July 24, 2019 - Chapter Eighty-one (pp. 348-354)

In this chapter, we have our third whale hunt, this time conducted by the men of the Pequod alongside the Jungfrau, a German whaler with whom they come into contact. There is a clear sense of prejudice that the men, regardless of where they are from, have against the Jungfrau’s captain Derick de Deer and the other Germans, with name calling, among other narrative techniques, employed along the way. It does raise of the question of Melville’s own conception of Germans during the 1840s – a period during which German power was growing in Europe but had not yet reached the peak that it would following 1870. In 1848, during the composition of Moby Dick, there was a failed revolution in Germany that nevertheless added fuel to the fires of German nationalism. In the decades leading up to 1848, German immigration to the United States had begun, with many German immigrants taking advantage of the Homestead Act to acquire farms in the Midwest. Oddly, a bit of research tells me Moby Dick has nevertheless been quite highly regarded among German readers.