As I am starting to get into the chunk of reading for this week, something stuck out to me pretty early on in the section. On the first page of chapter 92, Ambergris, Melville through the voice of Ishmael says “Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is.”

What I think really stuck out about this quote to me is how representative of the entire novel it is. So often, Melville and Ishmael remind the readers about how common whaling is at the time and how essential it was to the economy. Everything ran on whale power and this quote just emphasizes truly how common goods from the whales were in daily lives. The reminder of how, while whaling may seem unethical and gross to us now, that wasn’t always the case. People like us reading this novel were some of the main consumers of these goods that the whaling boats brought back and Melville really does try to bring to the forefront just how much of a commonality this was.

I think this also ties so much into the historical period in which this was written and how we look back upon it. We know that Melville is using the whale as a symbol and I think this quote and this constant reminder of how common something can be at one point and then be completely looked down upon could also represent the culture around slavery. We now of course know truly how awful slavery was even as an idea, but back then it was such a common thing. It can sometimes be hard to imagine these historical figures being proponents of these awful actions, but in reality this was what was common and known at the time. Just like how it’s hard for us to imagine people consuming products from whales. I think Melville does a brilliant job bringing the reader back to reality when reading this book, both through the historical aspect of it, but also through direct speech to the reader. Sometimes reading this book makes you feel like you are in a completely fictionalized world because of how outlandish it may seem to us now, but it is important for us to remember how truly real these situations were, both historical symbolism and true whaling descriptions alike.