In Chapter 88, “School and Schoolmaster,” Ishmael pauses the narrative once again to delve deeply into the life and characteristics of a whale, where nature, education, and symbolism beautifully intersect. In this chapter, Ishmael offers observations about how whales travel in “schools” and how they seem to be led by larger, more dominant figures — the so-called “schoolmasters.” Male and female whales form separate groups, with older bulls often guiding the young, but this isn’t just about marine biology — Melville uses these natural behaviors to reflect on leadership, instinct, gender roles, and education. The whales’ orderly patterns serve as a metaphor for how societies operate, how power is passed down, and how life in the sea mirrors life on land. We see this anthropomorphizing of the Schoolmaster accurately depicted on page 430. “It is therefore not in strict character, however admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it. His title, Schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the name bestowed upon the harem itself. Still, some have surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils.” (Melville) This paragraph is the antithesis of the scholarly white male of the late 1800s, where the coming of age of one adolescent transforms him into a man of wisdom and experience. If these animals think and live just like us, it’s a shame they are hunted because Ishmael is showing that these god like creatures are more than just an absent reference to be exploited and not seen as living beings. These livoathans are more human than we think, and Ishmael is evoking us not only to think, but also to question whether whaling is morally wrong.
Just like the ‘riotous lad at Yale or Harvard,’ the schoolmaster whale lives a synchronous life of that riotous lad. We learn that these young males are raised in a school by a harem of female whales, and this Ottoman of a whale is described as a [gentleman] ‘accompanied by all the solaces and the endearment of the harem.’ To use the word ‘gentleman,’ Melville has implanted this image of an upstanding father, one who is a caretaker, breadwinner, and doer of what is right, but not all male whales are of the ‘Ottoman Dynasty.’ Mellville references this to illustrate the relationship between one outstanding male (a king or emperor) who is entirely in charge of his life and the lives of his co-inhabitants, which instills a supreme masculinity evident throughout history, particularly in the 1800s. Some whales lead the life of a ‘Forty-barrel-bull,’ personified as the angsty rebellion teen, who ‘duel among their rival admirers’ for love. The homewrecker of the oceans. It is the job of this ‘lord whale to keep a wary eye on his interesting family’ because he too was just a bull in a school before achieving the title of Schoolmaster.’
“It is therefore not in strict character, however admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it.” Melville here captures the consciousness and free thinking of a whale, which, if not known to be from the source material of this quote, I would have assumed was speaking about a 20-something-year-old college graduate trying to find the meaning of life and live a life of “fight, fun, and wickedness.” This Lord Whale becomes “a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the world; every baby an exotic.” This specifically refers to a male whale, where, in the society of land and ocean, it illustrates that males are the dominant sex when it comes to unapologetic independence. In contrast, the harem of whales stays behind, awaiting a predetermined fate of cultural codependence. This is symbolism of a whaler and his family, as the whaler goes on a voyage for an unforeseen amount of time, possibly never to return, and thus this “sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridian and parallels, saying his prayers and warning each young leviathan from his amorous errors.” Here, Melville has described the whale of learning from his own mistakes and years of wisdom, which can also be passed on from one young whale to another. Just as the day of listening to one’s grandfather reminiscing about a story that starts with the words, “back in my day…”
“But some have surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils.” There’s a specific reason Melville has referenced Vidocq in comparison to the Ottoman whale. Vidocq, just like modern-day masculinity, was quite the ladies’ man and was able to use his wits to seduce those creating the “harem”. Melville refers to the “occult lessons” Vidocq supposedly taught these immoral lessons to his “pupils” when he was a country schoolmaster in his youth. Vidocq became a born-again gentleman years later (transitioning from a bull to an Ottoman) even after having a morally ambiguous past, reflecting the agreeableness, philosophical, and natural curiosity between man and whale. Regardless of the characteristics of sex and species, members of the harem school, as we know, are typically composed of young females and can exhibit compassion and empathy. “But strike a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey.”
The narrative pits two contrasting modes of masculinity against each other: the dutiful husband and the lothario. This juxtaposition serves to highlight the complexity of the whale’s character and its reflection of human behavior. In the process, the text engages in a significant amount of anthropomorphizing of whales, applying human ideas and standards to them, and drawing from their ‘natural’ behaviors a sort of secret truth about the ‘right’ way for things to be.
Young whales are promiscuous, always trying to steal away the “wives” of older whales from their “harems”. Older whales settle down and seek to protect what they see as their property. Then, elderly whales go off on their own, put out to pasture and roam the world, their work for the species already done. This older whale, in this case, has a specific name, Moby Dick, a whale that, just like a contestant on Survivor, is here to outwit, outlast, and outplay those who try to hunt him for his years of renewed experiences has taught him to be the “man” he is today.
Of course, these animals behave just like humans! This is the truth underlying everything. If whales are just like humans, then is it okay to hunt other humans without batting an eyelash? Besides our genetic makeup, humans and whales can coexist in unity and be researched for the betterment of the human species. Humans invite themselves into the ocean world of whales and divide and conquer, whereas the whales wouldn’t stand a fighting chance on land. We can discern the truth of the world by examining “nature” (Emerson), by looking closely at the lives of whales to determine the destiny of humanity (specifically man).