“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet…” (3).

This segment is at odds with previous discussions of the ocean in the novel, as Melville previously spent copious amounts of descriptions and excerpts from whalers and whaleships describing the dangers of the sea and her creatures. However, it is meant to stand out, as it differintaites the author from the characters. While the excerpts portion of the novel is to give context to the broader picture of the world’s experience with whales, chapter one introduces a different perspective – one that looks at whales not as dangerous creatures capable of significant threat, but of adventer and solution. 

By opening the novel with Ismael, the central narrator, discussing the grey temptations of a dull life, Melville introduces the sea as a primary character capable of duality, acting as both an oasis of sanity and salvation of refuge. This description, beyond Ismael’s blatant introduction of his preferred name, is the first that the readers get of Melville’s protagonist. From this, he is bored to a point of suicide – lingering into coffin warehouses involuntarily, attending stranger’s funerals purpisefully, feeling the cold, boring stillness of unsatisfaction and November depression. His solution for this, for suicide, is to go to the ocean and find adventure within her waves. In his words, “this is my substitute for pistol and ball” (3). 

In this section, the sea is a place of salvation and opportunity – somewhere that Ismael looks to with open eyes and an excited perspective. On land, he finds himself lingering in areas close to death and its permanence. However, by seeking out the ocean and her fluidity, Ismael is rejecting the concrete perspective of the sea being a place of danger and death, even despite the foreword given by Melville and the later scenes of the Chapel and it’s deathly inhabitants. Instead, Ismael is introducing the sea as a central character and solution to life’s most tempting boredoms – a place that acts as a substitute for suicide and the lingerings of melancoly. 

The diction used in the quote above is deliberate and calculated. Involuntarily, Ismael’s acitons on land are tired, repeatative, and full of despndency, yet not deliberately so: His pausings before the coffin warehouses is “involuntary” and he’s “in the rear” of the funerals he comes across. The trip to the sea is the first decision that the reader sees from Ismael, centralizing the ocean as a legitimate solution to the everyday melancholies of life. The irony in this decision is apparent to everyone but Ismael, especially given the multiple introductions by Melville. However, this perspective of the ocean and the monsters she contains is not Ismael’s – going to the ocean and facing the potential dangers in the waters is a more valuable solution to his depression than his current life, making the sea and her inhabitants a refuge instead of a possible death sentence. 

While characters aboard the Pequod seek financial gain from their exploits and catches, Ismael’s primary motivation to join the three year exhibition are not aligned with monetary profit, but in salvation from daily grievances and boredom. This trip, in all it’s confusing turns, cold watchful shifts, and relative isolation, is Ismael’s “substitute for pistol and ball” (3).