Tag Archives: Herman Melville

Final Essay – Melville’s Critique on Capitalism

Posted on by
Reply

Herman Melvilles’s novel, Moby-Dick, serves as a critique of capitalism and its effect on American society. Throughout the novel Melville uses the whaling industry as a metaphor for capitalism; he demonstrates the life-threatening labor of workers in the whaling industry and how crewmembers on the Pequod are merely seen as a commodity for profit, how material wealth overrides the morality of those working and living in a capitalist society, and the disconnect between the consumer and the laborer. The novel shows readers that capitalism in America has created an individualistic society in which profit and gain take precedent over morals and lives.

In Chapter 93, “The Castaway,” Melville uses the character Pip to highlight how workers are seen as a commodity for profit in American capitalist society, and how the life-threatening labor of those in the whaling industry are put aside in order to make a profit.. While chasing a whale, Pip leaps overboard and is caught by the rope connected to the whale. With the only option to save him being to cut the rope and freeing the whale, Pip is reluctantly saved by Stubb, who berates him for the incident: “ ‘Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I wont pick you if you jump; mind that. We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and don’t jump any more.’ Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loves his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence” (Melville 452). Pip is told by Stubb that his life is not worth more than any amount of money that could be made from the whale. Profit over life, unsurprising considering the money is made off of the killing of whales. Melville shows the harsh reality of the industry, how workers are seen as expendable and should not be considered anything more than a commodity and a way to gain wealth. Directly after this, Pip falls overboard once more, and the cruelty of capitalism is shown in full effect: “Pip jumped again… when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller’s trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word… Stubb’s inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and Stubb… For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that fishery” (Melville 452-454). This time, Stubb sticks to his word and puts the potential profit of the whale over the life of Pip. Melville also points out how this is a common occurrence in the industry, and to not judge Stubb too harshly for his immoral decision. Too often it is seen in America that the lives of workers are less important than the money that is made off of them. Capitalism has created a society that does not care about the loss of life so long as the money keeps coming in. Pip’s life did not matter to Stubb or to any of the other members on the boat, as they were too focused on killing the whale that could make them some money. Perhaps even more so, Melville uses Pip, a Black American, to demonstrate how another industry puts the importance of profit over life and morality; slavery. Still the major issue in America at the time of the novel’s publication, slavery is capitalism in its most cruel form. The gaining of profit off of the buying and selling of humans, forcing them into unpaid labor, and treating them like they are inferior. This chapter goes to the full extent in showing the brutality and viciousness of capitalism in America, and how money overrides morals.

In Chapter 36, titled “The Quarter Deck,” Melville demonstrates how Captain Ahab is able to use a form of currency, in this case a golden doubloon, to influence the crewmembers into overriding their moral obligations to the original journey, allowing Ahab to take full control of the Pequod and manipulate and bribe the crewmembers into doing his bidding. “ ‘Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke – look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gould ounce, my boys!’ ‘Huzza! huzza!’ cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast” (Melville 176). Captain Ahab is able to use the gold doubloon as an economic incentive for the crewmembers on the Pequod, demonstrating how monetary items can be used to exploit workers into doing harmful and dangerous things. Here, Ahab is using the doubloon as a way to gain the trust of the crewmembers on the ship, and to steer them into dangerous waters away from their original whaling expedition in order to conquer his own personal and malicious goal, which will result in the death of most of those on board. In this chapter, Melville is showing the reader how the doubloon is a metaphor for capitalism; under capitalism, it is normalized for morals, ethics, and safety to take a back seat to money and personal profit. Melville is criticizing how capitalism has essentially bribed everyone into thinking that money is at the top of the pedestal, and all other values and ethics must be ignored if you wish to be at the top. The pursuit of wealth results in the loss of morals, and the men on the Pequod do not care what it takes to be the one who gets Captain Ahab’s gold doubloon.

Throughout the novel Melville shows the dangers of the whaling industry. He goes into the harsh details of killing whales and the production of whale oil, a product used by many Americans at the time; by doing so Melville is able to demonstrate the disconnect between consumers and laborers under capitalism. In Chapter 61, titled “Stubb Kills a Whale,” Melville gives the reader a brutal detailing on the killing of a whale by Stubb: “And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst! ‘He’s dead, Mr. Stubb,’ said Tashtego” (Melville 311-312). The production of whale oil comes at a cost. The harsh killing of whales in a most vicious form, of course dangerous for whales but also the men tasked with killing them. Consumers are not the ones going out into the ocean and harpooning a whale until it is dead, yet they are the ones using the oil for simple things like candles, lamps, and soap. The reader sees the production of squeezing the sperm out of the whale in Chapter 94, “A Squeeze of the Hand.” While this chapter may be known for other things, it demonstrates what the worker sees versus what the buyer sees. Ishmael describes the grisly process which goes on inside of the blubber-room: “With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan’s feet are shoeless… If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one of his assistant’s, would you be very much astonished? Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men” (Melville 458). The process of creating this oil is unknown to the consumer, yet they use it to light lamps and to make soaps, candles, and other cosmetics. Melville here is showing the reader how the consumer doesn’t see what goes on inside the blubber-room, but rather they only see the finished product as something that is clean and seemingly pure. Capitalism thrives on consumers not knowing how products are made. Capitalist societies are able to make huge amounts of profit as a result of the harsh labor of others, those who lose limbs doing a job that they hardly get paid for, and the buyer is ignorant to all of it. Poor working conditions and cheap wages are the backbone of capitalism, for its exploitative nature will allow for nothing else.

A scholarly titled, “Moby Dick and the Crimes of the Economy,” written by author Vincenzo Ruggiero and published by the Oxford University Press, explores the idea of Moby-Dick in terms of an economical system in which the reader should note that in the novel we see the exploitation, the violence, and the corruptness in capitalism. When discussing the comparison of the whaling industry and Captain Ahab, Ruggiero writes: “Ishmael’s criticism of Ahab’s excesses diverts him, though not completely, from criticizing the whaling industry itself (Moretti 1996: 32). His condemnation wavers because he is unable to establish whether it is the logic of that industry which creates the Ahabs or whether the captain’s excesses are the result of a subjective, pathological, drive…Surely, Ahab is full of ira et studio and is incapable of running his business with a spirit of formalistic imper constant violation of the official rules, however, can only partially be attributed industry in which he is involved, and his crimes are mainly extrinsic to that industry” (Ruggiero 103-104). Here it seems as though Ruggiero suggests that Ishmael is more comfortable with critiquing Ahab rather than criticizing the whaling industry as a whole. While Ahab’s behavior is certainly inexcusable, it does not take away from the fact that the entire industry is flawed, and that its immoral values is what could have led to the madness of Ahab and the corruption of the crewmembers on the Pequod. Ruggiero is offering the idea that the systemic structure of capitalism should be at blame, not just one man who takes it to the extreme. In another scholarly article, “Melville’s Economy of Language,” published by Cambridge University Press, author Paul Royster criticizes the blame of Ahab for what is the fault of the whaling industry. He writes, “Viewing Moby-Dick as a less than radical critique of American capitalism coincides with one of the plot’s central features: Ahab’s rebellion against God, economy, and nature. Ahab has no respect for the commercial purposes of the Pequod’s voyage, yet the form of his opposition to the system of eco­nomic relations serves ultimately to reinforce the values of the bourgeois order. Ahab’s madness, his usurpation of power, and his rigid authoritarianism all deflect criticism away from the economic system that launched the Pequod” (Royster 322). Just like what Ruggiero is suggesting, Royster believes that by blaming Captain Ahab for what happens in the novel, the whaling industry and capitalism are not held at fault. Ahab goes against the original plan of the Pequod’s journey, yet he still reinforces the standards of the bourgeois in his acts of self gain, harsh labor conditions, and ruling by authoritarianism. However this should not take away from the fact that the Pequod is only in this position because of the whaling industry and capitalism. Without the whaling industry, there would be no Pequod nor would there be a Captain Ahab, and the capitalist values that attempt to conquer the ocean would cease. Both Ruggiero and Royster are asking the readers to look more in depth into what Melville is writing; do not look at a character like Ahab without seeing the underlying meanings in the novel. Captain Ahab is a product of capitalism and the whaling industry, and to solely blame him for the destruction of the Pequod and the men on board is to not hold capitalism’s systemic issues responsible.

Herman Melville’s novel, Moby-Dick, is a critique of capitalism and how it has severely affected American society. Melville uses the whaling industry to criticize capitalism, while demonstrating the poor treatment of workers, the disparity between consumer and laborer, and the immorality of capitalism. Both scholarly articles also discuss the importance of blaming the entire whaling industry and capitalism as a whole for what happens in the novel, not just the actions of Captain Ahab. To read Moby-Dick is to inherently read a novel that discusses how capitalism is to blame for turning America into a country in which profit is more important than lives, whether that life be whale or human.

Works Cited

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick: Or, The Whale. Edited by Andrew Delbanco and Tom Quirk, Penguin Publishing Group, 2003.

Ruggiero, Vincenzo. “Moby Dick and the crimes of the economy.” British Journal of Criminology, vol. 42, no. 1, 1 Jan. 2002, pp. 96–108, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/42.1.96. 

Royster, Paul, “Melville’s Economy of Language” (1986). Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries. 1. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/1 

“It Was Never About a Whale”: Layered Symbolism, Historical Context, and Interpretive Instability in Moby-Dick

Posted on by
Reply

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is a novel defined not by interpretive clarity but by an overwhelming proliferation of meaning. The text generates symbols faster than it explains them, leaving readers to navigate a maze of metaphors, references, and philosophical digressions that destabilize the possibility of any definitive interpretation. This instability is nowhere more evident than in Chapter 42, “The Whiteness of the Whale,” in which Ishmael attempts—and fails—to account for the terror embedded in whiteness. Written in 1850, in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act and increasing national conflict over slavery, Melville’s novel emerges from a political moment when whiteness was not merely a color but a racialized ideology shaping the moral crisis of the nation. My creative project—two bookends representing the whale’s head and tail layered with scholarly sources, tissue paper, and the pages of Chapter 42—attempts to materialize the novel’s layered, unstable symbolism. Although the whale’s whiteness is often read as universal or metaphysical, a historically grounded reading reveals that Melville’s symbolism is shaped by the cultural and political anxieties of his time. Critics such as Michael Berthold, Mary Blish, and Walter Bezanson show how Melville’s symbolic system accumulates meanings rather than stabilizing them. My artwork enacts this very process: it demonstrates that symbolism in Moby-Dick is never fixed but expands through layers of interpretation. The novel, like the sculpture, insists that the whale’s meaning cannot be contained—because it was never about a whale at all.

Walter Bezanson’s foundational essay “Moby-Dick: Work of Art” captures the generative, endlessly unfolding nature of Melville’s symbolism. He writes, “Find a key word or metaphor, start to pick it as you would a wildflower, and you will find yourself ripping up the whole forest floor. Rhetoric grows into symbolism, symbolism into structure; then all falls away and begins over again” (Bezanson). His metaphor of uprooting an entire forest to pluck a single flower underscores that Melville did not design symbols with fixed meanings. Instead, each symbol leads outward into a network of historical, philosophical, and emotional associations. This insight directly supports a reading of the whale’s whiteness as both unstable and overdetermined: it grows in significance as the reader attempts to analyze it. Bezanson’s claim also resonates with the structure of my creative project. Like the forest floor buried beneath layers of leaves, soil, and roots, the bookends reveal their meaning only through excavation. Beneath the white tissue and the pages of Chapter 42 lie the historical and critical sources that shape the deeper implications of the text. Bezanson thus frames Melville’s symbolism as a process rather than a product—a view that becomes essential when examining whiteness in its nineteenth-century context.

Michael C. Berthold provides the historical grounding necessary to understand how whiteness in Moby-Dick intersects with racial ideology. In “Moby-Dick and American Slave Narrative,” Berthold argues that Melville’s novel shares thematic terrain with slave narratives, particularly in its depiction of violence, dehumanization, and national guilt (Berthold 135). He emphasizes that Melville wrote during a period when the Fugitive Slave Act forced Northern citizens to participate in the capture and return of enslaved people, creating what Berthold calls a “moral crisis of complicity” (Berthold 145). Through this lens, the whiteness of the whale can be read not as a mystical abstraction but as a symbol of a nation attempting to mask its brutality beneath an ideology of racial purity. When Ishmael describes whiteness as “the intensifying agent in things the most appalling” (Melville 212), his language echoes the rhetoric abolitionists used to expose the hypocrisy of a country that imagined itself morally “white” while participating in racialized violence. Berthold’s interpretation shows that the whale’s whiteness resonates with real historical anxieties—and thus cannot be separated from the culture that produced it.

Mary Blish deepens this perspective by arguing that whiteness in Melville’s novel derives its power not from intrinsic symbolism but from cultural meaning. In “The Whiteness of the Whale Revisited,” she contends that whiteness terrifies precisely because it is “culturally encoded with contradictions” (Blish 56). Whiteness signifies purity, innocence, and superiority, yet simultaneously evokes erasure, violence, and domination. Blish’s argument aligns with Ishmael’s meditation on “that ghastly whiteness” that renders the color more dreadful than the red of blood itself (Melville 205). Her analysis clarifies why whiteness, in the mid-nineteenth-century American imagination, could elicit both attraction and horror; it represented the ideological contradictions of a society that imagined itself morally righteous while perpetuating slavery. Blish thus reinforces the idea that the whale’s whiteness is not a natural symbol but a cultural one—constructed, contested, and loaded with meaning.

These critical perspectives illuminate the structural logic of Chapter 42. Ishmael’s language repeatedly emphasizes the emptiness and terror of whiteness: he describes it as a “colorless all-color” and “the heartless void” (Melville 212). These metaphors suggest that whiteness becomes frightening because it operates as a blank screen onto which the most appalling meanings can be projected. This dynamic mirrors the workings of racial ideology, which depends on the illusion that whiteness is neutral or pure even as it functions as a tool of domination. In this sense, Ishmael’s philosophical inquiry parallels the political crisis Berthold identifies: whiteness appears innocent but conceals—or intensifies—the violence beneath. The chapter thus critiques not only symbolic interpretation but also the cultural logic that underpinned 1850’s racial politics.

My creative project translates these textual dynamics into physical form. The two bookends—one shaped like the whale’s head and the other like its tail—visually emphasize fragmentation. By presenting only the extremities of the whale, the sculpture mirrors the novel’s insistence that the whole meaning of the whale is inaccessible. Just as Ishmael can only interpret fragments of the whale’s symbolic presence, the viewer can only see portions of the creature’s body. The layering of materials further enhances this effect. Nestled at the center of the sculpture lie my scholarly sources, which reflect the historical and critical foundations beneath any interpretation of the text. Covering these are layers of white tissue paper, a material that simultaneously conceals and reveals. The tissue becomes a metaphor for whiteness itself: thin, translucent, seemingly pure, yet capable of obscuring the darker layers beneath. Finally, the outermost layer—the pages of Chapter 42—situates the sculpture directly within Melville’s textual universe. On the brow of the whale’s head, I placed the words “It was never about a whale,” a statement that reframes Ahab’s metaphysical fixation into a symbolic argument about history, ideology, and interpretation. The sculpture literalizes the process Bezanson describes: meaning grows as layers are added, stripped away, and reinterpreted.

Ultimately, reading the whale’s whiteness through Berthold, Blish, and Bezanson reveals that Melville’s symbolism is historically situated, culturally loaded, and structurally unstable. The whale becomes a site where national anxieties about slavery, racial ideology, and moral complicity collide with philosophical questions about meaning itself. My creative project embodies this multiplicity by presenting the whale not as a singular symbol but as a layered, fragmented, ever-evolving figure. In both the novel and the artwork, the meaning lies not within the whale but in the act of interpretation. We can never see the whole creature—because the whale, like the nation it reflects, resists being seen in full.

Work Cited

Berthold, Michael C. “Moby-Dick and American Slave Narrative.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 35, no. 1, 1994, pp. 135–14., www.jstor.org/stable/25090518.

Bezanson, Walter E. “Moby-Dick: Work of Art.” Moby-Dick Centennial Essays. Tyrus Hillway and Luther S. Mansfield, eds. Southern Methodist University Press, 1953.

Blish, Mary. “THE WHITENESS of the WHALE REVISITED.” CLA Journal, vol. 41, no. 1, 1997, pp. 55–69, www.jstor.org/stable/44323040. 

Melville, Herman, et al. Moby-Dick Or, the Whale, chap. 42, pp. 204–212. London, Penguin Classics, 2003.

Week 16 – Final Takeaways/So What?

Posted on by
1

This class has definitely been a roller-coaster, yet one I have enjoyed every step of the way. Not only did this class enable me to further develop my skills in close-reading and reignite the fun of annotating books, but it has also helped my to read between the lines of a story. Not everything that makes Moby Dick what it is is stated outright in the novel, and yet, thanks to group discussions, everything seems so clear.

My final take away from Moby Dick and the class as a whole is the importance of interpretation and perspective. We are all approaching the novel from different angles, different backgrounds, forms of education, and the newest historical perspective. All of these factors are important as they shape the way an individual close reads a novel, whether having read it before or not, and what they might be drawn to within the book itself. Many of the parts I found extremely boring within the novel and left mostly unannotated were caked in notes and further developed in group discussions by others. It has made me value the importance of every interpretation, whether it be a scholarly critic or my classmate across the room. These different interpretations allow for different analysis of a specific text, creating a different approach to literary development and rhetorical analysis from not only an academic approach, but a cultural one as well. We have experienced a life that never before could have been imagined by people in the 1850s, and yet for the most part, the ideals that Herman Melville portrayed in his novel still have important relevance to all of us in 2025.

The Gilder: Let Faith Oust Fact; Let Fancy Oust Memory

Posted on by
Reply

Starbuck had been an adversary for Ahab throughout the novel, but as the voyage progressed, Starbuck could only rely on hopeful illusions to face the noxious reality. In Chapter 114, The Gilder, Melville’s use of forceful diction and stark contrasts reveals how humans cling to imagination to cope with horrifying truths.

Melville uses forceful diction to show Starbuck’s coping mechanisms. On page 535, Melville wrote in Starbuck’s perspective, “‘Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s eye!—Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways.’” “Loveliness unfathomable” tells of Starbuck wanting to believe in a positive outcome, and “Tell me not of–” tells of the truths Starbuck wants to reject; the facts that have been happening. He wants to forget and go home, a common coping mechanism for people with trauma.

Melville uses stark contrasts to show Starbuck’s mental state. He wrote Starbuck to explicitly say this because Starbuck was holding on to what little hope he had left. On page 535, Starbuck continued, “‘Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.’” The contrasts, especially the last line, paints Starbuck’s psychological struggle and reliance on imagination. The word “oust” here means to remove, meaning Starbuck wants to replace fact with faith, and memory with “fancy”. Perhaps here, fancy means imagination, and in this case, Starbuck is saying he’d rather believe in faith and imagination than accept fact and memory. This ties into the religious context, where believing that a mental construct exists feels more satisfying than facing reality. 

Melville’s use of diction and contrasts highlights Starbuck’s mentality. The diction had shown Starbuck’s conviction with his iron-willed beliefs. The contrasts between faith/fancy and fact/memory show not only the internal conflict in Starbuck’s morals, but also how he wants to be a good man in a world of cruelty. Applicably, people in real life struggle more in living with fact and memory than believing themselves in faith and imagination.

Essay 2 – Moby-Dick or, The Whale Against Capitalism

Posted on by
Reply

Herman Melville’s novel, Moby-Dick, serves as a critique of capitalism and its effect on American society. Throughout the novel Melville uses the whaling industry as a metaphor for capitalism; he demonstrates how the life-threatening labor of workers is used for the enrichment of others, how crewmembers on the Pequod are merely seen as a commodity for profit, how material wealth overrides the morality of those working and living in a capitalist society, and the disconnect between the consumer and the laborer. The novel shows readers that capitalism in America has created an individualistic society in which profit and gain is more important than morals and lives.

In Chapter 16, titled “The Ship,” Ishmael meets Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad, the owners of the Pequod, for the first time prior to the ship’s departure. Being the owners of the ship, both the captains will take a majority of the profit that is made from the Pequod’s whaling expedition. However neither one of them will step foot on the ship during its journey, and instead they will stay on land and reap the benefits of the hardworking and life-threatening labor done by the crew members of the Pequod: “ ‘Thou are speaking to Captain Peleg – that’s who ye are speaking to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We are part owners and agents…’ People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest” (Melville 80-82). Captain Peleg and Bildad are able to avoid the risks of whaling, but by being owners of the ship they will still share most of the profit earned by the crew members during the Pequod’s dangerous expedition. This shows the disparity in industrial capitalism; the ones at the top will do the least amount of labor, yet they will still make the most amount of money. Melville compares the investment and ownership of whaling vessels to that of the reader’s investment in stocks. Like some stocks, the money that comes with whaling involves destruction, corruption, and death. Putting a profit over a life, whether it be whale or human, shows the immorality of the industry, and how capitalism has created a society in which people are only so interested in their own gain that they don’t care what has to be done in order to get it.

In Chapter 93, “The Castaway,” Melville uses the character Pip to highlight how workers are seen as a commodity for profit in American capitalist society. While chasing a whale, Pip leaps overboard and is caught by the rope connected to the whale. With the only option to save him being to cut the rope and freeing the whale, Pip is reluctantly saved by Stubb, who berates him for the incident: “ ‘Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I wont pick you if you jump; mind that. We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and don’t jump any more.’ Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loves his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence” (Melville 452). Pip is told by Stubb that his life is not worth more than any amount of money that could be made from the whale. Profit over life, unsurprising considering the money is made off of the killing of whales. Melville shows the harsh reality of the industry, how workers are seen as expendable and should not be considered anything more than a commodity and a way to gain wealth. Directly after this, Pip falls overboard once more, and the cruelty of capitalism is shown in full effect: “Pip jumped again… when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller’s trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word… Stubb’s inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and Stubb… For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that fishery” (Melville 452-454). This time, Stubb sticks to his word and puts the potential profit of the whale over the life of Pip. Melville also points out how this is a common occurrence in the industry, and to not judge Stubb too harshly for his immoral decision. Too often it is seen in America that the lives of workers are less important than the money that is made off of them. Capitalism has created a society that does not care about the loss of life so long as the money keeps coming in. Pip’s life did not matter to Stubb or to any of the other members on the boat, as they were too focused on killing the whale that could make them some money. Perhaps even more so, Melville uses Pip, a Black American, to demonstrate how another industry puts the importance of profit over life and morality; slavery. Still the major issue in America at the time of the novel’s publication, slavery is capitalism in its most cruel form. The gaining of profit off of the buying and selling of humans, forcing them into unpaid labor, and treating them like they are inferior. This chapter goes to the full extent in showing the brutality and viciousness of capitalism in America, and how money overrides morals.

Throughout the novel Melville shows the dangers of the whaling industry. He goes into the harsh details of killing whales and the production of whale oil, a product used by many Americans at the time; by doing so Melville is able to demonstrate the disconnect between consumers and laborers under capitalism. In Chapter 61, titled “Stubb Kills a Whale,” Melville gives the reader a brutal detailing on the killing of a whale by Stubb: “And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst! ‘He’s dead, Mr. Stubb,’ said Tashtego” (Melville 311-312). The production of whale oil comes at a cost. The harsh killing of whales in a most vicious form, of course dangerous for whales but also the men tasked with killing them. Consumers are not the ones going out into the ocean and harpooning a whale until it is dead, yet they are the ones using the oil for simple things like candles, lamps, and soap. Another example of this occurs in Chapter 96, “The Try-Works.” In this chapter, the reader is introduced to the process of turning whale fat into oil, something that many consumers of the product do not see: “These fritters feed the flames… the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of the funereal pyres. It smells like the left wing of the day of judgement; it is an argument for the pit” (Melville 462). This description of the creation of whale oil shows a side that the consumer does not see; workers in harsh conditions, breathing in smoke that is not meant to be inhaled, working in a strong stench of burning blubber, the Pequod is both a ship and an industrial factory. The whaling industry makes its profit off the ignorance of their consumers, no doubt hiding the harsh realities that go into it. 

Herman Melville’s novel, Moby-Dick, is a critique of capitalism and how it has severely affected American society. Melville uses the whaling industry as a critical analysis on capitalism, demonstrating how the poor treatment of workers, the disparity between consumer and laborer, and the immorality of capitalism has turned America into a country in which profit is more important than lives, whether that life be whale or human.

Ebb and Flow

Posted on by
2

In Chapter 111 on page 525, Melville wrote “The waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly…” It was part of a sentence, but what caught my eye is the word “should.” Why “should”? Why not “will” or “can”? But as I read further, I realized that this explains the inevitability of life itself. It is the only part of the full sentence that sounds rhythmic, like how waves themselves move. The word “unceasingly” simply means “eternal.” In other words, the waves move eternally. Adding the implication, Melville presenting the sea as a symbol of constant motion also becomes how life is in constant motion.

“The waves should rise and fall” suggests the ups and downs of life. It’s basically not normal for an entire lifespan to be completely calm and serene. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to be happy. We have emotions so we can experience life like a rollercoaster, or rather a storm in a voyage. Mistakes are made to teach. Failures and setbacks show flaws. You can strive for the calm and serene, but the journey to get there will never be.

“Ebb and flow” suggests a cycle of experiences. Many things can restart, many things can be relived. The most vivid example is the damning fact Moby Dick teaches you how to read after already knowing how to read. The phrase “ebb and flow” shows how life teaches: even with everything you have learned, there’s still thousands more to know.

Why Melville consciously chose “should” and nothing else is because life “should” rise and fall, ebb and flow, as you grow as a person.

Essay 1: Authority, Self-Awareness, and Obsession

Posted on by
Reply

In the 19th century, authority at sea was absolute. The captains had the say in everything, and this unchecked power was a matter of life or death. Being able to lead means understanding your people’s capabilities, and in a whaling ship, the boat’s life are the shipmates, like organs in a body. As the brain, Ahab from Moby-Dick knows this, but instead, he uses his position to satisfy his vengeance and obsession. When Starbuck questioned Ahab’s pursuit, Ahab saw it as a motivation. He calls himself “demoniac” and “madness maddened,” revealing his self-awareness as part of his insanity rather than a barrier. Ahab turns his madness into justification for his actions as captain.

Ahab’s self-awareness enables his rationality to make obsessive decisions, turning his authority as captain into an outlet for vengeance. In chapter 37, Sunset, Ahab was sitting alone in his cabin, staring out the windows, when he pondered, “They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I’m demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that’s only calm to comprehend itself!” (Melville, p. 183). The sentence “They think me mad—Starbuck does…” shows Ahab acknowledging how people see his craziness, but instead of denying it, he redefines it. By saying, “I’m demoniac, I am madness maddened!” he is claiming a higher, almost supernatural-like, form of madness. Melville’s choice of using repetition and the word “demoniac” shows how Ahab consciously justifies his abuse of authority with madness. He portrays how someone under emotional obsession can be dangerous regardless of clarity. In the phrase, ”That wild madness that’s only calm to comprehend itself,” that calmness is not sanity but a moment of control inside insanity. Ahab acknowledges the chaos he controls rather than resists. He understands he became the embodiment of absurdity, insanity, vengeance, and obsession, and he lets it all define him. Such madness isn’t blinding Ahab; it sharpens his vision. He clearly sees what he’s doing and he still chooses destruction.

What does that have to do with life or death? Simple: if madness himself is the brain, the rest of the body is obliged to follow it. You are reading this essay because you want to understand my insight, and just now you may have been wondering what authority, obsession, and self-awareness have to do with anything, or maybe you just came here to find something to talk about in the reply section. Whatever your reason for being here, you wouldn’t have been able to if your fingers, blood, and/or nervous system refused to obey. The same goes with captains: their team, or in the context of Moby Dick, their crew would not be able to do anything without a voice to follow. However, there would be a little voice in the mind that goes against their wishes. For Ahab, that little voice of reason is Starbuck. When Ahab thought, “They think me mad–Starbuck does,” he isn’t rejecting the warning. This is the first domino to fall before the ship’s fate: as the more these two bicker, the higher chance the ship would split before Moby Dick the whale is back in the action. This reveals how obsession overrides reason and sets the crew to an inevitable downfall. The type of captain matters far more than being charismatic, and much like the captains, leadership in the historical and modern context are just as vulnerable to emotions.

During that time, royalty and those that could taste that similar power were often indulging in said power. Melville’s warning still resonates today: a leader driven by obsession leads their followers to ruin. Our politics, our social circles, our families, our social media circles like influencers, there is a reason why there are followers. For Captain Ahab, his followers are the crew of the Pequod, and with one incentive, he managed to convert regular sailors and whalehunters into soldiers to do his bidding. This is what Melville criticizes about authority: awareness without restraint, paired with obsession, is just another form of power that can destroy the very people meant to be protected.

The Separation of Nations – Week 9

Posted on by
2

One quote from the beginning of this week’s reading has stuck with me throughout the duration of my reading. From Chapter 48, “The First Lowering”, reads the quote, “The jets of vapor no longer blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart” (pp. 244). The reason this quote stuck out to me was that, after our group discussion in class on Thursday regarding the search for an understanding of whiteness and the “one drop rule” applied to identifying and categorizing black individuals versus whites, there seemed to be a bit more development on the topic through this quote. As we know, Melville is using Moby Dick to critique the circumstances of the United States in the late 19th century, building on the idea that, without understanding what whiteness is and what exactly makes it superior to other colors, one will lose their identity and their mind (as seen through Ahab). The idea as a whole is quite absurd.

From this quote, we can dissect and categorize two key components of this work of literature: the whales (white superiority/colonialism/the right to Westward Expansion/etc.) and the ships (nation-states). Through the desire to obtain this idea of “whiteness” and all the havoc it creates, the turmoils with which those searching for it succumb to, can create a nation-wide divison, whether between two or more countries, or the two races within one. This quote indirectly lays claim to the fact that the idea of segregation and superiority simply based on the rule of “whiteness” will divide the people of our nation now, and for long after in the future.