Moby Dick, Herman Melville, 1851

 Introduction

Moby Dick is the second book I’ve read in my series on American Literature and the “Great American Novel.” First, I will comment on this book’s “GAN” credentials. Whale oil was one of the most critical commodities of the 19th century Industrial Revolution economy in the United States and in the world, providing illumination and lubrication to houses, streets, and factories - really to everyone everywhere who could afford it. Unfortunately, so much of our history, including so much of humanity’s evil history, is attributable to the hunt for useful commodities - sugar, tobacco, cotton, oil, and of course, whale oil. 

These commodities were usually acquired through industrialized violence. While many were wrung from the soil by the callused hands and arched backs of enslaved people, whale oil was produced by hunting, butchering, and boiling whales all across the world’s oceans. To this day, the legacy of whaling is the greatly reduced and endangered whale population. Whales are critical to ocean ecosystems and whales themselves demonstrate highly developed intellectual, emotional, and social intelligence. Their industrial slaughter is one of history’s evils.

The book does not view whaling as wrong, but instead it glorifies it. The author takes many chapters to demonstrate the majesty of the whale, likening them to royalty and gods, but at the same time uplifting their hunting to a glorious pursuit. There are famously many long passages describing the minutiae of the whaling vessel and industry. Moby Dick captures not only the details of this extractive industry, but also the thinking that drove it at the time - insights that apply to the industries surrounding the other commodities as well. 

At the same time, there are deep insights and lessons about the human condition at an individual level that are useful for any reader. 

Plot and Structure

The kernel of Moby Dick’s narrative is well known - Captain Ahab sets out on a whaling voyage to avenge his own bodily mutilation at the hands of the vicious, intelligent white sperm whale, the eponymous Moby Dick. In the end, Ahab’s ship Pequod encounters the whale. Ahab battles Moby Dick but is killed along with the whole of his crew and ship. This is such a bedrock American narrative that it has attained a life of its own beyond the novel itself through references and retellings. I think it is worthwhile to elaborate some of the details of the narrative as it is presented in Meville’s novel, hopefully at first presenting it without these later elaborations.

Let’s lay out the plot beyond the well-known kernel. The narrator of Moby Dick is a man who famously begins his narration with the line, “Call me Ishmael.” He describes himself as someone who periodically must get away from regular life in civilization and the city by going to the sea - a call heard by many across time. In the past this has meant serving as crew on merchant ships, but now the call leads him to a whaling ship. Whaling voyages were the most adventurous, challenging, and romanticized, taking as much as three years or more, visiting the furthest reaches of the oceans, involving the greatest dangers and heroism. Ishmael travels to New Bedford in search of a ship, where he meets Queequeg, a princely Pacific Islander ‘cannibal.’ The two become fast friends and continue onwards to Nantucket, the capital of the whaling world of the mid 1800s. 

Once reaching Nantucket, the pair visit the ports and meet the owners of Pequod, join its crew, and make ready to set sail. But while waiting, Ishmael receives warnings about the captain, Ahab, and half perceives ominous activity surrounding the preparation of the Pequod. Nonetheless, they join the crew and depart. 

The makeup of Pequod’s crew is informed by the realities of 19th century whaling but taken to a caricatured level. As described in research in a Freakonomics miniseries on whaling that I listened to while reading Moby Dick, whaling ships were very ethnically diverse workplaces, especially taking into account the legal racial caste system in place at the time. On the Pequod, every nationality and ethnic origin has its representative among the crew, ranging from Tahiti to the Isle of Man, to China, to Persia, and so on. The three mates are White Nantucketers named Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. There are three corresponding harpooneers who occupy a place of authority between officer and crewmember, each a somewhat exaggerated stereotype of various “pagans.” They are Queequeg; Tashtego, a Gay Head Indian hunter from Martha’s Vineyard; and Daggoo, an imposing West African warrior. Captain Ahab remains cloistered in his cabin during the beginning portion of the voyage, but rumors swirl onboard about the accident that took his leg during his last voyage. Eventually, Ahab reveals himself and his plans. 

Up to this point, the plot and structure are straight-ahead and traditional. Ishamel delivers a close first person narrative recounting his experiences, alongside ample commentary and thoughts. When Ahab emerges, he gathers the crew and explains that his goal is not to pursue a routine profitable whaling venture - instead, he delves into the depths of his hatred for the famed white whale named Moby Dick who took his leg and his burning desire for revenge. This whale was known throughout the whaling fisheries for its immense size and its apparent intelligence and malevolence. Gradually it became known that the white whale would respond to hunts with a sense of revenge, often killing and maiming its hunters. As long as Ahab is alive and Moby Dick is alive, the Pequod will hunt the white whale all across the world. Ahab corrals the group into an impassioned, nearly demonic ceremony where he coaxes the whole crew to throw in with him and vow the same intentions upon Moby Dick. Ahab embeds a gold coin in the mast, promising it to the one who sights the whale.

Immediately thereafter, the plot and structure transform to become experimental and nonlinear. The narration leaves Ishamel, who largely fades away, becoming omniscient. At times the text is organized like a theatrical play. Long stretches describe the ship, the practice of whaling, and the whales themselves in great detail, punctuated by bursts of activity either in the form of whale hunts or encounters with other ships. All the while, Ahab paces the deck with his thumping ivory leg, pressing the encountered ships with the question, “Hast seen the White Whale?” I think the structure is designed to give a sense of the experience of the crew. They would experience long, monotonous periods of inactivity and short bursts of action, mirroring the structure. 

Over time, Ahab’s first mate Starbuck comes to a greater understanding of Ahab’s inner mind, the insane all-consuming hatred for the white whale that drives Ahab to disregard all else, including the profitability of the venture and the safety of the crew. Tensions grow between them, but Starbuck remains ruefully loyal. 

After the Pequod has traversed from Nantucket, around Africa, around Southeast Asia, and has made it into the Pacific, it reaches the ‘Line,’ or equator. Finally, the famous call of “There she blows!” is sounded, this time for the unmistakable Moby Dick. A three day chase ensues, culminating in the destruction of the entire Pequod and the death of nearly its entire crew, destroyed and murdered by Moby Dick. Only Ishmael escapes with his life, holding onto the Pequod’s darky hilarious life buoy, a repurposed coffin originally constructed for Queequeq during the voyage as he lay sick in what was thought to be his deathbed. Ishmael is picked up by a whaling ship that the Pequod had encountered just before the hunt called the Rachel. Ironically, the Rachel had been combing the seas for signs of a lost crewmember - the captain’s own son - taken by the white whale just days beforehand. 

As for Ahab, his blind, single-minded, and heated thirst for revenge had grown throughout the voyage. He forged a special harpoon tempered with human blood. He hid a stowaway harpoon-boat crew for the first half of the voyage that he would use to supplement the hunt. Ahab was even fueled by what is portrayed as a kind of black magic, a prophecy offered to him by his servant Fedallah, a Zoroastrian Persian or ‘Parsee,’ who foretold that Ahab would perish only after seeing two hearses on the ocean and only by hemp, meaning a rope. Ahab understood this to guarantee his success - how could he see such an absurdity as a hearse at sea, and surely he could not expect to be hanged before catching Moby Dick. As with many prophecies in literature, it came unexpectedly true - Ahab saw the harpoon boats and the Pequod turned into hearses around him by Moby Dick as he destroyed them all before he was caught by the line of a harpoon embedded in Moby Dick and dragged to his watery death.  

Why Read Moby Dick?

Here’s a question - why should people read Moby Dick? For me, the answer is personal on the one hand and intellectual on the other. Personally, I have spent time over the years visiting Martha’s Vineyard to be with family who lived in that area. It can be debated whether Moby Dick is “the Great American Novel”, but it can’t really be debated as the “Great Massachusetts Novel.” So, I wanted to read it to better understand that region. 

On the point of my intellectual reasons for reading Moby Dick, that would be due to its cultural significance. It is a powerful example of a concept of “cultural lineage”, for want of another term. It can be useful to think of culture, or at least literature, as an interconnected web of nodes, each node being a single work or body of work. The nodes are connected by the references and reliances that the work draws on other works, from which it at least partly derives its meaning, forming a beautiful, complex web. This is more easily and widely understood in the sciences, through the practice of citing earlier papers, and in law, through the citation of previous case law and precedents. Nonetheless, the same thing very much holds true with literature.

Moby Dick and the Bible

Melville is very clearly drawing on a cultural heritage and tradition that, without an awareness of the background, the reader will miss out on much of the intended meaning. In turn, the novel has itself informed later works. Arguably the most significant literary source for Moby Dick is the Bible. 

The author’s viewpoint in the book is certainly religious and Ishamel’s narrative account includes many thoughts about God, especially in the beginning. There is a really amazing quote that I’ll reproduce below:

“Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. 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."

This was a thought by Ishmael at the end of a sermon that he attends in New Bedford by a charismatic preacher who recounts the story of Jonah and the whale. This sermon serves as a kind of preamble and level-setting for much of what later occurs.

Melville, through Ishmael, is apparently combining two quotes of Plato, the Greek philosopher who was later a significant inspiration for medieval Christian theologians. Plato had compared the relationship between the human soul and body to that of the oyster and its shell, and in another passage had compared humanity’s consideration of the heavens as almost imperceptibly obscured in the way that it would be if looked at through a medium such as water. 

Melville crafts an image that fits perfectly into the maritime setting of his book and that presents a succinct religious and metaphysical position. I first heard about this image from an old recorded lecture on YouTube by Michael Sugrue, a professor of Philosophy at Princeton University about the Bible and its role in Western culture. Sugrue said:

“Melville once wrote that we know of God what oysters know of the sun. He was right, we are as suited to theology as mollusks are to astrophysics. Theology is like pointing a flashlight at the sun so you can see it better.”

I think the overall statement of these quotes is to highlight the humility of humanity, the grandeur of God and the universe, the unknowableness of the reason for why things really happen the way they do. These are ancient ideas that were often investigated in the Bible and still bear fruit even in our scientific age.

Specific Biblical Inspirations

Jonah

As mentioned before, Ishmael attends a sermon in New Bedford near the beginning of the story. The preacher is a whaling preacher, and he recounts the story of Jonah and the Whale. Jonah was a prophet in Ancient Israel chosen by God to admonish the Assyrians at Nineveh, but Jonah refuses and tries to flee from his duty. He boards a merchant vessel leaving from Jaffa to Tarshish (a faraway city, possibly in Iberia), but during the voyage a nasty storm overtakes the ship. The crew cast lots and discover that Jonah is to blame for the weather, at which point he confesses his disobedience to God. They at first refuse to throw him overboard to save themselves, despite his own recommendation of that action, but they do so in the end and the storm passes. Jonah is swallowed by a giant fish or whale and spends three days within it, forced to contemplate his actions and the response of God. Jonah repents and agrees to follow the command to duty, so God makes the fish throw up Jonah. He goes on to prophecy the downfall of Nineveh in Nineveh itself, the capital of the largest empire at the time. 

After his own retelling, the preacher admonishes the crowd to learn a lesson from Jonah on how to repent - that Jonah leaves his deliverance to God and does not seek direct deliverance himself by his own action. He admits the power of God over the situation and admits his own lack of power, not “seeking to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale.” 

The narrative of Moby Dick has many parallels to that of Jonah. Ishmael is likewise fleeing  to the sea to escape his life and duties, joining a crew destined for faraway places. The ship faces a three day ordeal involving a giant fish or whale, and Ishmael like Jonah is thrown from the ship at which point the travail is over. Ishmael then goes back to land as a kind of prophet or speaker with just about the same cautionary messages. Moby Dick isn’t a one for one remake of Jonah, and Ahab figures prominently in this. The sin against God in Moby Dick primarily is in the thirst for revenge felt by Ahab rather than any shirking of duty by Ishmael. Ahab symbolically goes against God - he seeks to use his human agency to change the supernatural by killing Moby Dick. He also forsakes his capitalistic duty to pursue his own ends.

Job

I don’t think Job informs Moby Dick as much in terms of the structure, moreso in the themes and lessons. The overall concern of Job is questions about theodicy, or how to explain the presence of evil in the world. Bad things happen to good people - but why? The major lesson at the end of Job is that we do not and can not understand God’s plans and judgements, and we should be content with that. This message has already been noted for its presence in the preacher’s sermon and in the image of the oyster, but Job is so prominent and is mentioned by Ahab in the book that it's worth discussing. 

Job is a successful and god fearing man, but the devil challenges God that Job’s faith would break if misfortune were to be visited upon him. God accepts this wager for Job’s soul and destroys Job’s health, wealth, and happiness. In the eng Job does break, but he learns the lesson mentioned above. 

Ahab is like Job. His leg was taken from him and he reacts very badly. He aggrandizes himself to become nearly godlike, thinking that he can more or less single handedly correct God’s actions, represented by hunting and killing the supernatural white whale. Furthermore, there are many passages where Ahab speaks to the sun, cursing it, trying to proclaim his independence from it (e.g. for navigation purposes, symbolically referring to spiritual navigation rather than physical). We know that the sun is a stand-in for God because of the oyster meditation at the beginning of the book. In the end, Ahab is destroyed for this rebellion against God. This is a bit different than the ending of Job, where he recognizes his position vis a vis God and is redeemed for this form of repentance. Ahab does not get to redemption, which represents a harsher example than in Job.

Other thoughts

I was very fortunate in my timing because the podcast Freakonomics posted a miniseries about whaling, including about Moby Dick, in the middle of my reading the book. By listening, I was introduced to some facts about whaling that I later read about in Moby Dick. I think I better enjoyed those sections because I had some basic familiarity and wasn’t struggling as much to follow and understand due to the language or the nonlinearity of the descriptions. Freakonomics also discussed the Essex, a real case of a ship destroyed by a sperm whale which inspired Melville. In that case, the large part of the crew survived the sinking of the ship, but they were left drifting in the Pacific very far from any port or land. In time, the crew resorted to cannibalism to survive, first cannibalizing the already dead, and then of those among the living who drew unlucky lots. I think the story of the Pequod is much less tragic and morally complex than that of the Essex.

In addition to the importance of these immense literary “ancestors,” Melville continually references various points of Western cultures in metaphor and simile. Honestly, at times I felt that this was done to impress the reader and show off the author’s knowledge. While I understood many of these references, at a certain point I stopped trying to unpack many of the references - even the ease of Kindle’s built-in research features couldn’t help me keep this up. I don’t think I really missed out too much, either. 

One set of references that I think it makes sense to unpack are the names of characters. Ahab was a historical king of ancient Israel who married Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, and abandoned the Israelite god in favor of Baal. In the Bible, Ahab is prophesied-against in the name of God, and he is eventually killed in battle, his body eaten by dogs and pigs, symbolizing his unholiness according to the kosher laws. Ahab is thus a name associated with shame, wickedness, and forsaking God. Ishmael is a Biblical character who is famously exiled in favor of his younger brother Isaac who will carry on his father Abraham’s mantle as God’s chosen interlocutor. However, Ishamel is not damned or forgotten by God in the narrative - rather, he receives his own blessings and his nation also multiples. Therefore, Ishmael as a name is associated with exile and obscurity but not with evil or damnation. Starbuck has now become famous for the coffee company.

An interesting later interpretation of the book is that of its queer elements. ‘Sperm’ and ‘dick’ meant the same things in the 1800s as it does today, so Melville’s choices were always meant to be double entendres. In fact, the sperm whale is so named because the spermaceti, one of the most valuable substances to be harvested from the whales, was originally believed to be sperm. To me there were several places where this interpretation shone through. Early on, Ishmael shares a bed with Queequeg. Later, there is a euphoric description of how Ishmael and other crew members would gather round a barrel of sperm oil and knead the residual clumps within it, and how they would at times accidentally knead each other’s hands, and so on. 

In comparison to the previous GAN candidate that I read, The Last of the Mohicans, this novel presents much more comprehensive psychological content. We get very extensive musings and soliloquies from Ishamel and other characters. Ahab also has a complex psychology, especially since he experiences a period of doubt in his mission right before the final pursuit of Moby Dick when he thinks of his wife and child and his desire to go back to them. He softens his crazed thirst for revenge momentarily, but then goes ahead anyway.

I enjoyed several other aspects of the book that I won’t get into with as much depth. This included many but not all of the descriptions of whaling and whales, the dark and sometimes ludicrous humor throughout, and the interesting connections that I made to other works about oil that I’ve watched or read, including The Prize and There Will be Blood. 

Finally, I would be very intrigued by an abridged version of Moby Dick. If Melville were active today rather than the mid 1800s, I imagine much of the middle sections would be removed, leaving a more direct and action-oriented novel, possibly to its benefit. I would like to read that and compare the two.