Tag Archives: earth vs. ocean

To scorn the earth

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In Chapter 13, Ishmael finally boards a watercraft, a little ferry (the Moss) that will take him and Queequeg to Nantucket. It’s interesting that this is the first direct contact with the water that he’s had since the story started, given that he’s spent so much time thinking about it. Another example of this novel refusing to begin. The moment finally comes on page 66, when they start sailing down the Acushnet river. Ishmael muses, “Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!–how I spurned that turnpike earth!–that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records” (66). Just as he said at the beginning of the story, the ocean makes him feel better; it’s his way to cope with life. He looks back at land and he compares it to a hell of sorts, a highway pockmarked with “slavish heels and hoofs.” He relishes the openness and the fluidity of the water, “which will permit no records.” He feels free, untethered. But at what cost? Melville juxtaposes the earth with the sea and gives that idea to us through Ishmael’s perspective–a white male in 19th century America. Melville intentionally uses the phrase “slavish heels and hoofs” to refer to the marks Ishmael sees on the side of the river. The word “slavish” could simply refer to the monotonous and restraining lives of most people on land, people who prefer stability over adventure; but further, I see this is a clear reference to the reality that was slavery in America, which was coming to its boiling point at the time, and was something that Ishmael would not have been negatively affected by. In fact, he would have benefitted from it, even if indirectly. For Ishmael, it is easy to scorn the Earth and prefer the ocean over it because he has that luxury. He feels the wind in his hair and mighty freedom surges in his heart as he sails through the water, but the earth does not forget. Ishmael hates to feel tied town and chained to his unfulfilling life, but he fails to recognize there are others who are legally considered subhuman and have no choice but to live in chains. The magnanimous sea “will permit no records,” and for someone like Ishmael it is easier and more convenient to turn away from the marks of injustice that lie upon the earth.

Country-bred dandies

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In Chapter 6, “The Street,” Melville introduces us to the microcosm of New Bedford through the eyes of Ishmael. Right off the bat, he draws a parallel between Queequeg’s perceived savageness and the strange sight he encounters on the street (pg. 16). He turns his focus, however, to a specific category of men; to this group, he refers in the following way: “…scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the wale-lance.” (16). The visual element of the description is key to representing the naiveness, frivolity, and recklessness of these men. They are green, inexperienced, and scrawny, but also money hungry and air headed. In their hometowns they kill trees, now they are looking to kill whales. He later identifies them as “bumpkin dandies,” a new breed of spoiled brat that surpasses even city dandies in their insufferableness. Then he turns our attention toward New Bedford itself, a seemingly unremarkable piece of land that has nevertheless prospered immensely. To answer where this wealth came from he says, “Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea…You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles” (17). The description of the New Bedford community is starkly similar to that of the bumpkin dandies. Maybe dandies are out of their depth in this new town, but they are just as greedy and irresponsible as the locals. The local wealth comes from the exploitation of the ocean, just as the country people’s wealth comes from the exploitation of the earth. Although Melville doesn’t directly compare the two, it’s not coincidental that he writes of one right after the other. In reality, these bumpkin dandies come to continue the cycle of exploitation already set before them, so really, how out of place are they? I would say they are right at home, and though Ishmael doesn’t seem to notice, Melville is fully aware of it. He once again employs imagery as his strongest resource, because, by giving the reader a visual representation of wealth (the dandies and their clothes, New Bedford weddings), and contrasting it with a mental image of exploitation (“emblematical harpoons,” the axe that cuts down forests), he highlights the imminent link between them.