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The Ungraspable Phantom of Life”: Melville’S Philosophical and Aesthetic Inquiries Into Human Possibilities in Moby-Dick

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The Ungraspable Phantom of Life”: Melville’S Philosophical and Aesthetic Inquiries Into Human Possibilities in Moby-Dick DIVING DEEP FOR “THE UNGRASPABLE PHANTOM OF LIFE”: MELVILLE’S PHILOSOPHICAL AND AESTHETIC INQUIRIES INTO HUMAN POSSIBILITIES IN MOBY-DICK DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Yonghwa Lee, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2009 Dissertation Committee: Professor Steven Fink, Adviser Approved by Professor Elizabeth Hewitt Professor Susan Williams __________________________ Adviser Graduate Program in English ABSTRACT The purpose of my dissertation is to illuminate the depth of Herman Melville’s philosophical and aesthetical inquiries into the fundamental questions about human existence and possibilities in his novel Moby-Dick. I investigate the ways in which the novel interrogates the basic tenets of Platonism and Christianity and explores a positive alternative to the limitations of the existing system of knowledge by reading the novel in relation to Arthur Schopenhauer’s and Friedrich Nietzsche’s revision of the traditional understanding of human will, epistemology, and religion of the West. In his views of human life and the world, Melville’s remarkable affinities with Schopenhauer have drawn much critical attention, but not many critics have paid attention to the import of the similarities between Melville and Nietzsche. My analysis of Melville’s intellectual relationship with these two German philosophers contributes to current scholarship not only by bringing to light Melville’s position in the larger intellectual tradition beyond his immediate cultural milieu, but also by exploring how Moby-Dick provides an answer to whether literature has a positive power especially when literature seems to undermine its own credibility and authority by questioning the validity of narrative and truth. ii I contend that Schopenhauer’s differentiation between the veil of appearance and an inner reality of every natural phenomenon can elucidate Ahab’s investigation of the incongruities between seems and is, while the concept of will as “merely a blind, irresistible impulse” can throw light on Ahab’s “will determinate” and “madness maddened” in his pursuit of Moby Dick. Regarding Ahab’s rejection of conventional religious doctrines in his attempt to give meaning to his life, I argue that Ahab’s self-overcoming does not extend to examining the implications of his mad pursuit of Moby Dick, ultimately differentiating him from the Nietzschean Overman despite their similarities. My analysis of Ishmael’s philosophical journey in the novel draws on Schopenhauer’s negation of will to life, or egoism, through which Schopenhauer challenges the epistemological frame of the Western tradition. Through my comparison between Ishmael and the Schopenhauerian genius, I contend that Ishmael as a philosopher fails to grasp and represent the whiteness of the whale because of his refusal to lose his consciousness as a perceiving subject. Although Ishmael as a philosopher is led on “in barren mazes,” Ishmael as a tragic dramatist eventually grasps “the ungraspable phantom of life.” Drawing on Nietzsche’s notion of “becoming what one is,” which suggests that understanding and participating in the unending process of “becoming” is the only way to grasp any truth without falsifying life, I argue that Ishmael’s purposefully indeterminate rendering of the elusive thoughts which are “continually flitting through” our life is Melville’s attempt to present and contain through the manipulation of the dissimulatory power of language that which cannot be otherwise represented in any fixed or stabilized words. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has been a very long time in the making, and many people have offered me invaluable assistance and encouragement along the way. I am grateful to my adviser, Steven Fink, for his faith in my project and his extensive help conceptualizing how this project might work and for his invaluable advice on its various stages. I cannot imagine how I could have finished this long journey without his patience and encouragement. I thank Elizabeth Hewitt for her consistently perceptive feedback as well as her special interest in philosophical discourse through literary texts. I would like to thank Susan Williams not only for her careful reading of my drafts but also for her unusual interest in my progress throughout my graduate work at OSU. There is no way I can ever thank any of this wonderfully supportive committee enough. I would also like to thank my mentors at St. John’s College, Ms. Buchenauer, Ms. Datchev, Mr. Dink, late Mr. Raditsa, who helped open my eyes to the wonders of the classics and nurture my passion for literature and philosophy. I would like to give a special thanks to Prof. Su-Whan Chai at Hongik University, without whose teaching and guidance I would never have begun this journey in the first place. All these years, I have never stopped being his grateful student. iv I also need to thank my mother, who sacrificed so much to watch me grow into a scholar of literature. She never stopped believing in me, and words simply cannot start to express my gratitude to her love. An extra special thanks to my wife, Kyoung-Min Han, with whom I have argued, consulted, and conferred, for seeing me through this from start to finish, for reading innumerable drafts, for never doubting my ability finally to capture the “great whale.” v VITA October 1, 1969 . Born - Pusan, Korea 1996 . B.A. Hong-Ik University, Seoul, Korea 1999 – 2001 . M.A. Graduate Student St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD 2001 – 2002 . Library Circulation Assistant Greenfield Library, St. John’s College 2003 – 2004 . Lecturer, Hong-Ik University 2002 – present . Graduate Teaching Associate The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract....................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments....................................................................................................... vi Vita.............................................................................................................................. vii Chapters: 1. Introduction............................................................................................................. 1 2. “The Key to it All”: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on Egoism…………………... 22 2.1 Schopenhauer’s Denial of Will to Life…………………………………......... 22 2.2 “Become What Thou art!”: Nietzsche’s Acceptance of Egoism and Celebration of Life........………………………………………………………... 38 3. Harpooning the Self: Ahab’s Egoism, Madness, and Will to Power...................... 66 3.1 “That inscrutable thing”: Beyond Platonism and Christianity.......................... 66 3.2 Ahab’s Egoism and Will to Madness………………….................................... 76 3.3 “thou all-destroying but unconquering whale”: Thus Spoke Ahab…………... 95 4. “Colorless, all-color” of egoism: A Young Philosopher’s Struggle in “Barren Mazes”………….……..…………………………………………………………... 116 4.1 A Young Platonist’s Reveries in the “forbidden seas”: Ishmael on Platonism and Christianity………………………………………………………………... 119 4.2 Between Egoism and Madness: Ishmael’s Confrontation of “the universal cannibalism of the sea”………………………………………………………... 133 4.3 “Empty nothingness” or “a colourless all-colour” of Egoism?....................... 157 5. Representing the Nonrepresentational: A Tragic Dramatist’s Grasp of “The Ungraspable Phantom” of the Whale……………………………………………... 168 5.1 “Art saves him, and through art—life”: Nietzsche’s Aesthetic Justification of Human Existence and the Art of Becoming What One is……………………... 170 5.2 “I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief!”: Ishmael’s Dramatic Representation of Ahab’s Tragic Vision as a Way of Making his Fate his Own…………………………………………………………………………...... 185 vii 5.3 “those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it”: Ishmael’s Capturing of the Whale in Constant Flux……………… 198 6. Conclusion............................................................................................................... 213 Bibliography................................................................................................................. 218 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Oh my soul! Do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.1 —Pindar Pythian iii “I love all men who dive” (3 March 1849), says Melville in his letter to his editor Evert Duyckinck, expressing his respect for those who strive at any cost to transcend limitations in human understanding and uncover the truth about the self and the universe rather than rest content within the existing value or belief system. Calling these fervent seekers of truth “thought-divers, that have been diving & coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world began,” Melville continues, “Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down stairs five miles or more” (3 March 1849). The comparison between “the surface” and “down stairs five miles or more” makes it clear why Melville admires deep divers: while staying on the surface is easy and safe, diving deep is dangerous yet meaningful. Though it is only an analogy, it is telling that Melville mentions a whale here because the two main characters in his novel about a whaling voyage are pertinent examples of these “thought-divers” who embrace any risk in search of truth beyond the confines of existing human thoughts and beliefs. 1 Although
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