taken from Moby Dick.