Tag Archives: Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – The relationship with the sea.

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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.

Language and Word Choice in Chapter 1

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While reading Chapter 1, Loomings, I was struck by the following quotation on page 4. “Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries.” The reason this sentence spoke to me in particular was just because of how beautiful it is. I particularly like the use of alliterations, in this case “silent sentinels” and “mortal men”. To be honest, this feels more like poetry than a line from a novel.

Later in the same paragraph this is expanded upon, when Melville, through the voice of Ishmael, says that “these are all landsmen”. None of them are carrier sailors, so, as Ishmael puts it “What do they here?” Especially because, at the time, the beach was not a recreational place. But I’d like to think that these people still saw beauty in it, although they weren’t brave enough to enter the waters. Maye they were just conptemplating the endlessness of the ocean, or the mythical beasts and sailors that ventured it’s endless waters.

In a lot of ways, we are those people. How many of us have actually spent time as crew on a ship? Most likely none of us. But, as people who live in San Diego, we tend to go to the beach at least every once in a while. Some people surf, or play in the waves. But some, like me, start attempting to read a book, but instead find ourselves staring at the waves, wondering if someone on the other side of the ocean is doing the exact same thing.

The ocean inspires all humans, in some way or form. Melville later writes about how it inspires the artist (like him). Because the vastness of the ocean is so unexplored, we can really run with our minds, imagining what lays in its depths. Who knows? There may even be mermaids.

Sub-Sub-Librarian kinship and a love of research

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At last, we have begun the journey of Ahad, narrated by Ishmael, told by Herman Melville. Prefacing the novel itself is the Etymology and Extracts sections, lovingly composed with information regarding whales and their importance to literature throughout time. The first thing that struck me when reading through the excerpts provided was the idea of how much longer it would be had it been written today as opposed to the 1800’s. Would there have been a companion collection instead? Would it have included transcriptions from the scripts that are read during whale watching excursions? Would it have included information about the Orcas and other whales that are intentionally capsizing ships around the world? What about moments from serialized shows or episodes from Dimension20’s NeverAfter storyline when they fought the whale from Pinnoccio’s story?

Perhaps it would have included all of the above examples, as it had included missives such as “Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them” (xliii). Unsurprisingly, an excerpt from Owen Chase’s account of the Essex was included – a dramatic line, though with little description of the whale itself. The most stunning edition, in my opinion, was the inclusion of J. Ross Brown’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, 1846. Some part of me had always wondered if the phrase “Thar she blows!” came from Moby Dick, as it is ubiquitous with whales to this day. The inclusion of this excerpt both disproves that notion and shows that the phrase further predates the novel by a few years at least.

Beyond the preface, into the beginning, the first chapter truly left me thinking deeply about the novel we were embarking on. Within the first page, I had more questions than I had started. Ishmael treats voyaging out to sea as though it is both a necessity and a means to keep himself from depression. “Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul…then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can” (3). Was this a common form of escapism at the time – a way to change your scenery and improve your moods? Did those who suffer from depression tend to go to sea as a means of improving their mental health? How many more died at sea due to their depression worsening with the extreme isolation? Many questions without answers.

Included illustration of a hand-drawn rendition of a sign from Portsmouth, NH. The sign is for a restaurant called Yoken’s, depicting a large whale with a spout of water shooting from it as it cheerily looks at the onlooker. The sign reads, “Thar she blows! Yoken’s good things to eat."