Volume 47 Number 4 Article 3

June 2019

Melville's Moby-Dick: A Lesson in Reading

Mary Dengler Dordt University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Dengler, Mary (2019) "Melville's Moby-Dick: A Lesson in Reading," Pro Rege: Vol. 47: No. 4, 5 - 8. Available at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege/vol47/iss4/3

This Feature Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at Digital Collections @ Dordt. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pro Rege by an authorized administrator of Digital Collections @ Dordt. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Editor’s Note: Dr. Dengler wrote this paper as a response to the summer seminar for faculty at Dordt College (now University), summer of 2017.

Melville’s Moby-Dick: A Lesson in Reading.

remind us that the work is “structured around… two consciousnesses”: those of narrator Ishmael and Captain Ahab.1 The result is analogous to the “dual vision”2 of the whale, whose eyes on the sides of its head perceive two unconnected views of the world. This dual vision is appar- ent in the disparate views of Ahab and Ishmael throughout the narrative. Ahab—whose leg was removed by whale Moby Dick in a previous en- counter, resulting in an excruciating physical and mental recovery—obsessively pursues, in pride and revenge, what he considers the cause of all his misery and the embodiment of cosmic evil, by Mary Dengler bringing about his own destruction. By contrast, Ishmael, who merely seeks relief from depression In May of 2017, when a small band of fac- through a whaling voyage, observes and consid- ulty from various disciplines at Dordt College ers everything and everyone, to the extent of los- participated in a week’s seminar on Melville’s ing himself twice in trances and almost causing Moby -Dick—a novel that most of us hadn’t read his ship’s and his own destruction. One could for years, if ever—what we discovered was not say that while Ahab pursues the whale, Ishmael a simple narrative about a whale and his pur- pursues the essence of everything, from Moby suer. Instead, we discovered Herman Melville’s Dick to Captain Ahab, whaling, whalers, the genius—his ability to weave the history and ele- ocean, nature, and life itself. In both pursuits— ments of whaling, the ambiguity of industry, the Ahab’s physical and focused pursuit of Moby, enigma of nature, and the self-destruction of re- and Ishmael’s intellectual and desultory pursuit venge into a powerful experience. In reading it, of everything—understanding never fully arrives we discovered a mystery—how we make sense of for characters or readers. In fact, if the novel does disparate texts, weaving them into a shape that nothing else, it leads us to multiple, contradic- impacts our lives. tory insights. This mystery is introduced by John Bryant Like the whale’s two eyes perceiving two and Haskell Springer, editors of the Longman different perspectives of the world, the two pro- Critical Edition of Moby-Dick (2007), when they tagonists force readers to perceive and construct the world in two different ways. But while read- ers might be tempted to believe in the left-brain, Dr. Mary Dengler is Professor of English at Dordt University. right-brain theory as they read (i.e., to ignore the

Pro Rege—June 2019 5 facts of whaling and focus on the narrative, or their encounters with other whaling ships, their vise versa), they should remember that unlike three-day war with Moby, the Pequod’s sudden whales, they can synthesize not only disparate end, and Ishmael’s epilogue. Putting the two— parts of the novel but contradictory perceptions details and events—together, readers find a sig- of Ishmael and Ahab into a whole. According to nificance, analogous to that of their own lives. Stephen M. Kosslyn and G. Wayne Miller, in This weaving together of factual detail and “Left Brain, Right Brain? Wrong,” the idea of narrative plot is analogized in the chapter “A classifying kinds of thinking that work indepen- Bower in the Arsacides,” in which Ishmael nar- dently of each other, or even of people as being rates a recalled whaling adventure. He recalls ex- left-brained or right-brained, is the result of an ploring a whale’s skeleton after it had been washed “urban myth” and “lacks basis in solid science.”3 ashore and dragged, by islanders, to a temple of What is really meant by left brain and right brain palms to be worshipped. As he describes the liv- is two complementary types of functions—“in ing palms interweaving the whale’s skeleton, he how each side processes very specific kinds of considers the mysterious weaving together of his information”; for example, “The left hemisphere own experiences and of life and death in general, processes details of visible objects whereas the reminding readers of the Providential weaving right processes overall shape. The left hemisphere together of their own circumstances, and the plays a major role in grammar and decoding connection between these circumstances and literal meaning whereas the right plays a role events to come. in understanding verbal metaphors and decod- Besides offering the two components of a ing indirect or implied meaning.”4 Proving the novel (factual detail and narrative), Moby-Dick truth of that theory, readers see the whale as the reminds us that everything allows for multiple, basis of New England economy, the antagonist contradictory interpretations—from the com- of the narrative, and a many-layered metaphor or panionship of Ishmael and Queequeg to the symbol, enriching the narrative. While both men whale itself, the ship, the hunt, the whale-oil decode Moby as a whale worthy of processing for rendering, the ethnic groups represented, the its precious substances and as a mysterious crea- idiosyncrasies of each whaler, the doubledoon, ture, Ahab interprets it as a symbol of evil, while the novel’s genre, and the ending. Even Moby’s Ishmael interprets it as both a representative of whiteness is described as an emblem of either in- Nature’s transcendent spirit and a misconstrued nocence or death (183), the “colorless, all color of embodiment of Ahab’s obsession. atheism” (184), the “heartless voids and immen- In reading Moby-Dick,5 then, readers move sities of the universe” (185), the “charnel house” uncertainly between perceptions of Ishmael beneath the colorful “harlotries” of nature (185), and Ahab, as well as among those of the other and “the peculiar apparition of the soul” (182). whalers, attempting an interpretation of objects Even the whaling industry, like Moby, invites and events. Readers’ left brains work to decode different interpretations. factual details about whaling—its captains and For example, in Ch. 96, “The Try-works,” if mates, its harpooners and servers, its provisions the whale is, for Ahab, the embodiment of evil and dangers, its processing of whales, the vari- since the beginning, what does Ishmael’s descrip- ous kinds of whales, their skeletons, their blub- tion of the try-works imply? And of what does ber and brains and spermaceti and ambergris, he warn readers when he recounts his staring too their manner of moving through oceans, their long into the furnace flames? Ishmael carefully fossils and survival, their responses to danger. describes the deck’s brick and mortar furnace, Simultaneously, readers’ right brains weave the in which its two huge iron pots are heated for details’ implications into the narrative—Ishmael boiling the whale blubber to render the valu- and Queequeg’s meeting, their introduction to able whale oil, which is later poured into casks the Pequod, Captain Ahab’s power over his crew, and buried in the ship’s bowels. Clearly, we see their responses to the seemingly bizarre events, an efficient factory, employing workers and pro-

6 Pro Rege—June 2019 viding whale oil for American lamps, but its chase begins again. The chasing, killing, ren- imagery also depicts whales as victims in the in- dering, and cleansing he compares to not only ferno of American greed, the ship (becoming an the work-life and social-life cycle but also the ironic metaphor for the whale itself) filled with life-and-death cycle: as soon as we are cleansed blood and blubber. But then, Ishmael compares from one life, we must begin another, according the whale to a “burning martyr,” as its fat, like to Pythagoras (380). From Ishmael’s perspec- a martyr’s blood, provides the immolating fuel tive, life, like whaling, eventually kills humans, while the harpooners’ laughter at the flames in whose souls are cleansed by death, only to begin the night suggests torture at the hands of demons the life process again. In that sense, whaling is like those in Dante’s Inferno. Even Ishmael, analogous not only to life but also to rulers, to “Wrapped…in darkness” (375), becomes en- the state, or to war. All move toward one end. tranced by the flames, loses As for multiple sig- consciousness, turns away Like the whale’s two eyes nificances of objects, the from the prow and com- meaning of the coveted pass, and nearly capsizes perceiving two different “doubloon,” in Ch. 99, de- the Pequod. In response, he perspectives of the world, the pends on the interpreter’s warns readers not to give two protagonists force readers ideological framework. To themselves solely to either to perceive and construct the Captain Ahab, the Andes’ woe (referencing “the Man three summits represent of Sorrows” [376]) or light- world in two different ways. a tower, volcano, and vic- hearted humor (referencing torious fowl, each image Rabelais [376]) because being either too sympa- a validation of Ahab himself. For Starbuck (the thetic to creatures or too callous to their suffering morally-conflicted Quaker and first-mate), who can be destructive. Is that a warning not to view sees Ahab defying the warnings of God, the three whales, whaling, or other enterprises with either summits represent the Trinity, with the “sun of woe or light-heartedness? If so, Ishmael tells us to Righteousness,” shining a “beacon of hope” into be circumspect. the “gloom,” though to him it may be “in vain” Ironically, in Ch. 98, “Stowing Down and (382). Irreligious second-mate Stubbs chooses to Clearing Up,” after a dispassionate summary see only the zodiac in the coin’s hieroglyphics, in- of the shipboard whaling industry, Ishmael terpreting each sign positively for himself, while turns to the cleansing of the ship and crew obtuse third-mate Flask sees a thing of gold and with lighted-heartedness. After noticing the what it will buy. Ironically, it is only young Pip, cleansing power, or “virtue,” of sperm oil and separated from sense when he jumped ship in ter- ashes, he suggests that the whale, like Nature, ror during a whale hunt and was only later res- provides everything needed to support human cued, who interprets it most sensibly. He sees it existence, including a skeleton for temples and as what will be found attached to the sunken ship tools, brains and flesh for food, skin for cover- at the “resurrection,” just as a “darky’s” wedding ings, blubber for oil, ambergris for perfume, and ring was found in a cut-down tree, the only re- (in this chapter) spermaceti for fragrant cleans- mains from a racial hanging and burning (384-5). ing. This fragrant cleansing he links to sexual- One of the more telling contrasts involves the ity and companionship when he remarks that Pequod’s meeting with the Samuel Enderby—the after the crew’s own ablutions, they return to brief conversation between the two captains. the “immaculate” deck, “fresh, aglow, as bride- When Captain Boomer, who lost one arm to grooms new-leaped” from out the wedding Moby but plans no revenge, learns of Captain sheets, ready to spend the evening companion- Ahab’s pursuit of the whale, he assumes mad- ably discoursing of household furnishings and ness in Ahab since, to Boomer, the whale’s be- taking tea by moonlight (379), that is, until an- havior was awkward, not malicious. According other whale is spotted. In that case, the whole to Boomer’s surgeon, the whale—by design of

Pro Rege—June 2019 7 “Divine Providence”—can only swallow, not di- The only whaler to interpret events correctly, gest, the arm and strikes only “to terrify by feints” to perceive the danger of defying God’s provi- (390), not destroy. Granted, Captain Boomer is dence, is Starbuck, who goes down with the rest. kept jolly by the ship’s provision of “hot rum,” Is Melville critiquing loyalty and obedience that but his interpretation of the whale’s aggression as trumps wisdom? Should Starbuck have defied a tactic to intimidate, not an intent to destroy, Captain Ahab when he saw Ahab’s self-destruc- preserves his life. tive, arrogant impiety? In his struggle between Unlike Boomer’s acceptance of divine provi- obedience and defiance, this pious man chooses dence in both his and Moby’s limitations, Ahab the obedience that destroys him. defies both nature and God in believing he can In the end, no one survives except Ishmael, control them. His ignoring what are interpreted who wanted nothing. In return, he, like Job, has by Starbuck as warnings—from messages and re- learned greater respect for the mystery of nature, quests delivered by Starbuck, Fedullah, Pip, and life, death, and God. In the end, readers are left various ships, to the storm and the snapping off as uncertain as Ishmael—and Melville—but of even his artificial leg by Moby—puts Ahab in have gained greater respect for the mystery of a sinister light. One reading can perceive Ahab whales, nature, nature’s God, and reading. as a tragic figure—in his belief (expressed to the “blockhead” carpenter) that his greatness is chal- Endnotes lenged by Moby and he can rid the world of evil 1. John Bryant and Haskell Springer, eds., (whatever opposes him) in killing that creature. “Introduction,” Moby-Dick, Herman Melville Another reading can perceive Moby, assisted by (Pearson & Longman, 2007, xvi. the ocean’s maelstrom, as the representative pow- 2. Ibid. er that punishes such hubris. Another reading can perceive a psychopathic man driven by pain 3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the- to self-destructive revenge. Yet another reading theory-cognitive-modes/201401/left-brain-right- brain-wrong, posted January 27, 2014. Accessed can perceive Ahab as the despotic ruler who be- June 14, 2018. lieves he can change the order of things, or even the manufacturer who heartlessly exploits nature 4. Ibid. and employees to satisfy a growing demand. Still 5. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Longman Critical another can focuse on Ishmael as emblematic of Edition, edited by John Bryant and Haskell survivors, devoted to neither power nor revenge Springer (Pearson & Longman, 2007). All quotes but to insight. are taken from this edition.

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