Summer of Dick

Perhaps coincidentally (although perhaps not), it occurred to me before reading this chapter that we hadn’t actually had any whaling scenes yet. Luckily, this chapter delivers, since it depicts Ahab coming the conclusion (and our narrator essentially telling us) that the sailors will need to earn money, beyond just hunting Moby Dick to satisfy Ahab’s monomania. As a result, he tells the mast-heads to keep an eye out for any whale they see – even dolphins. “This vigilance was not long without reward,” the narrator says. This is not exactly subtle narration, but we are more than 200 pages into the novel at this point, and we have yet to encounter an actual whale, which is really saying something. Long before I ever read this novel, I can recall a character on the TV show M*A*S*H referring to the novel as a “great adventure” in giving the book to a young soldier. How well or poorly the novel delivers on that sales line is debatable, but I can’t imagine any GI in the Korean War recei...

Once again, a chapter of this novel offers a challenge in terms of narratology. Here, in a chapter in which the narrator seeks to assure the reader that the depictions of sperm whales are realistic, we are told of several documented cases of whales being repeatedly encountered by the same crews, as well as ships being destroyed by same. In the case, the narrator cites at length Langsdorff’s Voyages , an early 19th century travelogue. The quoted passage mentions a Captain D’Wolf. Then, we get this: “I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates every word.” Apparently, our narrator is Melville himself, since D’Wolf was in fact married to Melville’s paternal aunt. I’m reminded in this case of one of those moments in Slaughterhouse-Five in which Vonnegut emerges from an otherwise third-person narration to identify himself as a former POW. It’s jarring there, and it is here as well.

These two relatively short chapters have one curiosity each that I’d like to comment on here. In the first, the word “Cholo” is used by the narrator. As any fan of Al Madrigal can tell you, a “cholo” is a Mexican-American of a particular vintage, although the term is probably being used more broadly by Melville in the 1840s. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the appearance of the word in Moby Dick is among the first appearances of the word in English. In the second chapter, we have a footnote on a paragraph about sperm whale migration, telling us, “Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne out by an official circular…” This is a curious construction. This note is presumably by a different narrator than the narration of the chapter. Is the narrator of the chapter Ishmael? Probably not, since it details the actions of Ahab while alone. Is the writer of the footnote Ishmael? That seems more possible but leaves open the question of who is narrating the ch...

In the remainder of “The Whiteness of the Whale,” Ishmael attempts to prove to his reader that there is an inherent terror in whiteness. He offers the examples of white waves foretelling disaster for sailors and the snow caps of the Andes mountains, and then states, “But thou sayest, methinks this white-lead chapter about whiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a hypo, Ishmael.” The true piece de resistance is the final line of the chapter, however: “And of all these things the Albino Whale was the symbol.” But there have been so many things enumerated in this fairly lengthy chapter. And indeed, there is the point. If the whale and its whiteness both are things associated with radical subjectivity, then they can mean multiple things at the same time to multiple beholders. To Ahab, Moby Dick has one meaning; to any one of his crewman, Moby Dick might mean something other. To Ishmael, the whale’s whiteness is significant; to others, it might...

This chapter, “The Whiteness of the Whale,” is one that receives a large proportion of critical attention, particularly regarding the matter of radical subjectivity and the role it plays in the novel. After meditating for a bit on the positive connotations of whiteness, Ishmael turns to the negative, offering two notable examples: “Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are?” ` Among the more curious aspects of the chapter is the lengthy footnote on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” ( which can be read here ). Wondering how a white bird could betoken such evil as Coleridge depicts in the poem, Melville offers a truly Wallace-esque footnote on the topic. A final point before continuing to the subjectivity of whiteness: Ishmael asks us to consider albino animals and their terrible appearance: “this mere aspect of all-pervading whitenes...

Sometimes in a novel there comes a chapter that shares its name with the novel itself, and we are often led to consider that this chapter must have great importance. Chapter 41 is this chapter in Moby Dick , and as such, it does not disappoint. Here, we get the back story of the white whale, including Ahab’s previous encounter with it and the monomania that has plagued him ever since. The chapter also lends itself to considering why Melville gave the whale the name that he did. It seems that the author was inspired by an article published in Knickerbocker magazine in 1839. In this article, the whale is called Mocha Dick – mocha for the name of an island near where it was seen; and dick as in “Any Tom, Dick, or Harry.” Smithsonian magazine ran a feature a few years ago on the topic. Finally, near the end of the chapter, Ishmael offers us an observation on the subjective nature of the whale’s meaning, to be picked up in the next chapter: “what the White Whale was to them, or ...

This is another dramatic chapter, like the preceding ones, except now it is multiple characters rather than soliloquies. The action of the chapter concerns first some dancing among the crew on the ship’s deck, after which the wind kicks up, and the men disperse to prepare the ship for a storm. Finally, there are no main characters in the chapter – no Ahab, no Ishmael, no Queequeg, and none of the mates. The sole conflict in the chapter is between Tashtego, another of the harpooners, and a Spanish sailor. (The chapter has sailors from several nations – which does raise the question of why none of them speaks with an accent.) The conflict is racial in origin, although the insult to which Tashtego rises gave me a laugh: “Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark side of mankind—devilish dark at that. No offence.” The absurdity of the last line kills me.

These chapters are in the form of dramatic monologues, d elivered sequentially by Ahab, Starbuck, and Stubb. This is an odd direction for Melville to move in. To this point, the narrative has been entirely Ishmael’s, even in the previous chapter, which had dramatic aspects about it. Here, Ishmael disappears entirely, replaced by a nameless, disembodied third-person narrator or the disintegration of narrative altogether, with a switch in the genre overall. It’s something we will see in later literature (I can think of two works of fiction that use it: James Joyce’s Ulysses and Gilbert Sorrentino’s Splendide-Hôtel ). I’m sure there are others. Whether Melville is ahead of the curve in bending genre to the extent that he does here I can’t say, although I note that Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy , some hundred years earlier, has some of these tricks up its sleeve.

Finally we learn the name of our whale and why the book is titled as it is. We also begin to learn the depth of Ahab’s obsession with Moby Dick and why he so badly wants to kill the white whale. Among the several curiosities of this chapter, two stand out the most. First, it is the first of several chapters that are introduced with the type of stage directions one would be accustomed to seeing in Shakespeare or other dramatic authors but not in a novel; in this chapter, part of Ahab’s dialogue is even set off with a stage direction of “Aside,” to indicate he’s talking to himself. Second is the curious ceremony by which Ahab swears in the crew to the task of hunting Moby Dick. It bears all the markings of a religious rite, down to the drinking of alcohol. The thing that struck me the most was Ahab asking the harpooners to remove the tips of their harpoons before him, presumably to indicate their submission to him – a laying down of arms. Finally, obviously essential is Starbuck’s ...

Two important bits of information are revealed in this chapter: one to discuss today and one to discuss tomorrow. The first is that Ahab has a previous relationship with a white whale. He offers a doubloon to whomever sights the whale first among the crew, subsequently nailing the doubloon on the mast for all to see. This doubloon will appear as the chapter of a later chapter. What’s interesting beyond the idea of a white whale – on which far more down the road – is that Ahab sees fit to make a contest out of finding the whale and offers a monetary incentive on that basis. It says something about the economics of the situation certainly – a core assumption of economics as a science being that human beings respond to incentives. We’ll learn more about the whale, most importantly its name and history, in the remainder of the chapter.

This chapter, entitled “The Mast-Head,” is a curious one, packed with allusions for a relatively mundane topic – in this case, where the sailor on watch sits, at the top of the highest mast. Unlike other ships, which have crow’s nests, the type of ship on which Ishmael is sailing does not. Nevertheless, he enjoys the watch and finds the motion of the ship from high up to be very relaxing. The one group of allusions that caught my eye here was when Ishmael refers to “Louis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil.” The first is the so-called Citizen King, Louis Philippe, the Orleanist monarch elevated in 1830 following France’s July Revolution. The second refers to a socialist politician from France who became prominent in the next revolution – that of 1848. Finally, the third reference is to Louis Napoleon, a.k.a. Napoleon III, who was elevated following the latter revolution first to President of France and finally to Emperor. The allusion tells us something about when Ishm...

In this chapter, we get the details on the eating habits of the officers and harpooners. Ahab and the three mates eat first, after which the three harpooners gather and eat, which is a far more informal and earthy affair. With the officers, there is a clear hierarchy, right down to the order in which they are called into the meal: Ahab is first down to Flask, who is last. With the harpooners, it is far more egalitarian, in keeping with the division in the crew already established. What’s curious is that Ishmael does not tell us how or when the sailors eat, although that information could presumably come later. A small issue that arises here is Ishmael comparing the meal of the officers to the German Emperor in Frankfurt eating with the prince electors. The Holy Roman Empire was abolished in 1807, so there was no longer any such ceremony when this novel was written. Whether ignorance of this fact is Ishmael’s, Melville’s, or their both is not clear.

In this chapter, Ishmael lays out the unusual role played by the harpooners on a whaling ship, noting that their status is one of an elite and, as such, they are quartered where the mates and officers, rather than forward on the ship with the crew. Then Ishmael considers Ahab’s role in this hierarchy and how he uses and abuses his power as essential monarch of the boat. For a point of comparison, Ishmael evokes Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, who reigned at the time of writing and publication of the novel. A reactionary against the mold of earlier Enlightenment monarchs like Peter the Great, Nicholas was associated with the development of the autocracy – the placing of absolutely power in the hands of the Tsar. As such, the historical assessment of him is fairly harsh, particularly given the very reform-minded nature of his son, Alexander II. Ishmael’s assessment is “But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an imperial brain;...

This chapter, called “Cetology,” sets the stage for many more to come. In these chapters, the plot isn’t advanced at all, but the reader is given significant information about whales and whaling. Here, Ishmael offers his own tri-fold categorization of whales according to kind: folio, octavo, and duodecimo. He uses terms from printing in decreasing order of page size. Notably, although he expresses some doubt over whether fish and whales can properly be divided (noting that Linnaeus said they were not fish but other writers more recent than him said they were), Ishmael’s classification is decent. That said, the word “mammal” does not appear in the chapter (or the book), although the Latin phrase penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem does (the penis penetrates the female, and the breast gives milk). At least the latter point is correct in classifying mammals somewhat. A final point is that blue whales aren’t mentioned by Ishmael in this chapter; he therefore concludes that ...

Today’s selection of three short chapters raises three observations/questions. First, there is the matter of location. Ishmael says they’ve been out to sea “some days,” and that the Pequod is sailing through the “bright Quito spring.” This location is something of a mystery. The geographic name Quito is best known as the capital of Ecuador in South America, but it seems unlikely that they could have sailed that far at this writing, and they certainly haven’t yet gone around Cape Horn. Second is Flask’s addition to the Ten Commandments, which seem as good as any offered by Christopher Hitchens: #11 “Think not”; and #12 “Sleep when you can. Third and finally is the title of Chapter 31, “Queen Mab.” The reference is to Romeo and Juliet , Act I, Scene iv, Lines 50 or so and following, which can be read here . This queen is a sort of patron saint or spirit of dreamers.

The second chapter entitled “Knights and Squires” (Chapter 27) is Ishmael’s formal introduction to Stubb and Flask, as well as the harpooners who supplement Queequeb – Tashtego and Daggoo, who are, respectively, a Native America and a black African. Ishmael’s description of the latter, in particular, evokes the notion of the noble savage. Ishmael refers to him twice as being like Ahaseurus, the king in the biblical Book of Esther. Last but not least is Pip, the cabin boy, an African American from Alabama. A curious reference made by Ishmael in the chapter is to Anacharsis Clootz , a Prussian figure from the French Revolution – here seemingly a reference to the diplomacy emblematized by the ethnic diversity of the crew of the Pequod . In Chapter 28, we finally see Ahab. The initial encounter, though wordless, since Ishmael only sees Ahab and does not speak to him, has quite an effect on Ishmael. The one thing I noted here for the first time as curious – probably because there was ...

After a brief postscript in which Ishmael assures that the oil used for the anointing of kings and queens is whale oil, Ishmael introduces us in greater detail to the other men of the crew. Oddly, Chapters 27 and 28 (to be discussed tomorrow) have the same title – “Knights and Squires” – but rather than placing the format introductions to Starbuck and the other mates to a single, lengthier chapter, Melville breaks up the introduction into two chapters identically named. It’s an odd choice, to be certain. All that said, Ishmael has obvious admiration and affection for Starbuck, the “knight” of the chapters’ title. The chapter ends with Ishmael waxing poetic about the dignity of the common man, noting the common origins of John Bunyan, Cervantes, and Andrew Jackson.

Chapter 23, “The Lee Shore,” is among the more bizarre chapters of the novel, concerned with the character Bulkington mentioned perhaps twenty chapters earlier. Ishmael images that he can see Bulkington on the bridge of the Pequod but he is mistaken. He proclaims the chapter itself to be Bulkington’s “grave,” and then considers the relative safety of the shore vs. the danger and thrill of being at sea. The former is the “lee [land-side] shore” of the chapter’s title; the latter is where we spend the remainder of the novel. In Chapter 24, “The Advocate,” which could be considered the first of the cetology chapters, Ishmael argues for the dignity of whaling as a profession, likening it to philosophy, politics, and higher pursuits. Whale oil lights the world, Ishmael tells us, and whaling opened much of the Indian and Pacific oceans to exploration. Whaling has kept the peace – which is an ironic statement considering the Civil War to come in a decade and the nearly endless war brou...

In these chapters, we exchange one set of characters – Bildad and Peleg – for another – Stubb, Flask, and Starbuck. Soon, presumably, we shall meet Ahab as well. Starbuck is identified as the chief mate; presumably Stubb and Flask are two other mates. For the first time in setting out to read this novel again, it occurs to me that having some knowledge of sailing might be helpful. On the other hand, I suppose it’s also something like reading A Clockwork Orange and how Anthony Burgess resisted having a Nadsat glossary added at the end. He felt sure that a reader would eventually pick up on enough of the language in which the novel is narrated to understand it fully. Melville likely had the same idea about sailing and whaling, although he certainly dedicates a significant amount of time explaining the latter. A final point is that the Pequod sets sail on Christmas, which certainly cannot be an accidental point or a minor detail. The question that it raises is who our Christ figur...

Never let it be said that, for all his arcane references and strange spelling choices, Melville cannot be a bit too on the nose at times. We see this tendency in Chapter 19, entitled “The Prophet,” in which Ishmael and Queequeg are asked whether they have yet met Ahab and are seemingly warned about disaster awaiting them if they should sail on the Pequod . The obvious nature of the foreshadowing here is in the prophet of the chapter’s title being named Elijah – the name of the Israelite prophet who Judaism teaches will herald the coming of the messiah. Lest we dismiss the content of the chapter, the naming of both the chapter and its title character are reasons why we are forced not to. Chapter 20 sets the stage for setting sail. Twenty chapters in, we are finally off to sea.

This chapter, in which Ishmael brings Queequeg aboard the Pequod to sign him up for their whaling voyage, is one of the funnier chapters, with the target of humor being Bildad, who does a nice job of butchering Queequeg’s name (calling him first Quohog (presumably quahog) and then Hedgehog). Bildad also calls him Philistine and Hittite, obviously biblical references to enemies of the Israelites. Two of the other references are a bit more obscure. The first is “Belial bondsman” or a slave to Belial, a sort of personification of evil akin to Satan. The second is “Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon.” Here, the reference is to Bel and the Dragon, an apocryphal addendum to the Book of Daniel; it can be read online here . Finally, wrapping up all this in a bow is the reference to a Reverend Deuteronomy Coleman. This final book of the Torah provides Moses’s final address to the Israelites before dying, in which he exhorts the people to utterly destroy the seven tribes of Canaan who r...

With the title of “The Ramadan,” this chapter treats in some detail Queequeg’s religious practice, culminating his observing of something akin to the Jewish fasting ritual of Yom Kippur, except more extreme, since Queequeg must spend the full 24 hours squatting on the floor with his household god Yojo on his yet. After the fast ends, Ishmael tries to convince Queequeg that his religious practice is in vain, but this line of discussion is fruitless. Notably, the chapter opens with Ishmael mentioning that he is from a Presbyterian background. Without saying so, he thus provides a reference to a belief system, i.e., Calvinism, rejected by most other Christians and often ridiculed in its time. Perhaps Melville’s point here is that every person’s religious ritual is ridiculous to someone from outside that faith. We are all atheists with the exception of the god in which we happen to believe. The chapter also provides some black, albeit brief, humor. When Ishmael fears that Queequeg ha...

The remainder of this chapter has Bildad and Peleg arguing over what pay Ishmael will receive and then Peleg offering some insights into what Captain Ahab is like. The argument between the two ship owners concerns what “lay” Ishmael is to get, a lay essentially being a share of the profits, with a higher number indicating a smaller likelihood of payment. Whereas Peleg intends to offer Ishmael the three hundredth lay, Peleg wants to offer him the seven hundred seventy-seventh, which is a curious number in that it is commonly used to denote the holy trinity of Christianity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That Bildad, the more religious of the two men, wants to give Ishmael this “holy” amount is perhaps relevant, and that Ishmael is not given this lay further could indicate, like the choice of ship by Ishmael, per Yojo’s command, the doomed nature of the voyage.

This chapter, entitled “The Ship,” provides us with introductions to some of the characters to appear in the novel, particularly Peleg and Bildad, the two owners of the Pequod. The two men are both Quakers, which is an odd detail, and this denomination is indicated to us as readers in their use of the “plain speech” (i.e., the archaic second-person pronouns thee, thy, and thou). The names are biblical, as Melville notes in the chapter, although they are obscure nevertheless. Peleg is one of the ancients listed in the Genesis genealogy of Abraham. Bildad is slightly more substantive – he’s one of the three friends of Job who try to comfort him in the aftermath of God striking him with tremendous misfortune, essentially on a dare. It’s a bit of a mystery as to why Melville chose these names. On one religious point, however, he is less ambiguous. At the beginning of the chapter, Ishmael tell us that Queequeg’s household god, Yojo, says that Ishmael should choose the boat on which th...

In this short chapter, Ishmael and Queequeg go to another hotel to try the chowder and rent a room. The chowder is of two types – clam and cod – and both are delicious, apparently, despite the morose setting of the place. In fact, the setting is so creepy, Ishmael is forced to say, “It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?” It’s as if he finally comes to the same conclusion that the reader already has. That sad, the chapter ends with a final reference to death, i.e., the hotel keeper’s telling of the story of how a young harpooner named Stiggs once died at the hotel, being killed by his own harpoon piercing his side. It’s unclear whether this was a suicide or not, although it’s heavily hinted by the fact that he has returned from a whaling voyage with very litt...

In these chapters, Ishmael and Queequeg sail from New Bedford to Nantucket on a boat called the Moss, upon which Queequeg experiences the racism of one of the crew members, to whom Queequeg demonstrates his physical superiority – first by throwing him into the air such that he lands safely, and second by rescuing the name when he falls overboard. It is in this way that Queequeg wins the admiration of the crew members, which says something about how well or poorly a “savage” can get by in such an environment. Ishmael then waxes poetic on the virtues of the Nantucket sailors. It is in the chapter entitled “Nantucket” that we get the first reference to Noah and the Flood – one of several to follow. Here, it is an allusion to compare how even the Deluge itself could not have prevented Nantucket Islanders from sailing the seas, even though it had drowned the whole population of China. Last but not least, the selection mentions the Eddystone Lighthouse, the website for which is her...

Our continuing twin themes of racism and homosexuality emerge again in these two chapters. Here, Ishmael and Queequeg continue to lie in bed with Queequeg smoking his tomahawk pipe and telling Ishmael about his life back on his home island, presumably in the Pacific. Queequeg, it turns out, descends from island royalty and could accede to the throne of his home island should he want to. He does not, however, although he remains distant and suspicious of living among whites. In Chapter Twelve in particular, Queequeg is drawn as an archetypal noble savage – a sort of combination of paternalistic racial stereotype and probably some degree of actual admiration first promulgated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French theoretician of social contracts. If 18th century European Enlightenment culture seemed stifling to some, the noble savage provided a nice counterpoint for how living without the trappings of politics and society could yield true happiness – or something like that. How well...

In this chapter, Ishmael describes his evening spent with Queequeg after leaving the chapel. Three points to consider again. The first is that Ishmael demonstrates a belief in phrenology, i.e., the “scientific” analysis of skulls to deduce information about the character of a person. This was indeed a popular field in the 19th century, as detailed here: http://www.victorianweb.org/science/phrenology/intro.html The second is the golden rule, according to which Ishmael decides that, despite Queequeg not being a Christian, he can be friends with him. The rule comes from the Sermon on the Mount – particularly Matthew 7:12 . Finally, it’s notable that the veiled homosexuality of Ishmael’s developing relationship with Queequeg comes up here again. Obviously, with the final analogy that Ishmael makes to Queequeg and he being like a husband and wife, it’s increasingly difficult for this point to be avoided.

Today's chapter details the sermon that Ishmael hears in the chapel. Fittingly, the minister's topic is the biblical Book of Jonah, which was referenced first in the front matter. A few points came to mind in reading this chapter. First, the preacher notes that the line about God summoning up a "great fish" to swallow Jonah is the last liine of the first chapter of the four-chapter book. This is true in the King James Version but not in the Masoretic Hebrew version , in which it is actually the first line of the second chapter. This is unlikely a deliberate point chosen by Melville -- the Christian version is the Bible most often consulted. That said, it is odd that the KJV and other versions break the chapters in this manner, given that the action of the "great fish" swallowing Jonah is discrete from that of the first chapter. Second, it's amusing that the preacher leaves out the command given to Jonah by God -- "never mind now what that comma...

These two chapters center on New Bedford, Mass., from which Ishmael will eventually set sail. It turns out that New Bedford (along with Nantucket) was essentially whaling central for the United States in 1840, and Melville himself lived there for some of the time during which he wrote Moby Dick . It turns out the chapel in which Chapters Seven and following take place are also real. The Seamen's Bethel has its own website here . The final point to consider is the precariousness of the whaling profession in the United States at the time. If the novel takes place in 1840, then the industry is at its peak, but with the Gold Rush in 1849 and then the discovery of oil, the industry would decline over the next several decades.