MOBY DICK –Herman Melville’s philosophical epic journey of grand proportions

My course notes-for the next tutorial - any feedback most welcome.    

I have subjectively selected a number of evocative texts to shed some light on several themes for group discussion.
The novel can be described as a philosophical novel, a ripping whaling yarn, a social critique, a theodicy, a Shakespeare-styled political tragedy, an environmentalist epic; but as it embraces all of these, one concludes it is indefinable.     
Philosophical themes and ideas for group discussion

Some philosophers see elements of Arthur Schopenhauer in the narrative, who is best known for The World as Will and Representation depicting a phenomenal world also evidenced in the insatiable will of Ahab. He is the heroic nihilist seeking a face to face confrontation with MOBY DICK. 

Melville’s novel depicts this titanic confrontation between the whale and the heroic nihilism of the leader Captain Ahab and crew pitted against it. But I should pause here to explain what is meant by Nihilism. One can say its underlying premise is one of pessimism or scepticism about attributing any meaning to life at all. In other words there is no inherent value in anything apart from what we can create by way of our freedom. A counter measure to contemporary Nihilism can be the theistic belief systems (GOD) or in deities (GODS) which attempt to provide that existential meaning.

We might like to link that idea to last week’s discussion on the synthesis presented by Descartes. He talked about the need to make a distinction between the finite (the here and now) and the infinite comprising endless possibilities. Note a Kierkegardian would seek to establish a balance between the two, to avoid the sort of obsession and or madness vividly depicted in Melville’s narrative of Ahab.  

Another emergent theme is the futility to defy nature as in materialist’s quest to encroach upon the sea.

Melville also introduces us to Book of JOBE in the Old Testament. Some philosophers think we should regard this work as the beginning of westernised philosophy because it raises the question of evil and suffering that happens to JOBE notwithstanding he is regarded as a good person.

Yet, another view is to see the novel as critique against the Judea Christian tradition which we could associate with Melville’s upbringing as a Calvinist. What Dreyfus contends is Melville clearly portrays his leanings towards Polytheisms and the ancient sacred nature of these wisdom streams represent that of a meaningful existence. In Dreyfus’s opinion Melville is not against one person following a religion, but rather the idea that this can be the only valid perspective, so that he worships alongside all religions without the need to form an affinity to any. This is except for the idea he feels drawn to feelings, about which he attributes to a GOD as he sees as analogous to the ancient Greek GODS in Homer’s polytheism. But in a sense does he ever get there as in embracing something of substance in his commitment. Is he only skating along the edges?

We also see this clearly in his letters to his lifelong friend author Nathan Hawthorne. 

It has also been suggested by a number of literary scholars Hawthorne was instrumental in some re-writes to give more weight to philosophical underpinnings

We also know from his letters that the idea to write a novel about a whale was written from experiencing a dark feeling of forbearance about an actual incidence that occurred where the crew went down and the whale escaped. As Melville was purveying the final touches of his manuscript ready for publication, he had evidently decided to send a copy to Hawthorne. The impression gained was that Hawthorne might have influenced him previously to rewrite part of what was a draft of an idea for a novel and encouraged him to give it more of a philosophical flavour.

Ultimately the first key questions for us to discuss is why did Melville write the book? 

In his letter to Hawthorne he talks about being as spotless as the Lamb (a rather obvious reference to Jesus Christ) but Melville as in Ismael, initially is as an enthusiastic follower of Ahab, along with the rest of the crew of the Pequod. He is the first person narrator, then forms part of the crew, only to disappear mysteriously but reappear later on, to be the sole survivor.  Is he a narrator for Ismael or to tell the tragic story of Ahab, or possibly both?

A puzzling aspect is, do we think Melville intended the novel as some sort of an exposé of the need to consider a cultural change to ensure a salvic healing to occur, as is suggested may be the case by Dreyfus. For instance there is a statement in the novel that infers all humanity is cracked around the head,
We might also like to consider what Melville implied given that Ismael is saved by the floating coffin with the tattoos carved into it by Queequeg.

So that Is Queequeg, who only joined the voyage to satisfy his curiosity about the western culture, then the spotless lamb that becomes defiled and goes down with the ship?  

The whale also provides plenty of room for discussion, since we are continually exposed to an infinity of descriptions. 
Images as the King of the sea, the great Leviathan, Satan, swallower of Jonah, the sperm found within its head is ‘the sovereigntist thing on earth- an inward bruise. So what is the whale meant to signify? 
Do all of the attributes cancel out? So, we conclude it cannot be described, just as we cannot describe GOD. Is this a valid conclusion? Dreyfus also seems to think this is the case. 
Plot Summary

The narrator Ishmael, (Melville begins by saying ‘call me Ishmael’), is to undertake a maiden voyage on a whaler. He meets up with a Polynesian man at the Spouter Inn, as both are on route to find a berth on a whaling ship.   At the spouters Inn, he is mesmerised by a strange painting, a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish- the great Leviathan himself. He is later enthused by Ahab to whom he is initially impressed, he casts aside his previous uneasy feelings and decides to embark on the Voyage.  

He is at first repelled by Queue’s strange habits and shocking appearance (Queequeg is covered head to toe with tattoos), which is an important to note. Ishmael does come to appreciate his generosity and kind spirit, as the two decide to seek work on a whaling vessel together. They take the ferry to Nantucket, a capital of the whaling industry. Note at that time in America whaling was a large industry with 650 ships.   

There they both secure berths on the Pequod, a ship adorned with the bones and teeth of sperm whales. Both Peleg and Bildad, the Pequod’s Quaker owners, extract a hard bargain in terms of salary. They also reveal the ship’s captain is the mysterious Ahab, who is still recovering from losing his leg to MOBY DICK in an encounter with the whale on his last voyage.

Before departing Ishmael and Queequeg attend a service at the Whaleman’s Chapel. Father Maple offers the story of Jonah and the Whale as a means of ensuring the whalers connect their craft to the Biblical record of their faith. Here we see the exact opposites as Maple’s torments at sea has led him to a life of service whilst Captain Ahab only seeks revenge.
Whilst at sea Ahab nails a gold doubloon to the mast as a reward for the first crew member to sight Moby Dick. The Pequod is initially unsuccessful in a number of whale hunts. During this time Ahab introduces his crew to his smuggled in a band of harpoonists, a move in defiance of the express wishes of the Quaker owners. Their leader is called Fedallah and it was his prophecies that impressed Ahab, who feels his presence will help in his quest to harpoon the whale.  

As the Pequot rounds Africa to the Indian Ocean they are successful with a number of hunts. They encounter other whalers, so Ahab seeks information on the whereabouts of Moby Dick. Captain Gabriel of the ship called Jeroboam prophesies that harm will come to anyone who threatens that whale.  

The next successful hunt brings misfortune aboard the Pequot as Tashlego falls into a whale’s head whilst they are extracting oil. (Principally all of the oil is in the head of a whale). He is ripped free from the ship and hurled into the sea. Queequeg saves Tashlego by diving into the ocean and cutting away the sinking head. Queequeg subsequently becomes very sick, but he has a shine about him that signifies some sort of enlightened glow. He proceeds to make a coffin for himself adorned with carvings that are the exact replica of those tattoos on his body. In the final scenes when the Pequod and all the crews and AHAB go down to the ocean depths, the coffin floats to the top and provides the passage of safety to Ishmael for him to be the sole survivor.       

Returning to the sequence of events during another hunt Pip, the black cabin boy jumps from a whaleboat to thereafter drift aimlessly in the seas and becomes crazy. He becomes symbolically the jesting prophetic companion of the Pequod. We might conclude he represents the post slavery world of indifference and continuing white supremacy to enslave its black brothers to an aimless existence.   
The next encounter is with Samuel Enderby, a Captain minus an arm, by courtesy of an encounter with Moby Dick, who again warns Ahab not to pursue the whale. Samuel is grateful for his escape but perplexed by Ahab’s vengeance.
The finale is an interesting anticlimax as Ahab never gets a chance to face MOBY DICK and harpoon the great white whale to fulfil his fanatical mission. Instead there is a series of events:  Fedallah is trapped in the harpoon line and hurled into the sea, and the crew all perish as they are dragged into the vortex of the sinking Pequod after being rammed by Moby Dick. 
Ismael, who was thrown outside of the vortex earlier on in the chase is the sole survivor.
He finds refuge in the coffin that was initially constructed for Queequeg, constructed for him earlier on when he became ill and it was thought he would die, but recovered.  
Ishmael is eventually rescued by one of the whalers still searching for survivors after their prior encounter with Moby Dick. 
Herman Melville- Moby-Dick (1851).

His other works include Type (1846), Omro (1847), Redburn (1849) and Billy Budd (published posthumously in 1924).

However. It was not until the 20^th Century that he achieved the fame and stature that was largely absent during his life. 
His first 3 novels were best sellers in the style of adventure books based on his sea journeys. But Melville was more interested in social critiques and philosophical speculation. So that MOBY DICK and other short stories, such as Bartley the Scrivener (1853) reflected this change in emphasis using metaphors and inviting philosophical enquiry.  They were not popular and folk did not know what to make of them.

MOBY DICK may seem excessively burdensome to read today but it is also majestic in its literary excellence to emerge as an enduring classic.  Melville’s’ prior life story is analogous to its narrator Ishmael who begins as ‘Call me Ishmael’, a name from the Old Testament belonging to the illegitimate son of Abraham and Sarah. Sarah casts out Ishmael once she miraculously (aged 90) gives birth to Isaac. Hence Ishmael became an outcast and a wanderer, with no identity or world of his own. He would have had reason to question his abandonment, which provides us fertile room for discussion.   

Melville’s earlier life was similarly rootless. His Father’s bankruptcy and death in 1832 deprived him of higher education, but he is superbly self-educated, principally inspired by the works of Shakespeare and Emerson, whose style is evident in his writing. His ecology is evidenced by a stated fear that whaling will decimate its population.

The work has applications and plenty of discussion points today given his ideas on tolerance and the need to show respect to all cultures but not to become fanatical on a singular level. In MOBY DICK he advances the idea of polytheism as the healing answer to an intolerant materialistic world. But there is no reason why the monotheistic religions of today can’t be more tolerant and bring with that the prospect of peace. 

He first taught school, then sailed to Liverpool and back, shipped on a whaler, deserted to the Marquesas Islands, lived amongst the cannibals, boarded an Australian whaler to Tahiti to be subsequently gaoled for mutiny, escaped, became a beach comer until another whaler took him to Hawaii. He finally returns home to become a writer.

Talk about someone who is rootless and a wanderer. Here we have the perfect example!
Melville’s Polytheism

Immediately we see evidence of Melville’s polytheism in his way of thinking since his moods dictate how he chooses to live. Notice at the beginning - Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. 

Hence, he does not freely decide when to go to sea but rather it is his moods that dictate that choice.  So we are reminded of Homer and his moods, to attune those to their situations which prompt one what to do. What we could discuss is the role of fate in existence.

To reiterate what was earlier on we see Polytheistic leanings illustrated in one of his letters to Hawthorne. Melville had formed a friendship with the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom he dedicated Moby-Dick.  An extract of his long letter to Hawthorne was, I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialites are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling -- no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content -- that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.

The reference to a wicked book illustrates his intended critique of Christianity to reject the underpinnings of his strict Calvinistic upbringing. His disposition to polytheism is clearly seen from “Ineffable socialites are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon”. Herein one notices an affinity to the ancient polytheistic Gods although perhaps he meant the Greek Gods rather than those of the Roman Pantheon.  

Subsequently we get the impression he feels perfectly content with the views he expresses as a polytheist. But his views are more than just anti-Christian, for he is against any religion that asserts there can be only one Supreme Being. 
His view is any culture that asserts it has a view of the meaning of the universe is false, as everything is a matter of interpretation from the way down. To the Christians at that time, this would represent a wicked book, although he is entirely comfortable with it.    

Accepting as sacred on all other religions. 

Ishmael has a blood bonding with the heathen harpooner Queequeg, to accept his GOD, YO YO as sacred. "I'll try a pagan friend since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy."
So that the underlying theology espoused by Ishmael is he wants to be at home in all religions. This does not mean he agrees with any of them, for he may even regard some as childish. 

But rather to hold them all sacred. He is happy to worship with them by participating in their customs and beliefs to hold that cultural aspect as sacred      

Melville expertly filters out his animosity to Christianity, lest it render his work unpopular, by attributing his biting invective to Ishmael, who in turn identifies Ahab as a kind of irredeemable lunatic: "Human madness is often a cunning and feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into a subtler form. Ahab's lunacy subsided not, but deafeningly Contracted."

MOBY DICK 
Ahab’s description:   
 ‘Hark ye yet again,—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed— there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.
Ahab’s definition of “All visible objects” as “pasteboard masks” indicates his desire to see through the material world and comprehend the inner reality invisible to humans. In so doing, Ahab evokes the platonic myth of the cave by using such words as “the prisoner” and “the wall.”
MOBY DICK then takes on an alternative meaning as a metaphor for a vengeful GOD. MOBY DICK represents symbolically that which is unfathomable as in GOD or an ultimate reality which is beyond ones grasp. The vengeful GOD of the Old Testament. 
MOBY DICK is ubiquitous, but immortal, invulnerable to any form of assault, "Though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he will still swim away unharmed." He is beyond understanding: "The great Leviathan (any huge marine animal, as in a whale) is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last. One portrait may hit the mark nearer than another, but none can hit it with any considerable degree of accuracy."
In another passage Moby Dick had ripped away Ahab’s leg, as a mower does to a blade of grass in the field.

Ahab as metaphor    

Ahab, as a runaway locomotive.
The path of my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush. Nought’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!

MOBY DICK TO AHAB 

Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical.

Ahab defies GOD, and questions God’s claims to be “unbegun”, suggesting that even for God there is “some unsuffusing thing beyond thee,” for “all thy creativeness (is) mechanical.”

Ahab has become an empty shell of a man, his passions are so consumed against MOBY DICK, all kindness and reason for living disappear apart from his fanaticism to hunt and kill MOBY DICK.  In that respect he has an unconditional commitment to that cause, so in effect it is a form of worship by hating – ‘Kierkegaard’. 

The anticlimactic ending.

Notice in my plot summary Ahab never gets to face MOBY DICK as the subsequent vortex from the sinking Pequod sends the crew except Ismael to their grave, which is almost incidental to the narrator and MOBY DICK.
This is in keeping with the idea of the GOD which I think Melville wants to project, as ONE who cannot be attached or known in the manner that Ahab attempts to characterise. That is, in hating as in Ahab wanting to confront GOD (MOBY DICK) face to face. For that GOD, and those others of the various cultures according to Melville, as in Ismael’s narrative, must remain sacred but also a reality beyond one’s grasp, as sought by a fanatically inspired Ahab.    
I think there is ample room here for discussion and to introduce significant other parts of the work that may be of interest.