Moby-Dick exists as a novel that remains elusive in creating a universal understanding for readers. It remains inscrutable in and of itself, the titular creature of the whale working as Melville’s key unknowing analytical symbol. This is apparent in Chapter 79, “The Prairie,” as Ishmael describes the process of attempting to understand the whale’s brow through a lens of science. The human mind carries a constrained capability to decipher the mysterious whale, thus it promotes vast amounts of interpretation by evading any true meaning. My project entailed creating a box costume, representing the attempt to find meaning in interpreting the appearance of the whale based off of the novel’s descriptions. This works alongside Melville’s criticism towards phrenology, as a means of highlighting the way interpretation evades typical structured meaning.
Firstly, the novel itself claims that “face reading,” that is Physiognomy, is a flawed science that remains incapable of interpreting a whale. Ishmael notes, “Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man’s and every being’s face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing fable…I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can” (Melville 380). Ishmael offers the challenge of understanding the whale’s brow by addressing readers directly. Melville by extension finds fault with Physiognomy, calling it and other sciences a “passing fable.” A fable entails that it is akin myth or legend, as Physiognomy in modern times remains a pseudoscience now obsolete. Ishmael also mentions Champollion, the French philologist responsible for cracking the code of hieroglyphics. The line “But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man’s and every being’s face,” essentially states that there is no one central meaning, no one person capable of understanding everything or every face. Again the whale’s brow, and by extension the whale entirely, evades definition because of how humans are attempting to decipher it with the use of a specific lens. Everyone comes to find their own understanding, as knowledge remains a shared concept across human beings.
Information evolves over time, and creating the whale costume entailed finding my own explanation of understanding the whale’s appearance. Even if the symbol of the whale within the novel is inscrutable, the reader becomes significant in the process of finding their own definition as the novel itself constantly prompts readers to do so when constant themes and main ideas are tossed into the sea of the mind. Utilizing a box to create the shape of a whale required the references from Melville’s writing, but there was also a means of using modern technology and information alongside Moby Dick’s descriptive language. I took mental images of the whiteness of the whale, alongside making a pun on “The Prairie” chapter itself upon the brow. This in turn allowed me to find my own ideas towards what I think the whale could have truly looked like, as the costume could have referenced Moby Dick itself or the whale the Pequod had already slain. Chipped, dirty, and bloodied teeth, came about from the character’s ideas of violent animals. In addition to this, current scientific information showed that sperm whales only have a lower row of teeth. Accidentally giving the costume both rows of teeth before rescinding the mistake became both a learning experience and a creative one in an attempt to be “accurate” towards the novel.
Walter E. Bezanson’s “Moby Dick: Work of Art” (1953) essay commemorates the 100th anniversary of the novel’s publication, and his line “For the good reader the experience of Moby Dick is a participation in the act of creation. Find a key work or metaphor, start to pick it as you would a wild flower, and you will find yourself ripping up the whole forest floor,” written only 72 years ago, still holds true to this day. Bezanson’s line carries a sense of reverence, a sense of admiration for a novel that had done poorly during its time. Experiencing Moby Dick, reading it, analyzing it, dissecting it just like the Whale, creates an active participation as he claims. Spending time with the novel alongside creating a costume for this final project is an act of curious creation. Even with the terrestrial language Bezanson provides, the whale is the “key work or metaphor.” Picking at such a grandiose creature one can only dream of seeing up close is one of the reasons why the project was created to be more tangible. It is interactive, it “tears up the whole forest floor” of my imagination, and it has myself participating in finding my own interpretation of a whale, if not the whale.
Another analytical lens towards this creative project comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar.” Delivered in 1837 at Harvard University, Emerson called for intellectual independence. Making the box costume brought about the question of “why?” So what if a simple imaginative whale costume was made, why does it hold significance? Simply put, it carries significance because a reader’s self interpretation is important in and of its own due to the nature behind what is being presented within the novel. Emerson said, “Is not, indeed, every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student’s behoof?” All things, literature, nature, knowledge, it “exists” to a student’s “behoof.” Behoof. Benefit. Advantage. Moby Dick itself exists for students and readers alike to interpret for themselves because there are vastly different analyses. The box could simply be a box to someone else. It could pose as some insignificant toy that is simply a whale. Even so, it exists because time was spent in creating something to benefit existing knowledge pertaining to the novel.
The inscrutable language of the novel creates this sense of a treacherous voyage in trying to decipher what Melville is telling readers. Language and life itself carries a plethora of meanings, and some messages being conveyed or taught are only know to the author when readers are presented with their novel. Melville’s criticism of Phrenology inherently had not effected the creation of the whale box because scientific information had long since evolved. Not only this, but all beings are capable of creation and interpretation, finding meaning merely becomes a question of how someone knows what they have come to know. The novel, other readers, and the internet all provided key information. As Emerson attempts to convey that it is significant for scholars to go out into nature and find their own observations alongside Bezanson’s explanation of Moby Dick as an active participation of bringing thoughts into tangible existence, the definition of meaning is brought about by only by oneself.
Works Cited:
Bezanson, Walter E. “Moby-Dick: Work of Art.” Moby-Dick Centennial Essays. Tyrus Hillway and Luther S. Mansfield, eds. Southern Methodist University Press, 1953.
Emerson, R. W. (n.d.). The American Scholar. Emerson–“The american scholar”. https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/amscholar.html
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick: Or, The Whale. Edited by Andrew Delbanco and Tom Quirk, Penguin Publishing Group, 2003