Category Archives: Week 10: Chapters 58-86

Week 10: Chapter 74– Absolute Nothingness with Whale’s leftover remains

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I felt very uncomfortable and tense at the end of chapter 74, where the whalers continue to carve the teeth out of the whale’s hung body by the starboard. ” This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited, out of sorts, perhaps;… so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight…With a keen cutting spade, Queequeq lances the gums; then the jaw is lashed right down to the ringbolts…The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists for building houses.(Melville 363)” Prior to this chapter, we already get a sense of the body’s current state and its passing of time while hung on the starboard. Interestingly, I think that the nauseating representation of its carcass and remains is critical to how Ishmael internally feels himself; after whaling, what will physically become of him? Through all the trauma and tragedies on the sea, while he is desensitized to physical danger, he becomes more and more receptively sensitive about stagnancy and the stillness of life. Because he is so wired to constantly defend the boat and maintain the lines, he fears of having no agency after whaling, equating to him being disgusted about his own self; and he has to come to terms of being human while he watches the whale’s remains, limb by limb, becoming absolute nothingness. Overall, as his journey comes into a close with the blade hitting the whale’s bone, he realizes his mortality and cannot hide in abstract stillness or the liminal space the sea offers him.

An old & glorious occupation, no more

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Chapter 82, “The Honor and Glory of Whaling,” offers us a great insight into the history and mythology of whaling and stories of whales. One section that particularly stood out to me was when Ishmael said, “Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named; for like royal kings of old times, we find the head-waters of our fraternity in nothing short of the great gods themselves” (Melville 397). It truly shows the significance that whaling has had throughout history, it is stories both ancient Greek and Roman, it’s in the Bible, it’s in many different religions such as Hinduism, the impact and importance of whaling is something that has been lost in time as the book has gotten older. Now we look at whaling and we disagree with it, for a good reason of course, but back then it was heroic and it was something that the legendary men in myth, Hercules and Perseus, did.

I think that Melville wrote this chapter to show why whaling should have been considered a prestige occupation with a sort of righteousness that came with it; “when I find so many great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fraternity” (Melville 395). It seems like Melville is talking about himself here, and how he feels to be included in a group that is surrounded by legends and myths and religious figures, people’s whose stories have been around for millenniums. Another quote that stood out to me was, “Those were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms to succor the distressed, and not to fill men’s lamp-feeders” (Melville 395). It shows how much whaling has change from the days of Perseus to when Melville was writing Moby-Dick, and now today were the whaling industry in America is dead.

This chapter definitely showed the historical and mythical significance of whaling. It’s incredible to think that something we now view as unethical and immoral was once viewed as heroic and glorious, however the purpose of whaling has changed significantly since those times. Mythical legends, Saints, Heroes, and gods all take up a seat in whaling, as Melville puts it; “Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there’s a member-roll for you! What club but the whaleman’s can head off like that?” (Melville 398).

“A Mass of Tremendous Life”

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Ishmael studies the sperm whale’s head in Chapter 76, “The Battering-Ram,” using scientific methods and expressing a religious-like sense of amazement. He describes the front of the whale’s head as a lifeless wall which appears completely without sensation or perception. Yet, as he continues, that very lifeless surface becomes something sublime. By the end of the chapter, Ishmael describes the whale as “unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life” (370). The initial observation of body structure reveals a living force that exists beneath the appearance of immobility.

The passage captures Melville’s fascination with contradiction. The whale keeps its motionless forehead to protect its inner power and its vital life functions. The unknown depths of existence become visible through this symbol, which shows that life’s most powerful force operates through silent actions. The two words “dead” and “life” appear together in the same sentence to show how Melville unites physical and spiritual realms. Ishmael shifts his communication from scientific analysis to spiritual language because his whale research reveals the vast extent of his ignorance about the creature.

The scene matches Melville’s general comments about human ability to understand things. The whale’s “mass of tremendous life” fights against all attempts to apply logical thinking that Ahab, the scientist, and Ishmael would use. The effort to understand something of this scale reveals the extent to which our senses can only perceive so much. Nature created an enigmatic forehead shape on whales that humans cannot understand. The author concludes by showing that unknown forces govern the unbreakable wall, suggesting that the universe operates through mysterious ways rather than through direct control. The surface-level understanding we experience does not reveal the actual meaning, because the true process of understanding operates at a deeper level.

The Plain View of the Prairie (Chapter 79)

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It took me a second to realize that Ishmael was referring to the whale’s forehead in this chapter. Part of me wondered as to why the chapter itself is named “The Prairie” mostly in the idea that a Prairie itself is an environment just full of grasses and wildflowers, much unlike the sea we’ve been on for the past however many chapters. I also had to search up what exactly “Physiognomist” and “Phrenologist” meant, and when I found that these were essentially terms for people who judged character based off of facial characteristics, then it started making a little more sense when I finished the chapter.

Ishmael is essentially trying his best to “read” the whale, rather, read the forehead of the whale despite the challenges. Most notably, he mentions “For you see no one point precisely; not one distinct feature is revealed; no nose, eyes, ears or mouth; no face; he has none, proper; nothing but that one broad firmament of a forehead, pleated with riddles; dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships, and men. Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish; though that way viewed, its grandeur does not domineer upon you so.” (379)

I didn’t think this important at all at first, I found myself wondering why it is that a science like this even existed back in the 19th century, but it adds into the previous chapters explaining the sides of the head of the whale, that we have to understand, or at least try to understand the whale itself. The whales throughout a lot of the chapters have had a mythic quality to them, but I feel as if the chapters describing all of the anatomy and the process of “reading” this anatomy puts into perspective the idea that they’re also just creatures at the end of the day. Understanding, or trying to understand them, is a fruitless attempt. No features are offered on the “brow” or forehead of the beast, and it kind of makes this chunk feel pointless other than the line of “…thought that way viewed, its grandeur does not domineer upon you so.” Readers have to imagine what its like to be a whale to even fathom it, and Ishmael himself invites us to do so with the ending lines of “I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can.” (380)

It’s obvious in this day and age that we really can’t read it, a forehead is just a forehead, but the fruitless endeavor of trying to read the forehead of the whale just seems so symbolic of unknowingness despite Ishmael’s semi-knowledgeable self on cetology. It’s like a really frustrating paradox trying to figure it all out.

The Royalty of the Sea and Its Wildness

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“…in which case you will take great interest in thinking how this mightly monster is actually a diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for him in this marvellous manner.” (Chapter 75, page 365).

It’s important to connect back to the historical context of this period of whaling and mankind’s ventures into the ocean. The sea, with all its mysteries, was considered a new frontier to be conquered and mastered, primarily through whaling and ocean fishing. It’s through these practices that people of the 19th century could not only establish themselves in the vast realm of the ocean, but wholly master it. Melville’s, or Ishmael’s, description of the whale as “a diademed king of the sea” with a “green crown” of slimy kelp and the rough edges of caked barnacles touches on this point. If whales are to be the kings of the sea, what does that say about the men who conquer and skin them on their boats? Or of Ahab, the crazed assassin of the sea who lives and breathes with Moby Dick staining the backs of his eyelids?

If we consider the ocean as both a thing to be conquered and a vast expanse capable of great destruction, whalers are prized assets to American imperialism in the 19th century. Yet, whalers are not always welcomed back to land with cheers and thanks, but disdain and disgust. Melville touches on this several times throughout our reading of the novel thus far, pointing out the bubbling hypocrisy of landsmen who beg for whale oil to light their reading rooms yet cover their ears at whaling stories.

Based on the quote above, to slay a king means either of two things, based on the broader context: the victory over a great leader who is said to own, whether literally or figuratively, an expanse of wealth or geography, or treason. Considering the first, this makes whalers who successfully kill and harvest all the whale’s assets victors over the ocean. However, the sea is a vast, violent thing full of various kings to be slain, pointing to a more profound message by Melville: man’s inability ever to understand or conquer the complexities of the ocean, despite all our efforts.

The Voiceless Whale

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In Chapter 85 ‘The Fountain’, the whale becomes voiceless, deemed as such through the human lens of Ishamel. In this claim, Ishamel asserts the importance of the voice “Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living.” Those without a voice are unable to function within a society that aims to exploit, and the whale exemplifies what happens to those who cannot be  translated into such a society, people whose voices go ignored or misunderstood. The whale exists outside of words, a ‘profound being’ that Ishamel himself struggles to understand through words. Yet, a voice is situational in both Melville’s and the modern world we live in, those with the right privileges and history are heard, their voice and language is the norm. Melville uses the whale, a being who cannot communicate in the way humans do, to be representative of the masses all over the world with voices unheard, ignored or like the whale, untranslatable to the capitalist perspective of the whaler. 

The whale cannot be ‘forced to stammer’ its defense in living, and as consequence its body becomes a product, killed and sold to those who can speak, reflecting the scenes of U.S. history. The body as a product becomes systemically true with slavery, and there was no chance of defense if already deemed voiceless, like the whale is. The body as a product is also significant in a modern society, Ishmael notes this himself as the defense that the whale fails to make is for the purpose of ‘getting a living.’ These last few words serve a double purpose, in the case of the whale ‘getting a living’ can mean being allowed to live, but this is also translated on land with the working class as their bodies are used to make a living, a living that is unfair and does not value their lives in the same way as those demanding them to speak. ‘Getting a living’ does not mean much for Melville, for even those who speak their defense are half heard and not given much. 

Chapter 76: The Inevitable Perils in the Search for Truth: (Moby Dick)

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In the end chapter 76, The Battering Ram, Melville references Friedrich Von Schiller’s poem “The Veiled Image at Sais”:

“But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter; but how small the chances for the provincials then? What befel the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess’s veil at Sais?”

What Melville is saying here, is that humans, in the search of truth are naive and blind to the power of the natural world. When they try to know uncover its secrets, their fate always ends in death. “Lifting the veil of Isis” is an expression to uncover something for you to see it with your own eyes. However, to conquer and own this truth for ourselves is where humans dig their own grave. Melville says that natural forces are so strong that humans would be crushed and it would take some giant salamander to bear them. Salamanders were considered to be borne out of fire, so by Melville, they are the only ones able to withstand the clear and burning truth. With this chapter, Melville basically gives us the ending of the book.

Here is an excerpt from Von Schiller’s poem:

“But what he saw, or what did there befall, his lips disclosed not.

Ever from his heart

Was fled the sweet serenity of life, and the deep anguish dug the early grave…”

The Anatomy of Understanding

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In Chapter 77, “The Great Heidelburgh Tun,” as Ishmael meticulously describes the anatomy of the sperm whale, he pauses for a moment to reflect and observe, “But to comprehend it aright, you must know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated upon.” (Melville 371) On the surface, this line refers to the practical work of cutting into a whale’s body, but it also captures something larger about Moby-Dick itself. Melville constantly reminds his readers that understanding, whether of the whale, the ship, or just life at sea, requires looking beneath the surface, especially for us “landsmen.” Ishmael’s words turn the act of whaling into an act of reading: the body of the whale becomes a text, and true comprehension demands attention to all of its inner workings.

This idea aligns with the recurring chapters that anatomize the whale and ship in almost scientific detail, such as “The Sphynx,” “The Blanket,” “The Line,” and “The Monkey-rope.” In each, Ishmael insists on showing the interior, from the bones and the blubber to the lines and ropes, because for him, meaning resides in the hidden systems that actually sustain life and labor. Just as a ship can’t be understood by its sails alone, the whale’s mystery cannot be captured by its surface or exterior. Melville’s fascination with “internal structure” becomes a metaphor for how the novel itself operates: each detailed dissection of the whale’s body or the ship’s machinery draws us closer to the unknowable essence of existence and knowledge, even as it reminds us how incomplete that comprehension will always be.

By linking comprehension to dissection, Melville transforms the very physical and almost brutal act of cutting into an intellectual one. To “know something of the curious internal structure” is to recognize the layered complexity of every object and idea that is presented to the reader in the novel. The whale, the Pequod, and even Ishmael’s narrative share the same architecture. They are massive, mysterious, and full of unseen parts that demand exploration and much deeper thought. Through this, Moby-Dick becomes a kind of living anatomy, a work that invites readers to participate in its own operation, continually digging deeper for a truth that resists full capture.

Death by Spermaceti

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One part of the reading for this week that I took interest with was the end of Cistern and Buckets. This whole chapter was action packed, detailed, a jump from the lull of Melville’s technical and historical chapters. Although Tashtego is saved by Queequeg (in a midwifery way), Melville still fantasizes about an alternate reality where this rebirth did not occur. “Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it has been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can be readily recalled” (p.377). This feels like a romanticization of death, one that contrasts strongly with the death of the whales in subsequent chapters. These deaths are violent, painful, pitiful, and blood baths, covered in red. Tashtego’s death, comparatively, would have been covered in white–the color of purity, honor, fear, existentialism. And maybe that is exactly what being smothered in this white would represent, the honor of dying in the whaling industry, of dying in a masculine way, yet also the fear and existentialism that comes with death, of the unknown of what follows when the biological functions cease. 

The language used in this passage is light for such a heavy topic. “Precious”, “daintiest”, “sweeter”, romanticize this death as if it is something to be desired. This romanticization is only possible because Ishmael (and other crew) would not have witnessed this death, would not have witnessed Tashtego’ fright and slow drowning in the spermaceti. When spared the details of seeing what happens, it is easy to romanticize the results–as Melville often argues about the landsmen who reap the rewards of the whaling industry with none of the suffering. 

This idea of Tashtego’s death is calm, slow, peaceful, unlike the thrashing the whales undergo. We can draw metaphors here to how we think about nature and animals in a hierarchical fashion, underneath us and allowed to suffer in death. Or we can draw a metaphor for slavery, for how the whales are allowed to die as slaves are, while the humans will die these white, painless, precious deaths. 

Fast-Fish, Loose-Fish

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“I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it” (433).

In the chaotic business of whaling, it’s necessary to have the code of Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish to avoid disputes over who deserves the claim of killing whichever whale. Melville applies this whaling code of Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish to “the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence” to show us how weak our justifications of possession are. Melville starts with: “What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law?” (434-35). He is directly arguing against the claim that “possession is half of the law” by giving multiple examples that contradict it, the first being the serfs and slaves that are literally bound to their masters, serving as their property. The Loose-Fish doctrine is even more applicable as the chapter ends presenting more abstract ideas as Loose-Fish:

“What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish? What are all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish?” (435).

With all of these being Loose-Fish, fair game for whoever can soonest catch it, it raises questions about their legitimacy. If the Rights of Man and Liberties of the World were just up for grabs, we need to know who caught them and whether they had some bias in crafting them. If our minds, opinions, and beliefs are Loose-Fish, we need to be aware of whoever laid claim first, because they can often shape our entire thoughts and belief systems. Melville calls out the “ostentatious smuggling verbalists” as they seize “the thoughts of thinkers” to manipulate for their own purposes as though they were Loose-Fish. The globe itself has repeatedly, throughout history, been viewed as a Loose-Fish for colonial powers and empires to claim for themselves behind their Loose-Fish justifications of divine right or Manifest Destiny. Then we have Melville directly asking us readers to view ourselves as both Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, fastened to the systems we are born and raised in, yet fair game to whatever outside influence we let catch us. If we should be both, then we should also be weary of the distinctions of Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish applied to others, realizing how absurd it is to blindly follow the claims to land, property, thoughts, and people.