Tag Archives: week 8

Chapter 64 Supper? I hardly even know her

Posted on by
1

Most of us can agree that this is a tough chapter to talk about. Obviously, times were different back then, and because it did happen, it’s still worth talking about, even if it may be tough to ingest. Setting aside race, these two individuals (Stubb and Fleece) are the product of their upbringing. Stubb in this scene is viewed as a pompous god fearing dick, hold the Moby, and Fleece, and an elder man who has accepted his fate that his life is just a ticking clock, for it to strike 12 and “some pressed angel will come and fetch him.” There is some beauty in it when Fleece says, “he himself won’t go nowhere,” because he himself is deserving of more. Though he himself may have been dealt a terrible hand, he has accepted that and is patiently waiting for a halo to defy gravity about his head.


This chapter is reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn, especially in the dialect of the black cook, which is also featured in Huck Finn, appearing in both white and black characters. I was reading online about how this language could dehumanize those of a certain race, especially with one where, at that time, they were mostly uneducated. I say uneducated, not intelligent, because there’s a huge difference. My father doesn’t have a high school diploma, and some of his skill sets are far below average compared to those of his peers. Still, what he lacks, he makes up for in blue-collar work, such as construction, and exact measurements. He can look at something and know the precise measurement of fiberglass insulation piping offhand. Additionally, he can mathematically add fractions without missing a beat. I feel that even though Fleece may not be educated in the sense of a white gentleman, particularly as seen in Stubb, he has still lived and seen a world that doesn’t make him less than.


“Don’t be tearin’ de blubber out your neighbours mout, I say.” On page 321, we see Fleece, for lack of a better word, impart this moral lesson on helping one’s neighbor. It bears a striking similarity to the America we live in today, especially in terms of white privilege. To use an analogy, if there were a subdivision and a house were on fire. The fire department wouldn’t show up and start putting water on all the houses because all houses matter. They would show up, and they would turn their water on the house that was burning because that’s the house that needs the help the most. I did let out a little chuckle when Stubb cried out, “That’s Christianity.” We see a sailor like Stubb, who doesn’t practice what he preaches, yet mocks the elderly cook. There’s even a small banter about the birthplace of Fleece, where Fleece explicitly said he was born in Roanoke, and when asked, Fleece reminds him that he had already told him. Stubb, hard of hearing, denounces that Fleece ever said that, and in the same breath, that he must go home and be born again because his sole purpose in life should be that of a cook, and if he cant even cook a whale steak correctly, what good is Fleece to not only the Pequod, but to his race in general.


Its quite thought provoking that this chapter comes after an intense and tension filled chapter of the hard work displayed of the sailors coming together as one to achieve an insurmountable mission, but just moments later, that can turn on a dime and have one reminded of their place, role, and purpose in society even when that society is thousands of miles away from land.

Midterm Close Reading Essay #1: Of Horror & Faith

Posted on by
Reply

Herman Melville pulls from many sources of inspiration within his novel Moby Dick, or The Whale, such as Shakespeare, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe. Melville’s tonal shift on page 42 belies a horror element within the story, creating tension and a sense of foreboding. This is both amplified by the context of the scene – Ishmael visiting a chapel and seeing marble placards for lost whalers – and the placement within the story – it is before we are introduced to Ahab, the Pequod, or even Moby Dick. Employing our ineffable narrator Ishmael, Melville asks the reader to critically engage with the concept of complicit faith.

While utilizing techniques such as foreshadowing early within the novel, the tonal shift into horror comes at the end of Chapter 7, The Chapel. When faced with the mortality entailed with the job he sought by way of several marble tablets on display in the church, Ishmael goes into a mental reverie, stating, “How is it that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. But Faith, like the jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope” (42). This passage uses clear and plain language to instill the reader with his message.

Beginning first with the personal response with grief, he comments on how religion itself is meant to be some kind of comfort. Despite this, religion does not truly ease the loss or suffering of those left behind – “we still refuse to be comforted.” He continues with the innate response of the grieving: “why all the living so strive to hush all the dead,” to not hold their words or actions against them and remember them as “the best” of themselves. Yet, or perhaps because of this, people do not want to know the truth beyond the grave. Were someone to come back to tell of their death, it would unsettle rather than bring comfort. 

The mystery of death feeds the perceived comfort. The fear of the unknown is what lives at the root of fears such as nyctophobia (fear of the dark) or thalassophobia (fear of deep bodies of water). Humanity can never know for sure what awaits us after death, if anything. They must persist beyond the flood, dreaming of rewards and “unspeakable bliss.” The line with the strongest horror tone, “But Faith, like the jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope” (42), stands as a paragraph of its own on the page; this emphasizes the importance that Melville places on the line. This is where the built up shift happens.

By capitalizing “Faith,” Melville changes the concept into a character within the novel. This implies that the concept may exhibit human characteristics, such as a duplicitous nature or that it can be any number of things within the text. Further illustrating this point, he compares Faith to a jackal, a wild dog of Africa that feeds on carrion, game, and fruit that is known to hunt in packs. Much like the Raven in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, which acts as a kind of supernatural emissary that has come to crush the narrator’s hopes of ever being reunited with his beloved Lenore in heaven, Faith as a jackal is used to embody the dread that has begun to grow within Ishmael despite his reluctance to pay it mind.

In the final part of that small paragraph, Ishmael circles back to the beginning ideal presented: “even these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope” (42). Contextually, this is in direct reference to the line “those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss” (42). Despite Faith being the creature that takes the prayers and feeds among the tombs, Faith is also the reason for the maintained belief that those lost are in a better place. The ineffable nature of belief is that it comforts as much as it confounds. It exists beyond interpretation, beyond explanation. It is the other side of that fear of the unknown.

Noticing moments such as this in the text is imperative to understanding the story being told. To quote Melville, “All these things are not without their meanings.” (42); tonal shifts, perspective changes, and historical information are all integral to comprehending the text as a whole. Being able to recognize when the story shifts into horror, romance, or action, understanding the underlying reason behind these shifts, and applying them to one’s interpretation of the novel teaches the reader how to read Moby Dick. Beyond that, Melville is showing the readers to critically engage with beliefs – by personifying faith itself and providing it with a description rooted in horror, it forces the reader to come to terms with complicit faith and a lack of personal thought. This theme will be strengthened upon Ishmael’s voyage on the Pequod, where the lines of personal identity and fanatical belief become skewed by the terrifying charisma of Captain Ahab. Beginning the novel with moments like this acts as the foundation for our understanding of relationships built later in the novel.

Short Essay – Ishmael, Queequeg, and a Nation of Fear and Ignorance

Posted on by
Reply

In the book Moby Dick, author Herman Melville uses the development of human relations to critique American society as a whole, building off the inability to determine differences between races and ethnicities to create a nation that is incomplete in its understanding of one another. Throughout Moby Dick, the reader can see the tension or heartfelt companionship between different characters, most of their relations quite intriguing when compared to the time. Most notable is the relationship between the narrator, Ishmael – a white, middle-class, Presbyterian Christian – and Queequeg, a black, Pagan cannibal. Melville uses the evolution of Ishmael and Queequeg’s relationship to illustrate how curiosity and lack of fear of the unknown serve as a fundamental factor in personal growth and the bettering of the United States as a nation built on ignorance, showing how a willingness to understand what is unfamiliar to a person can transform ignorance and prejudice into mutual understanding and respect. 

Chapter four of the book is the most notable for the strange and rather rushed companionship between Ishmael and Queequeg, though it is not the focus of this essay.  The narrator’s lack of information regarding his new roommate at the Spouter Inn dissolves into a state of pure panic; who could this man be? A murderer? A savage? Of what race or occupation could he have been? With little information on who Queequeg actually was – even the lack of his name earlier in the book – Ishmael resorts to outbursts of fear and anger, demanding to know who he is to be roomed with. Upon reveal, his own prejudice in regards to black individuals and cannibals from never-before-seen islands of the South Pacific Ocean, Ishmael cannot help but be both terrorized and enraged. Though very subtle, concerning the time in which Moby Dick was written, the United States was divided based on race and slavery. The North and the South were at odds with what to do about runaway slaves, and whether the new states occupied through Westward Expansion were to be turned into free or slave states. Newbedford, Massachusetts, where Ishmael and Queequeg first met, was a free state, but with the consequences of the Fugitive Slave Act circulating at that time, tensions between white and black individuals were at an all-time high. With historical context, we can see where Ishmael’s fear stems from – from the unknown identity of his roommate, and later, the realization that Queequeg was an uncivilized, black cannibal. 

From this lack of understanding of who and what Queequeg actually was stemmed a guttural sense of curiosity within Ishmael. The simple nature of observing Queequeg and his actions – the way he walks, dresses, his tattoos, his Pagan idolatry towards Yojo (the small doll he carries with him and seemingly worships), and his speech – began to break down the barriers of ignorance that separated Ishmael and Queequeg into various categories. Queequeg states in Chapter thirteen, “It’s a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians” (pp. 68). The much-needed development of the United States, to Melville, should be built on a mutual understanding of one another, not the categorization and segregation of white from the “other”. To Queequeg, we all all human, and despite the initial introduction between him and Ishmael, the curiosity shown between the two of them has developed into a mutual understanding and respect for each other. Melville uses this development in their relationship to critique to ignorance of the United States, founded on the lack of understanding of what makes white superior to other races, and condemning our nation to a future of further ignorance as it grows into the idea of fear of the unknown. We fear what we lack knowledge of, whether it be the depths of the ocean or the idea that we are all the same, regardless of our race. 

What makes the quote above so intriguing within the book is that prior, Queequeg is overwhelmed with a “profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his people happier” (62), only to learn that the glorious nation of the United States and its Christian citizens were in fact so backwards in their ways of thinking and understanding one another that they should instead learn from the cannibals. Ironic to think about: Christians learning from the ways of cannibals, a group demonized and referred to as uncivilized and dangerous, not only for their race, but for their culture. The lack of knowledge of Queequeg and his people instilled a fear towards them, one that makes Ishmael and his relationship so out of the ordinary to most. Their relationship is a direct reflection of what Melville hopes the United States to become: an accepting, knowledgeable nation built on the mutual respect and understanding of different peoples, not one that is separated based on race, and the idea that white is superior to all else. 

The latter idea alone can be torn from its pedestal under the singular quote that Queequeg believes white Christians should learn from the group they despise to return to a place of unity over division. Moby Dick, while encompassing numerous allegories and references to the foundation of our society and nation, focuses on how the lack of knowledge and understanding of oneself and others can form a rift from which we develop as a nation into an ignorant and fearful people. 




Chapter 35: So lonely, so bored

Posted on by
3

In Chapter 35, “The Mast-Head,” Ishmael reflects on the uncanny stillness and spiritual isolation that comes from the high above the ship as a whale lookout. He starts turn the tone very philosophical and more about the consciousness of the human mind. In the quote, “but lulled into such such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thought, that at last he loses his identity…” (172) , he’s describing on how the watcher drifts away from its own consciousness and starts to separate from himself, basically losing his identity. Melville starts to use poetic imagery and philosophical views for us to see on how isolation can mirror the human struggle of awareness and illusions. It demonstrates on how Ishmael’s calm yet warning tone can see the meaning of searching for whales, but how it can lead to excellence or destruction.

It’s scary on how it can be easy to disconnect yourself and others in moments where you start feeling vulnerable. I’ve felt like when life starts getting hard and so my mind starts to wonder off to those thoughts, but then I start to reflect on the positives in order for me to seek the good things I have encountered in my life.

The Loneliness of the Pequod

Posted on by
2

In chapter 35, the ship can be seen as a space that is isolating which then results in a loss of self identity. Ishmael mentions that being on top of the mast-head, which is at the highest point of a ship where men stand watch, stands at “a hundred feet above the silent decks.” The mast-head is physically and mentally isolated from everyone, leaving the sailor no other choice but to be alone with his thoughts. The sailors go through a routine every couple hours to switch out the mast-head watchers. During these shifts, these men are by themselves for hours at a time, so there is no room for socializing with the other men and building relationships- a reality that heightens their sense of isolation. Ishmael goes on to say, “There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, which nothing ruffled but the waves” (Melville 169). The ocean may be captivating, but there is no one in sight and the stillness of the ocean and sound of the waves causes solitude and loneliness to creep up. Due to the solitude, it contributes to the loss of self identity. Ishmael says, “unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thought, that at last he loses his identity” (Melville 172). The waves are hypnotizing young men, including Ishmael, and causing them to get lost in their own thoughts and ultimately leading to a detachment from reality so greatly that their identities also fade away. By being so absorbed in one’s thoughts can bring up existential questions, which overall leads to curiosity and uncertainty, and of course eventually leads to identity issues. Ishmael even brings up that he was a “sorry guard” due to the fact that he was left completely alone with his thoughts so high up. His self reflection showed how isolation has a great impact on the human psyche, showing that having your thoughts overpower you to the point where you detach from the physical world can lead to a loss of self.

I related far too much to that Cabin Table

Posted on by
3

As I open my book to chapter 34, The Cabin Table (after reading and learning more information on whales than I ever wanted or expected), I thought to myself, “Here we go again, an overdescriptive nonsensical chapter of the dining arrangements on the Pequod.” I was wrong. I don’t like being wrong, but this was a rare occasion.

“Back when I was in the Navy…” Yes, it’s story time. On a navy ship, enlisted and officers are separated when it comes to meal hours. The officers dine in a more ceremonious manner and with luxurious dining utensils and china. I use the word luxurious lightly, but when you’re an enlisted person eating off a plastic tray that has separate compartments for your entrees and sides, the thought of having a ceramic soup bowl does feel a tad opulent. In the officer’s ward room, the lower-ranking person may sit at the table without asking if they are the first to arrive. If there’s a higher-ranking person at that table and a lower-ranking person arrives, they must receive permission to sit by that higher-ranking official. If the lower-ranking person were to finish their meal first, they must ask the highest-ranking individual there to be excused. If the highest ranking person arrives (the captain), they have a designated chair they sit in, and the atmosphere in the room immediately becomes erect with utmost posture and well-behaved manners that a southern mother would even appreciate. While reading this chapter I could understand and feel the intense aura and presence that Ahab is giving off.

“But ere stepping into the cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab’s presence, in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave.” The family table is the American symbol of open conversation, where a group gathers to just “let it all out.” Ahab is borne out by his actions. He is there to do a job and not there to be social or experience joy. The last joy he had was in his tobacco pipe that he threw out to sea because even that was too much of a conundrum for his monomania. Ahab has such power in his silence that it’s deafening to the crew around him. Ahab is a master of his ship, and his leadership and implicit power are not once reinforced. It is known without a shadow of a doubt that the standard Ahab has set up. Ahab is not there to run a successful crew and ship; he already has well-trained personnel to do that for him. Ahabs’ internal strife is what keeps him going.

Back to my Navy story, sometimes, and this isn’t often allowed, some Navy officers would slip down to the mess decks, where we enlisted peasants eat, to enjoy a meal. They, too, would rather be peeling the eggshell of a hard-boiled egg instead of walking on one. In the mess decks, just like the harpooners, is where the heart of the ship is. This is the area where all those petty social games are played, and a little bit of stress and anxiety can somehow vanish for a quarter of an hour. Just like in the Pequod, this is where cultures come together or clash, but lessons are learned, friendships are formed, and values are established. That’s one of the beauties of being a sailor. If I had a ship, I would title her USS Carrabba’s because when you’re here, you’re family.

p.s. I know that last line was cheesy, but I couldn’t “pasta” up the opportunity.

p.s.s. and yes I did catch that grape directly in my mouth. Fruits must be washed before ingesting.

Ahab; or the fallen angel

Posted on by
2

Ahab is searching for God. Chapters 36, 37, and 38 were interesting to me because not only does Ahab confront the crew and have them sign a pact (or a deal with the devil), but Starbuck publicly questions the madness of his captain and voices the doubts that others are more than willing to ignore in favor of peace. What interested me was the fragile peace maintained on the ship, and how Ahab is almost daring Starbuck to challenge him, and inspire rebellion. This instability is revealed to us in Chapter 37, Sunset, where we get insight into Ahab’s inner thoughts. What I found there proves to me without a doubt that this quest, for the whale, is the quest of a fallen man, a quest for God. 

Ahab has lost all connection and appreciation of nature: “ Oh! Time was when the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed me. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy it. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! Damned in the midst of Paradise! (182)”

Like Starbuck, I feel such immense pity for Ahab. Surrounded by the beauty and splendor of the open ocean, which seems to have been his heaven on earth, his paradise, but he can enjoy none of it. Ahab is like a dead man walking. He is completely disconnected from God and fueled only by anger and rage, which is focused on Moby Dick. But why has his disillusion with god become funneled into this Whale? I look to these passages where he acknowledges the accident: 

“it was Moby Dick that dismasted me, Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now(177).” 

“The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and – Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophecy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That’s more than ye, ye great gods, ever were(183).”

By describing his losing his leg to the whale as ‘dismasting’ and ‘dismembering,’ we understand that this act by the whale, or by god, threatened his masculinity. His acts of madness, his exertion of force amongst the crew, and intimidation of Starbuck, feel like attempts by him to restore his masculinity and power through his position at the top of the hierarchy. Furthermore, he numerously attempts to scorn God by enlisting pagan harpooners, making them swear an oath to him (to hunt and kill Moby Dick), and describing himself as a prophet and fulfiller, greater than “ye great gods ever were.” This path Ahab is intent on paving has a biblical mirror, and like the fallen angel Lucifer, he has joined forces with his crew to wage war on God and his creatures.

Ahab’s Challenge

Posted on by
1

In chapter 36, “The Quarter-Deck,” Melville almost literalizes the phrase “speak of the devil.” After Ahab said that he would reward the sailor who saw a white whale matching Moby Dick’s description, Ahab commanded, “Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.” Shortly thereafter, the harpooners Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg spotted the white whale Ahab had described. Ahab’s phrasing also felt as if he were summoning the whale itself, like he knew it was there. The sequence of events mirrors the phrase “speak of the devil” because almost immediately after Ahab described it, Moby Dick appeared. In other words, Melville turned a familiar phrase into a narrative device.

A ship controlled by vengeance

Posted on by
2

Captain Ahab’s own quest for vengeance has seeped it’s way into the minds of the rest of the crew members, deepening their own hatred for Moby Dick and further showing the influence that Ahab has over the men in the Pequod. The beginning of Chapter 41 offers us more insight into the feelings of animosity that the crew members of the Pequod are feeling towards Moby Dick: “I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge” (Melville 194). Moby Dick takes up the mind of both Ahab and all his men on board the ship, consuming them in the feeling of vengeance. Ahab’s own personal quarrel with Moby Dick has managed to become everyone’s problem, with Ishmael claiming that he and the rest of the crew have taken an oath of “violence and revenge” against the whale, not stopping at anything to get their way.

This shows how influential Captain Ahab is. We have already been introduced to him as an almost mythical-like character, one that cannot be defined in anyway you would a normal person. His own need for revenge has became a need for everyone on the Pequod, and his ability to influence his men is astounding. Ahab is such a larger-than-life character, it is no surprise that many of the men fall into the trap of listening to his orders and hearing his stories which purpose is to fill them with anger. It is certainly interesting to see the character Ahab, especially today where we see a lot of similarities with many prominent figures in America.

It’ll be interesting to see how far Ahab is able to go with influencing the crew members of the Pequod, and how far they willing to listen and feel the same anger and need for vengeance that he does. In their minds, Moby Dick is the cause of all their pain and suffering.

Ahab vs. Moby Dick

Posted on by
1

In Chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck, it is noticeable to the reader that Ahab is blindly seeking revenge against Moby Dick for the loss of his leg. I use the word “blindly” in a broad manner, not just referring to Ahab’s dismissal of danger and death of himself while seeking out Moby Dick, but also for that of his crew. As Ahad gathers the crew around in a sort of sacrificial toast, the text reads, “…the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on their head in the trail of this bison; but alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian” (179)

Thinking realistically, wolves are keen and expert hunters, reflecting Ahab and the crew’s years of experience as whalers and harpooners. However, blinded by the bloodthirsty revenge to kill Moby Dick, Ahab is set to fall into the hands of the very thing he seeks out, or the inhabitants that live alongside them. While the rest of the crew blindly submits to Ahab’s orders to hunt down and kill Moby Dick, Starbuck is the only character who noticeably resists Ahab’s vengeful and problematic proposal. But, like the loyalty of a pack of wolves following their leader in a hunt, Starbuck submits to the will of his captain, allowing for the safety of himself and his crewmates to be jeopardized for the sake of bloodthirsty vengeance.