As I began to read the first chapter of Moby-Dick, a quote stuck out to me. It reads, “Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea?” (Melville 5). After this quote Melville dives deeper into human’s history with the sea, dating back thousands of years with the ancient Persians and Greeks. This got me thinking about how throughout our history there has been a fascination and a desire of the ocean. A means of transportation, a means of trade, a means of sailing to a new land to start a new life, all of these things have lasted in our history for an incredible amount of time. Why is it we as humans are so interested in the sea? Is it because we want to conquer the unconquerable? Or is it because we have learned to respect the vast power of it, and try to use it to our advantage. As we’ve learned through our blue humanities studies, humans are definitely more land oriented, despite the Earth being covered majority in water. Is our fascination with the ocean something we are born with, or is it something that becomes stronger the more knowledge we try to have of it?
Our narrator, Ishmael, has his own personal history and fascination with the sea. We learn that he frequents ships, in his own words, “as a simple sailor”, not a passenger, a commodore, a captain, or a cook. Ishmael sails because he likes the ocean; he risks that comes with going out in the water and being in a place where nothing matter outside of one’s own survival. No one is more important than any other in the sea, and all lives are treated equally. He also claims that he goes out to the sea as a sailor so that he can get paid, something that I feel demonstrates the industrialization of the ocean. When people see that they can use something as a means to make money, there’s no doubt they will exploit the most they can for the profit. While Ishmael may not be drilling oil in the sea, or causing a vast amount of damage to marine life, he is still going on a whaling ship, and is still harming an animal in their own environment.
It was interesting for me to read about humanity’s relationship with the sea through the eyes of Ishmael (which is probably more so through the eyes of Melville). It definitely made me think about my own personal history with it, and think about how much the history has progressed throughout the years. I am interested to see how Ishmael and the other sailors further deepen their own relationships with the ocean as the novel progresses.
Great blog post that is perfect for the beginning of the novel. You are right to note the position Ishmael adopts and how that positionally pulls us into this novel. Thanks for focusing here, on Ishmael, as he looks to sea.
Hi Jimmy,
It is fascinating to think of how much human history has taken place amidst the sea. I like that Melville immediately emphasizes this point within the very first chapter. It seems to me that he is stating why a novel about the sea is a story that needs to be told. In one way or another every person has an ingrained connection to the sea.
Hey Jimmy! I loved reading through your post and the questions you asked revolving human fascination with the ocean. With the work we have been doing in class I thought it would take a little time for all of these ideas to begin, but after reading just three chapters Melville has touched on human connection to the ocean and the whaling industry. I enjoyed the passage where you spoke about industrialization, stating, “He also claims that he goes out to the sea as a sailor so that he can get paid, something that I feel demonstrates the industrialization of the ocean”. I completely agree with your statement that once humans see they can make profit off of something they often will exploit it as much as they can. Great post!
Hi Jimmy! Your posts are always so interesting to read as you always pull such great points out. I really loved how you pulled the argument surrounding the quote back to the idea of blue humanities, as that was what I was thinking about when reading this section of the book. So much of these chapters are centered around a discussion of the sea and I definitely think the connection between Ishmael and the other characters and the ocean is going to be something that is extremely interesting to explore.