An Ecocritical Examination of Whale Texts
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Econstruction: The Nature/Culture Opposition in Texts about Whales and Whaling. Gregory R. Pritchard B.A. (Deakin) B.A. Honours (Deakin) THESIS SUBMITTED IN TOTAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY. FACULTY OF ARTS DEAKIN UNIVERSITY March 2004 1 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for their assistance in the research and production of this thesis: Associate Professor Brian Edwards, Dr Wenche Ommundsen, Dr Elizabeth Parsons, Glenda Bancell, Richard Smith, Martin Bride, Jane Wilkinson, Professor Mark Colyvan, Dr Rob Leach, Ian Anger and the staff of the Deakin University Library. I would also like to acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of the Australian Postgraduate Award. 2 For Bessie Showell and Ron Pritchard, for a love of words and nature. 3 The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. In my world of beach and dune these elemental presences lived and had their being, and under their arch there moved an incomparable pageant of nature and the year. The flux and reflux of ocean, the incomings of waves, the gatherings of birds, the pilgrimages of the peoples of the sea, winter and storm, the splendour of autumn and the holiness of spring – all these were part of the great beach. The longer I stayed, the more eager was I to know this coast and to share its mysteries and elemental life … Edward Beston, The Outermost House Premises of the machine age. – The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusions no one has yet dared draw. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and His Shadow 4 CONTENTS …………………………………………………………………………….1 SYNOPSIS ..........................................................................................................7 INTRODUCTION: AN ECOCRITICAL EXAMINATION OF WHALE TEXTS......8 CHAPTER 1: AN ARGUMENT FOR ECOCRITICAL THEORY........................25 CHAPTER 2: LANGUAGE AND THE ENVIRONMENT ...................................35 i. Presenting and representing the 'real' in literature: Is the mirror of nature cracked? ...........................35 ii. The evolution of language ..................................................................................................................47 iii. Aspects of language: "between speech and writing and beyond tranquil familiarity".......................60 iv. Linguistic relativity or linguistic determinism?.................................................................................94 CHAPTER 3: THE HISTORICAL PERCEPTION AND PORTRAYAL OF NATURE AND WHALES ................................................................................104 i. 'Round out': the description of whales throughout history.................................................................104 ii. Classical attitudes: turning design into art........................................................................................116 iii. The lengthy birth of industrial whaling ...........................................................................................133 iv. Human versus animals: a relationship of unequal power and its reflection in language..................164 v. New frontiers of the land, sea and mind ...........................................................................................173 vi. Modern environmental theory: new voices in an old language .......................................................192 CHAPTER 4: MOBY-DICK AND OTHER NINETEENTH CENTURY TEXTS ON WHALING .......................................................................................................202 i. Introduction: an ecocritical reading of Moby-Dick............................................................................202 ii. Symbols and surfaces, warp and woof..............................................................................................209 iii. Language: "the bare words and facts" .............................................................................................239 iv. Images of fire: "There burn the flames!" .........................................................................................251 v. Trying-out: metaphors of technology and capitalism .......................................................................257 vi. Tragedy and comedy in Moby-Dick.................................................................................................266 vii. Whale suffering: sympathy versus utility in nineteenth-century accounts of whaling ...................278 viii. Whales that sink ships: socially constructed nature deconstructs its constructors.........................309 ix. Conclusion: "all the lead in Galena"................................................................................................331 5 CHAPTER 5: MODERN ATTITUDES TO WHALES.......................................343 i. Shallows: Tim Winton's novel on Australian whaling.......................................................................343 ii. The Modern Age: large-scale butchery ............................................................................................364 iii. Pro-whaling advocates.....................................................................................................................380 iv. Whale watching: consuming the whale in language and ecotours...................................................387 v. New Age adherents: talking to whales?............................................................................................391 vi. Pro-whale fiction .............................................................................................................................395 vii. The hand of God.............................................................................................................................408 CONCLUSION: "THE TAIL IS NOT YET COOKED …".................................411 APPENDIX A...................................................................................................419 GLOSSARY OF WHALING TERMS...............................................................420 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................422 6 Synopsis A perceived opposition between 'culture' and 'nature', presented as a dominant, biased and antagonistic relationship, is engrained in the language of Western culture. This opposition is reflected in, and adversely influences, our treatment of the ecosphere. I argue that through the study of literature, we can deconstruct this opposition and that such an 'ecocritical' operation is imperative if we are to avoid environmental catastrophe. I examine the way language influences our relationship with the world and trace the historical conception of 'nature' and its influence on the English language. The whale is, for many people, an important symbol of the natural world, and human interaction with these animals is an indication of our attitudes to the natural world in general. By focusing on whale texts (including older narratives, whaling books, novels and other whale-related texts), I explore the portrayal of whales and the natural world. Lastly, I suggest that Schopenhaurean thought, which has affinities in Moby-Dick, offers a cogent approach to ecocritically reading literature. 7 Introduction: an ecocritical examination of whale texts The antithesis of nature to the mind, 'as object to subject', we now know to be false, yet so much of our thinking is based on it that to grasp the substantial unity, the sense of a whole process, is to begin a long and difficult revolution in the mind. Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution1 Someone points a finger out to sea and all the binoculars and telephoto lenses swing like anemones in the wash of a wave. A kilometre down the beach, some twenty metres off the sand, two faint columns of spray can be seen hanging in the air. A large black object briefly breaks the surface. On the platform, there is a general exclamation of awe. This is what they have all come here in winter to see – a whale. For the majority of Warrnambool's visitors, this is all they will see of the much-publicised Southern right whale, a dark shape in the water that looks like nothing more than surf breaking over a submerged rock. A better view of the whales is usually obtained by walking east down the beach for half a kilometre, but few people take this option. Every day for months I sat alone on the dunes and watched the whales swim, just off the beach. This was not an act of mere observation, for they are the hub around which the spokes of the wheel of this study are connected. The whale is, for many people, an important symbol of the natural world and human interactions with this animal provide an indication of our attitudes to the natural world in general. This thesis explores the perceived opposition between 'culture' and 'nature', manifest as an antagonistic relationship, engrained in 1 Williams, R.: 1961, The Long Revolution. Chatto and Windus, London: 23. 8 English as the dominant language of Western culture.2 Through the study of literature, it is possible to deconstruct this opposition, and, to this end, I have chosen to examine books about whaling, whales and other marine animals. In this thesis, I argue that the language used, in literature, the media and conversation, reflects an anthropocentric bias.3 It does this in many ways: in the lexicon, grammar, the