Between Emmerson and King’s excerpts, Gilbert King’s seemed the most interesting to me. I have always been more drawn to the horrific side of history that which some of our society’s literature is based on. Seeing as I am coming into this class having NOT read Moby Dick prior, the mention of cannibalism drew me in.
Being based on the sunken ship Essex, Herman Melville took the tragedy as an opportunity to write about the horrors of the whaling industry. Given King’s approach, both literal and hypothetical, it is difficult to imagine how a person’s mind and body would react given such circumstances. Melville’s book goes in depth about the darker side of human nature, and while King referred to a particular figure within the literature as a “thing,” I could not help but produce multiple instances to which said “thing” could be applied. The “thing” could be the whale, the ship, the sea, or man themselves, but considering a darker, more metaphysical approach, I would like to consider that he is talking about human nature. Human nature as we know it ranges through a wide variety of behavior, but being pushed to the limits as the ship’s crew is in Moby Dick, the “thing” that King talks of could very well the human nature pushed to its limits. Starved, scared, and desperate, the surviving men turn to cannibalism to stay alive. While skimming other’s posts, I could tell that some thought the same thing as I did; given a hypothetical question, we would never turn to it, but in reality, there is no saying what we would do to survive, or the “thing” that we would become to do so.
Hi Rayne,
I can definitely understand the sentiment – I understood the Emerson stuff, but struggled to connect with it. Maybe part of it is that I work in a library and absolutely love books, but he felt a little harsh in places.
If you’re interested, there is a really cool podcast called Lore that covers a lot of different historical curiosities including theoretical origins for folklore as well as historical figures that have inspired horror movies, stories, etc. In particular, the Gilbert King excerpt reminded me quite a lot of Episode 122: The Shortest Straw because of the reference to stranded sailors resorting to cannibalism to survive. Here’s the link if you wanted to check it out:
https://www.lorepodcast.com/episodes/122
Back to your post, I agree – in some very real ways, we have lived lives of privilege. No one person in our class is liable to need to resort to cannibalism in order to survive, which cannot be said of a great many people around the world. No one really knows what they are capable of until the scenario is upon them, and no one knows the “thing” that they may become out of necessity. It is always an interesting thought exercise, what depths would you trudge, what unforgivable actions would you commit, to be able to continue living? Dark, but fascinating.
Thank you for a great post!
-Kit