ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ АВТОНОМНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
«БЕЛГОРОДСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ
ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»
( Н И У
« Б е л Г У » )
ИНСТИТУТ МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНОЙ КОММУНИКАЦИИ И
МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ
КАФЕДРА АНГЛИЙСКОЙ ФИЛОЛОГИИ И МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНОЙ
КОММУНИКАЦИИ
СУБЪЕКТИВНОЕ ВИДЕНИЕ АМЕРИКИ В РОМАНЕ «МОБИ ДИК»
ГЕРМАНА МЕЛВИЛЛА
Выпускная квалификационная работа
обучающегося по направлению подготовки
45.04.01 ФИЛОЛОГИЯ
очной формы обучения,
группы 04001522
Кокошкиной Ксении Юрьевны
Научный руководитель
доктор фил. наук Куприева И.А.
Рецензент
доктор. фил. наук Туранина Н.А.
БЕЛГОРОД 2017
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................3
I. AMBIVALENT IDEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF THE NOVEL .......8
I.1
Religious dimension of “Moby Dick” ...................................................... 8
I.2
The Political dimension of the novel ...................................................... 14
Conclusions to chapter I ......................................................................................23
II. THE CONCEPT OF MANIFEST DESTINY IN AMERICAN SOCIETY
AND ITS AMBIGUOUS REPRESENTATION IN THE NOVEL ...................24
II.1 The Evolution of the concept in the history of America and its impact on
H. Melville’s work ........................................................................................... 24
II.2 The novel as an allegory of the American History of the 1850s ............ 34
Conclusions to chapter II ....................................................................................43
III. THE QUESTION OF RACE AND SLAVERY...........................................45
III.1 Multifaced Pequod as a prototype of multinational America ................ 45
III.2 “Moby Dick” as an American slave narrative ........................................ 51
Conclusions to chapter III ...................................................................................59
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................61
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................65
3
INTRODUCTION
Herman Melville’s writings provoke incessant discussions and debate
among critics. His books, imbued by meaningful philosophical digressions,
inserted stories, poignant anecdotes, didactic Christian sermons, moral lectures,
mocking and accusatory sketches, reflexive internal and external monologues,
zoological and anatomical extracts, encyclopedic passages, nautical observation
mixed with exact ship logbook’s notes, deploy a dense, replete and deep mix of
cross - cultural knowledge. Thus, one can admit the uniqueness of his fiction
taking into consideration the fact that Melville’s formal education was not the
best due to the financial situation of his family. He was born to a prosperous and
well regarded family but later his father suffered financial hardships and after
his death in 1832, he left his family in debt. Young Melville made several
desultory and ineffectual attempts to improve his family’s financial situation and
finally in 1841 by enrolling on a whaling vessel and spending almost four years
on it.
Thus, the first books “Typee” (1846) and “Omoo” (1847) are mostly
projections of personal experience on the sea and autobiographical details of a
seaman. However, they also contain a symbolism depicting a certain degree of
social criticism of the weaknesses of American democracy and other political
issues. At the height of his power, in the early 1850s, he published “Moby Dick”
(1851).
As with the other great novelists of the time (Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman,
Emerson, and Emily Dickenson) Melville used extensive varieties of genres that
are considered sub-literary, and incorporated images and themes close to
popular literature. Obviously, Melville’s writings are not realist according to the
literary norms of the 19th century novel which aim to disclose different private
spheres of middle-class life. Only a few of his books attempt to create the
4
reflection of real life, usually he submerges the reader into a world of more
significant allusions and associations. His role in elucidating the vexed questions
of his time: antislavery politics, the rough expansionism of Mexico, Texas, and
islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and American imperialism contributed
to the notion of Manifest Destiny. Additionally, Melville’s fiction transcends the
boundaries of America and due to its universalism, a lot of raised themes could
be applied to any country. Hence, in our opinion, “Moby Dick” is the novel
which embodies all these key themes, impresses with its deep and strong
allegory, relevant in any age.
The story of a whaling ship is told by a seaman, Ismael, who is the
narrator of the novel. Although Ishmael delivers the story, all dismal events are
exposed through his descriptions, the main figure is the captain of the ship. The
ship, the Pequod, speeds towards the unexplored East following Ahab’s
obsession to kill the ghost-like White Whale. As the ship goes further towards
its destination, it becomes clear that the narrative contains multiple allusions to
the political, historical and social problems of the mid 19 th century. The whole
ship is an allegory of American society and the democratic regime where the
crew embodies the multicultural population of the country.
Hence, this determines the relevance of the research topic: to investigate
the manifold ways of criticising the leading concept of American society which
has been proclaimed to be American self-determination – the idea of Manifest
Destiny. The novel “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville is the object of the
research. Implicit ways of Melville’s criticism of Manifest Destiny and
subversive vision of America represent the subject of the novel.
According to the aim of our thesis, we have attempted to explore
Melville’s subversive vision of American politics in the 19th century, in terms
of the concept Manifest Destiny which contains such issues as nationality, race,
colour, social class, and slavery. To maintain the afore-mentioned aim, we have
to solve the following tasks: « “
5
to scrutinize the question of the ambivalent ideological background
of the novel;
to investigate the allegorical nature of the novel in terms of the
concept of Manifest Destiny as well as the image of America of the 1850s;
to examine metaphorical image of the ship Pequod as a figurative
prototype of America;
to summarize literary issues of “Moby Dick” as a slave narrative.
The scientific and practical significance is concluded in the ability of
this paper to be used on the literature and culturological classes, elective courses
and further research papers analyzing the novel’s problems based on the
political, historical, cultural and social problems of Melville’s time in
connection with the literary and language issues of the novel. The significance
is maintained through the determination of the stylistic devices used to highlight
Melville’s subversive vision of America.
The sources of information of the study were the works of such scholars
as James Duban, Michael Rogin, Carolyn Karcher, Alan Heimert, who have
demonstrated Melville’s political symbolism which identifies the controversial
political views. Also Larry Reynolds, Wai-chee, Dimock, John Bryant and
Milton R. Stern have observered the significance of politics and the concept of
Manifest Destiny throughout the novel. Matthiessen has highlighted the
Shakespearian motifs in “Moby Dick” as well as Transcendentalism in the
novel. Fiedler has analyzed the ideas of homoeroticism in American fiction and
in “Moby Dick” in particular.
According to research methods, we summarized the approaches of the
scientific research and literary sources and analyzed the text in terms of literary
peculiarities which are tightly connected with the political background of the
given novel.
The key statements submitted for the defense:
6
the ideological background of the novel is presented through the
two leading concepts of politics and religion which is tightly connected within
the novel. Their essence and importance in the American life is proved by
different stylistic devices used by Melville;
The popular American concept of Manifest Destiny is implicitly
criticized in “Moby Dick” throughout the novel with the help of allegory,
metaphor, comparison and allusion. The main metaphor deployed in the
correlation of the current affairs of the 1850s with the whaling process;
The multinational ship Pequod is a metaphorical microcosm of life
and the allusion to multicultural America where the question of race and slavery
considered controversial during the 1850s.
Approbation of the work was represented in the following articles:
Difficulties in translation (from English into Russian) and interpretation of
nautical terms in the novel of H. Melville “Moby Dick” which was published in
the collection of student scientific articles “Problems of studying of foreign
language, history and culture”. The second article “Multifaced Pequod as a
prototype of multinational America in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” was
published in the journal “Problems of modern science and education”.
The structure of the thesis includes: the introduction, three chapters (six
sub-chapters at all) and the conclusion. The introduction is dedicated to the
relevance of the research topic. Also, we lay emphasis on the aim of the thesis
which is tightly connected with the tasks as well as the subject and the object of
the paper. Chapter one begins with an attempt to determine the ideological
background of “Moby Dick” where the two main dimensions of the novel:
religious and political will be examined. They go “hand in hand” throughout the
novel and their combination creates a unique narrative. Chapter two deals with
the concept of Manifest Destiny and its ambivalent representation. The two subchapters analyze the evolution of the concept in the course of American history
and the allegorical style of the novel which dates back to the 1850s. Chapter
7
three raises the issue of race and slavery in “Moby Dick”, where, according to
our view, the Pequod is presented as an image of multinational America while
the novel could be rendered as an account of slavery. Finally, the conclusion
summarizes the results reached throughout the thesis. In the conclusion we
attempt to prove that Melville exposes the challenges of American society
through his whaling allegory and implicitly shows his rejection of American
expansionism values and the notion of Manifest Destiny.
8
I.
AMBIVALENT IDEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF
THE NOVEL
I.1
Religious dimension of “Moby Dick”
The wealth of critical works which is devoted to “Moby Dick” presents
this text as an overdetermined one and to this day the interpretation of the
ideological background remains ambiguous. We come up against opposing
views, opinions, and renderings of one of the greatest American novels of the
19th century. Infinite discussions have been influenced by the endless depth and
multifaceted philosophical aspects of the novel. The complexity of Melville’s
novel is due to its interlacing of motifs, genres, structures and forms which
makes the novel equal to the most eminent masterpieces: “Much critical industry
has been devoted to bringing these allusions to light and, as a result, we now
know that “Moby-Dick” was inspired by the Bible, by Milton, Rabelais,
Cervantes, Shakespeare, Thomas Browne, Robert Burton, Pierre Bayle, and by
contemporary whaling texts. We know that Ahab was modelled upon Satan,
Faust, Lear, Prometheus, Oedipus, Narcissus; and that the voyage of ‘The
Peqoud’ is symbolic of Western’s man’s quest for truth, and via the Biblical
story of Ahab a political allegory of the American belief in Manifest Destiny”
(Clark, 1999: 132).
The great whale narrative is composed, on the one hand, of short stories,
anecdotes, Christian sermons, philosophical digressions, moral lectures, satirical
sketches, internal and external monologues whereas, on the other hand, it is full
of zoology and anatomy, dense encyclopedic extracts, nautical descriptions,
naturalistic observations, and notes from the ship’s logbook. As Post-Lauria puts
it: “Melville’s creation of mixed narrative form that blends science and fiction,
philosophy and poetry, urges the modern reader to consider this matter of mixed
9
form, as Ishmael repeatedly counsels his readers, ‘in every light’” (Post-Lauria,
1996: 398).
Thus, as mentioned in the above text, this creates a specific mixed-form
novel in which Moby Dick’s realism and cetological extracts project 19th century
interests in scientific; political, historical and economic movements that deploy
the metaphysical infusions of the novel. As Vincent maintains, this “mass of
cetological and whaling data” is not represented as “extra material” skillfully
interspersed with a “story already well-developed”, but rather as a universal and
inherent part of the narrative form in “Moby Dick”.
The scholars of the 20th century, who have worked on “Moby Dick”,
have divided the interpretation of the novel into multiple “levels” and continue
to quest for new ones. These approaches were composed of extensive critical
routes which explored the ideological background of “Moby Dick”. Davidson
contends that the debate over the novel’s heterogeneity, especially concerning
“controversies over levels of ambiguity in “Moby Dick”, comes from different
ways of reading the record” (Davidson, 2004: 124). One of the most
controversial and disputable dimensions is the political dimension, which was
narrowly observed by contemporary scholars James Duban, Michael Rogin,
Carolyn Karcher, Alan Heimert, who have demonstrated Melville’s political
symbolism which identifies the controversial political views. Also Larry
Reynolds, Wai-chee, Dimock, John Bryant and Milton R. Stern have observered
the significance of politics and the concept of Manifest Destiny throughout the
novel. Matthiessen has highlighted the Shakespearian motifs in “Moby Dick” as
well as Transcendentalism in the novel. Fiedler has analyzed the ideas of
homoeroticism in American fiction and in “Moby Dick” in particular.
In our work, we have attempted to summarize approaches which have
already been used by the afore-mentioned scholars and investigate Melville’s
subversive vision of American politics in the 19th century, in terms of the
10
concept Manifest Destiny which contains such issues as nationality, race, colour,
social class, and slavery.
One of the cornerstones of “Moby Dick” is the debate about religion. As
Melville points out in chapter 8 – “the pulpit leads the world” (Melville 40) and
the same could be applied to “Moby Dick”. Religion constantly influenced
Melville throughout his life and his spirituality was noted by Hawthorne: “If he
were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and
reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality
than most of us”0F1 (Gunn, 2005: 40). This fact becomes obvious for readers of
“Moby Dick”where spirituality imbues every page and threads through the
narrative. Writing “Moby Dick”, Melville attempts to decode and interpret
questions of faith. According to Melville, one of the most important dimensions
that differentiate a savage and a civilized man is Christianity: “Long exile from
Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in
which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery” (Melville, 1992: 279),
which was a common statement to the 19th century society. Consequently, while
reading the lines about Ahab: “Though nominally included in the census of
Christendom, he was still an alien to it” (Melville,1992: 155), we can believe
that Ishmael identifies traits of savagery in him. He claims that civilization or
those who live in it is not able to survive without religion. Being a good
Christian, Melville’s writing employs Christianity as the benchmark of a
civilized society.
Many allusions to the Old Testament Book aptly demonstrate the author’s
profound knowledge of the sacred texts. The Bible’s influence over Melville lies
much deeper than the recollection and revival of several stories and characters.
Consequently, one can admit that “it also seems natural that his whaleman from
Quaker Nantucket should bear Old Testament names: that pious hard-bargaining
1
Hawthorne reported in his journal; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The English Notebooks, 1856-1860, the
Centenary Edition of The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, vol. 12, ed. Thomas Woodson and Bill Ellis
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997), p. 163. In text as English Notebooks.
11
Captain Bildad should be remindful of the Book of Job; that the man who
prophetically warns Ishmael not to embark on the Pequod should be called
Elijah; that Ahab should have inherited his name from one of the greatest of the
kings of Israel, who seduced by false prophets, went to his death in battle. Nor
should it be forgotten that Captain Ahab’s tragedy is Biblical in its last page and
sentence. The ‘Epilogue’ opens with the quotation from Job, ‘And I only am
escaped alone to tell thee’; and ends with Ishmael’s description of how he was
picked up by ‘the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her
missing children only found another orphan” (Matthiessen, 1979: 463).
It is undeniable that religious ideas still have a great impact on readers
and influence the themes. However, the traditional practice of religion was
already being subverted in the19th century. In the context of the Puritanical
ideology of the time “American authors like Melville, Hawthorne, or Stowe,
were inclined to rebel against aspects … [of it], not merely the terms but also the
form, to try to transcend it from within” (Gunn, 1990: 7). The evident spirit of
the rebellion rejects the widespread blind belief concerning religion among
American society in the middle of the 19 th century: “come to the sage and
sensible conclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world
quite another” (Melville, 1992: 77). The reader encounters the subversion of
conventional descriptions, an outburst of new thoughts that Levine characterizes
as “previously censored voices – of imprecation, innuendo, insinuation,
reminiscence, lamentation” (Levine, 1998: 173). Melville’s subversion touched
American Puritan/Calvinist ideology, consequently characterizing the novel as a
“literary revolt … to a rejection of America as it is –…spiritually hypocritical”,
through the unraveling of events, Melville asserts a “vision of America as it
ought to be … the boundless realm of spiritual quest” (Gunn,1990: 8). Also,
Reynolds admits that while creating a new style of writing which deals with
religion, Melville and other intellectuals produced “the stylization of religion,
“especially iconoclastic” and opposed Calvinist theory. (Reynolds, 2011: 27).
12
Thus, with the help of comparison, Melville ironically broaches the serious
spiritual topic in a way that could be called rebellious for 19th century writing:
“Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks
that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that
in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun
through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my
body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I
say, it is not me” (Melville,1992: 38).
The narrator expresses an ambiguous position towards the canonical
biblical interpretation of the meaning of the soul and body. On the one hand, he
claims that his body is a residual form of his existence and it does not represent
the spirit but the true substance is a shadow or soul. However, he also ironically
compares people’s religious beliefs with the view of the world of one of the
lower forms of marine fauna– the oyster that implicitly hints to human
incapacity in the rendering of these issues. As was acknowledged by Reynolds,
Emmerson’s idea that the most adaptable form of instruction was preaching
which can express either an affirmative or a skeptical point of view. (Reynolds,
2011: 24).
Clark, on the contrary, radically interprets religious motifs, also drawing a
parallel between Christianity and racial problems: “Portents, loomings, and rare
disruptions excepted, the consistent intention of the first phase of the narrative is
to satirise the supposed superiority of Christian civilization and to propose the
alternative view that all men, whatever their colour or creed, are created equal.
Ishmael-as-narrator expresses this view in quick thrusts against contemporary
prejudice (‘as though a white mean were anything more dignified that a
whitewashed negro’ Ch.13, 60), and Queequeg dramatises the point by behaving
like a good Christian in saving from drowning a man who has just mocked his
‘cannibal’ ways” (Clark,1999: 142).
13
However, conversely, sometimes Ishmael demonstrates a mix of a kind of
innate racial prejudice belying the morality of his religion and shows an initial
spiritual fear while facing something incomprehensible: “The companions to
this figure were of that vivid, tiger yellow complexion peculiar to some of the
aboriginal natives of the Manillas; – a race notorious for a certain diabolism of
subtlety, and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and
secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose countingroom they suppose to be elsewhere” (Melville, 1992: 222).
Interestingly, chapter 9 “The Sermon”, where Father Mapple’s twostranded preaching which is dedicated “to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to
me as a pilot of the living God” (Melville 42) allegorically identifies common
ground between the relation of the leader to the people or, concerning “Moby
Dick”–Ahab’s relation to his crew; the homily is about obedience and
disobedience (the topic that unfolds the whole novel too). We can understand
that this parable is not only for common people but for their leaders too.
Consequently, identifying it with the Pequod, this admonition is also for Ahab’s
crew and for him. While Ahab neglects to obey God, and appeals to the dark
forces, the crew worships the “the wrong god” of the Pequod, “ungodly, godlike man, Captain Ahab” (Melville 83). While the preacher is the voice of the
democratic congregation, Ahab is the voice and the direction of the Pequod,
while simultaneously the politicians rule the country – they all lead the people
(the crew) travelling on the ship of state and they all must learn a religious
lesson from Father Mapple that “truth must be preached in the face of falsehood
even though acquiescence in falsehood brings temporal comfort and adherence
in the absolutes of truth brings woe” (Ziff,1978: 71).
Hence, one can find antithetic views about the role of religion in “Moby
Dick”. However, the novel is dense with the references to the question of the
role of religion in society. We see this expressed through infinite speeches,
explicit and implicit dialogues, sermons which all demonstrate the importance of
14
the interrelation between a Divine being and humanity, illuminating the problem
of faith. We attempted to summarize stylistic devices which refers to the
identification of religious background of the novel. Thus, manifold allusions,
subversion of the conventional concepts and allegory help to deploy Melville’s
views concerning the question of religion in “Moby Dick” which is tightly
connected with the key issue of the research- political dimension of the novel.
I.2
The Political dimension of the novel
Hence, the question of the identification of the ideological background of
the novel is still a topical issue although over the past century scholars from all
over the world have attempted to explain this novel in various ways by using
multiple approaches. Gunn contends that “ideology not only conditions meaning
in culture; it constitutes the whole of it. And it virtually does so by furnishing all
of the terms by which culture might otherwise be challenged and surmounted
from within”. Further Gunn argues that such American authors as Melville,
Hawthorne, or Stowe who belonged to the well-known period called “American
Renaissance”, were disposed to subvert the terms and forms of the American
national myth using the jeremiad as “the principal instrument of socialization,
the most potent discursive formula for developing national consensus”. Their
veiled rebellion hidden in their writings refers to the rejection of America’s
myths, beliefs and ideas, which are presented by Melville as “racist and
spiritually hypocritical” while he discerns American destiny in “the boundless
realm of spiritual quest” (Gunn, 1990: 2).
The political controversy of the novel appears as one of the main most
complex and initial problems. Water and politics are so tightly connected that
one can/ could figuratively assert that they are «married». Like the ocean is
15
composed of smaller, tributary bodies of water such as seas, gulfs, bays, bights,
and straits (as well as all inland waters originate from the ocean and return to
this source), likewise America consists of different nationalities and races. The
ocean was used as the concept of the founding myth of national construction.
«Thus, in the literature of the new world, the sea voyage was a familiar
metaphor for spiritual pilgrimage, both as it was manifested in individual lives
and in the development of the community, Puritan historians from John
Winthrop to William Hubbard, William Bradford to Cotton Mather, wrote of the
world as a vast ocean fraught with dangers for those whose voyage to America
was part of the unfolding drama of sacred history. Bradford, in famous passage,
could speak of the ocean voyage across “the vast and furious sea” as uniting the
Pilgrims in praise and thanksgiving for their deliverance” (Wharton, 1992: 4647). Melville often uses the image of water in different forms and establishes the
correlation between this fluid substance and not the less fluid but abstract notion
–politics. Melville contemplates how power changes people, regardless of to
which kind of world this potency belongs: “Now, as you well know, it is not
seldom the case in this conventional world of ours—watery or otherwise; that
when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be
very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against
that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a
chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make a little
heap of dust of it” (Melville, 1992: 252).
“In “Moby Dick”, Melville redeploys fantastical images of conquistadors
and of ancient American landscapes resuscitated in nineteenth-century books
that connected the colonial and precolonial cultures of Western Hampshire”
(Barrenechea, 2016: 13). In accordance with Barrenechea, we can see another
example of where the mutual alliance of water and politics becomes very vivid
due to the simile used by Melville in comparing Nantucket’s seamen with the
great ancient conqueror Alexander the Great: “And thus have these naked
16
Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun
and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among
them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did
Poland” (Melville 65). The plural form of Alexander the Great ‘s name provides
a humorous effect while equating Alexander’s expansion of Asia and northeast
Africa to Nantucketers who are known for exploring oceans while whaling
(“they [Nantuckerters] (…) explored this watery world” (Melville,1992: 65)).
Then figuratively referring to the titanium empires of Eurasia: the Russian
Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy,
Melville with the help of the metaphor “the three pirate powers” gives the solid
example of rough expansionism. The word “pirate” denote Melville’s perceived
criminality of this rough expansionism proving he has strong reservation against
the motivation of Manifest Destiny.
The alliance of water and politics convinces scholars to render the novel
as a “parable of totalitarianism’s triumph over ‘important good” (Hunsberger,
1975:235), and reveals the “insidious aspect of imperialism (Clark,1999: 138)”:
“For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having
but a right of way through it” (Melville 65). Ishmael refers Nantucketer’s
seaman as an Emperor of the sea and the island as an independent state. On
board the ship, the setting of the main narrative, democracy is rarely used as a
type of political regime with which to rule over the people (the crew) rather it is
a dictatorship where orders are given by Captain Ahab. According to Ziff, any
ship “is one of rigid autocratic hierarchy for which there is but one obvious
political model-absolute monarchy” (Ziff, 1981: 127).
During the 1840s Melville often took part in debates on “expansion,
imperialist war and the character and future of the Democratic Party” (Heimert
498). Therefore, his interest in politics has had a strong effect on his work.
Hence, he was harshly critical over rough expansionism and we can find his
sarcastic view: “Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada;
17
let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the
sun” (Melville,1992: 65). Ishmael shifts from the role of neutral observer to the
role of critic, specifically of Pacific imperialism and expansionism in general.
While in “Moby Dick” the ship’s organization is submerged in the autocratic
hierarchy, the whaling industry incarnates imperialism, which is vividly
maintained in the chapter “The Advocate”. Though admitting the bloody
component of this profession, Ishmael defends the “good name” of whalemen,
and over again equates them with vanquishers: “butchers, also, and butchers of
the bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the world
invariably delights to honour” (Melville,1992: 110). Ishmael refers to the whaleship as to the first discoverer of thousands of islands and archipelagoes, “the
pioneer of ferreting” (Melville,1992: 111), the first successful diplomats and
skillful translators, fearless founders of colonies (Australia and Polynesia).
This extraordinary use of allegory of ship as country is a key to
understanding Melville’s narrative form and his method in “Moby Dick”.
Likewise, the function of allegory appears as a linking element of Melville’s
work with the common trend in American antebellum literature. (Gunn, 2005:
111). Concerning “Moby Dick’s” heterogeneity, the scholar attributes Melville’s
“soared ambition”, “fluid consciousness”, “shifting conceptions”, and even
“lessons of craft” to Shakespeare, which according to his opinion completely
coincides with the narrative canons of the 19th century. In accordance with PostLauria, Gunn also highlights the uniqueness of Melville’s “mixed-form”
narratives deployed in deep metaphysical debates, changing of genre, subversion
of conventions or even adopting the most remarkable conventions (e.g.
Shakespearian), and plexus of facts and romance. (Gunn,2005: 111). Fiedler
determines such Shakespearian devices as “the soliloquy and the wit-combat
combine oddly with the running first-person narrative of the garrulous Ishmael,
help make of “Moby Dick” the most extravagant and eccentric of all novels”
(Fiedler 528). F.O. Matthiessen, Leon Howard and Charles Olson also ascribe to
18
“Moby Dick” a wealth of references to Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and King
Lear, owing to them the realistic background shifts into (according to Melville’s
characteristics in his letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne) “a wicked book” (Spanos,
1995: 232) where the monomaniac captain is submerged in the world of the
obsession and madness. Melville’s relation to Shakespeare could be observed
through the political dimension where Ahab’s stubborn pursuit is given
reasonable motives in relation to those of Shakespearian characters such as King
Lear or Macbeth explaining the obsession. “As Larzer Ziff has demonstrated,
the question of Shakespeare’s usability in democratic America, as opposed to
the “absolute and unconditional adoration of Shakespeare” which had grown to
the proportion of religious “superstition”, was quite controversial in Melville’s
day. In this regard, one may connect Melville’s democratic accommodation of
Shakespeare to Ishmael’s uncontrollable dream of masterlessness against the
“slavish shore” (Shin, 1994: 15).
One of the main juxtapositions is two opposing characters– Ishmael and
Ahab. Their contradiction is shown through Melville’s shifting between two
completely different voices– “Ahab’s dramaturgy” and “Ishmael’s lyricism”.
This technique deploys the main ideology of the novel: “one multicultural and
inclusive, the other separatist and divisive” (Levine,1998: 80).
Building on this opinion, the following quote proves Ishmael’s ability to
evaluate different cultures freely of any racial prejudice: “Thinks I, Queequeg,
under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the truth is, these
savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous
how essentially polite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg,
because he treated me with so much civility and consideration, while I was
guilty of great rudeness; staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette
motions; for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding” (Melville
28).
19
Ishmael’s lack of discrimination is displayed in his ability to reflect, like a
mirror, emotions and comprehend feelings, thoughts and desires of other people.
Although being totally tolerant, he can even embrace Ahab’s monomaniac
desire: “A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab’s quenchless
feud seemed mine” (Melville,1992: 181) while on the other hand, Ahab is not
capable of understanding people but capable of influencing them and subjecting
them to his own obsession. As is typical of a Shakespearean tragic character,
everything in his life becomes tainted by his woe and mania.
Thus, one can observe the essence of Drama in the novel especially
bearing in mind that Drama, since ancient times has reflected incisive political
questions. Bryant highlights Shakespeare’s contribution to Melville’s style.
According to Bryant’s opinion Melville rather deconstructs Shakespearean
drama canons than imitates them (Levine, 1998: 80). Unlike Shakespeare’s
characters who are allowed to explore the idea of free will, Melville’s characters
are subjugated to a life of slavery and submission. Wai-chee Dimock asserts that
in the novel’s freedom is Melville’s privilege, “it belongs to the author,
conferring of him sovereignty he is understood to command absolutely.
Dominion, on the other hand, becomes primarily a punitive consequence: it
inflicts itself on the fictive, individual, conferring on him a fate he is understood
himself to have incurred” (Dimock, 1991: 188).
Ahab’s dramatic nature is embodied both in his passionate speech and his
imposing appearance. Chapter 36 “The Quarter-Deck” is full of dramatic motifs
and symbolism, and in his monologue, Ahab refers to the initial theatrical
attribute – a mask: “All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in
each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but
still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the
unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the
prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?” (Melville, 1992:
167)
20
Ahab’s quarter-deck speech was a “play” to motivate the crew of the
Pequod to kill the white whale just as Hamlet uses the same technique to expose
his father’s murder. This is not just an imitation of the Shakespearean style but a
political statement. William A. Jones, as Levine confirms, was Melville’s ally of
the liberal faction “Young America”. Jones considers theater as one of the most
powerful art forms of democracy where various American factions could work
out and present the political tensions over different issues, including the problem
of its inception, national identity and culture. Thus, Melville intentionally adopts
the form of drama to deliver Ahab’s story. This intention becomes a “conscious
political act and revolutionary both as a public statement to his readers and as a
moment of private resolve in a shaping the direction of his art” (Levine,1998:
81).
It is not only Ahab’s speech that conveys the essence of Drama, it is also
in his very being. His poses, gestures, glances depict him as an aspiring dramatic
character: “And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with
a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some
mighty woe” (Melville, 1992: 123). Levine remarks that Ahab’s theatricality ,
makes him an exposer of racial problems and national fragmentation: “Whereas
his most optimistic political statements come to us through Ishmaelean
meditation, his concern for the nation’s dangerous factionalism and racism is
delivered in the dramatist’s idiom of speeches and stage direction, with the
novel most dramatic, Ahab, at the center” (Levine,1998: 81).
Obviously, one can admit a close affinity between the political
background and essence of nationalism and race tension in the novel. The two
issues were severe problems in Melville’s time and had a great impact on all
spheres of life. Clark proclaims: “urgent literary nationalism seems to have been
only the surface of Melville’s political intentions at this crucial moment. Once
the connection between “The House of the Seven Gables” and “Moby-Dick” has
been noticed, then the suggestions of textual scholars that the characters of Ahab
21
and possibly Ishmael and Queequeg were added after the meeting with
Hawthorne can be seen in a new light. Melville’s discovery of the potential of
Hawthorne’s allegorical method coincided with the discovery of a framework of
political allusions that would allow his whaling narrative to pass comment on
recent national events” (Clark, 1999: 141).
Drawing on Heimert’s study that subtly interprets the political background
in the novel and represents Melville’s Pequod as a prototype of the “ship of
state”, or as Ziff’s puts it as “a microcosm of human society” (Ziff, 1981: 127),
Clark maintains that the ship serves as a main multiple metaphor which
coincides not only with political but with social issues too. “But Melville's
primary theme is that of social not political democracy, the inherent dignity in
the common man, and the way communities are shaped by this quality; and this
theme is served by the crew alone with the officers functioning as remote
capricious agents of fate who affect the entire community, so that their
government does not essentially alter the dynamic of relationships among crew
members” (Ziff, 1981: 128).Justification of these thoughts could be found in the
sentence: “Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage
complete; and the pulpit is its prow” (Melville, 1992: 41), where Melville
combines both the social aspect and religious aspect in an image of a ship which
speeds through both the ocean and the course of the world’s development.
There were no preceding examples of understanding and interpreting
democracy and democratic man in fiction before Melville. Thus, in the
antebellum period, Melville, as a member of the literary-political movement
“Young America” was absorbed by its ideas with the purpose to create a new
style of democratic literature which later was transformed into the idealistic
thoughts of establishing a democratic society embodying the multifarious
possibilities of America: “What the Young Americans wanted was simply a
literature that would capture the spirit of Jacksonian nationalism. What Melville
produced in “Moby-Dick” was a text that in drawing out the tragic dimensions
22
of his democratic and capitalist materials, while inverting the theological myth
of historical entitlement to which they provided ideological support, sought to
reassociate the idea of «America» or the «New World» with a realm of
experience that (as he dramatizes in «The Pacific») transcends all his culture's
historically and culturally available God terms, including itself” (Gunn, 1990:
13).
During the 1850s and 1860s, the issue of slavery sparked conflicting
sentiments in Melville’s political allegiances. John C. Calhoun’s study was
rejected as being “abstract” theorizing, “fit only for speculative minds and the
closet” (Heimert, 1963: 515). Although, Melville helped a lot to prepare
different democratic campaigns for his zealously democratic tuned brother
Gansevoort Melville, who was focused on the idea of free, white labor:
“Gansevoort Melville's political preferences, as widely reported in the
newspapers of the day, were for a post-Jacksonian populism which denounced
the aristocratic foppery of the Whigs and urged the immediate annexation of
Texas in the name of free, white labor” (McGuire, 2003: 287) .Thus,
undoubtedly, Melville scrupulously appraised opposing doctrines of the North
and South politics, he did not easily come to the decision of accepting the idea
of political abolitionism. He was always wary of quick and simplistic decisions
especially over racial questions.
The strong influence of politics in “Moby Dick” is an undeniable fact that
was proved by various critics. Melville metaphorically joins the notions of
politics and water, and the image of the ship as a microcosm of life while
placing two opposing characters in these conditions: the ambiguous narrator
Ishmael and impulsive Ahab. They represent the main juxtaposition of the novel
and both deliver Melville’s sarcastic view conerningto the state of the country.
The dramatic character of Ahab relates to Shakespeare’s canons of Drama the
notion that implicitly exposed the political problems since ancient times. The
23
narrator of “Moby Dick”, Ishmael, implicitly protests the over-aggressive
expansionism which is personified in the character of the captain of the ship.
Conclusions for chapter I
Hence, we can say that religious and political background is tightly
connected within the novel. Melville identifies them as the leading concepts
which determine, build and reflect the state of the country through the novel. His
critical vision of drawbacks and flaws is represented through the infinite
speeches, allusions, subversions of conventional descriptions of religion,
sarcasm and allegory. The key allegory which deploys the understanding of the
setting (the Pequod) is the ship as a microcosm of life. The juxtaposition of the
two main characters- Ishmael and Ahab is maintained through Shakespeare’s
motifs (essence of Drama) in the latter and Ishmael’s pacifistic nature. They
represent two opposing views on the possible political regime and religious
questions in the country: aggressive expansionism of new territories (Ahab) and
the implicit protest over it (Ishmael).
24
II.
THE CONCEPT OF MANIFEST DESTINY IN
AMERICAN SOCIETY AND ITS AMBIGUOUS
REPRESENTATION IN THE NOVEL
II.1
The Evolution of the concept in the history of America and its
impact on H. Melville’s work
Inspired by the notorious victories of their forefathers, the new generation
of the 1840s-50s was grasped by the idea of their predetermination and ability to
be measured up to the Founding Fathers’ achievements. With the constantly
growing pride of the peculiarity of America’s destiny, the young nation believed
in a specific way of developing an American future based on the concept of
“Manifest Destiny”; so they proclaimed the extending of America’s democratic
institutions and its borders across the continent. More than that, after the
Declaration of Independence, the young nation broke free from its chains of
corruption imposed by the rules of the Old World and was ready to expostulate
its status as a sustainable refuge for those who were aggrieved and oppressed.
However, the reality of America’s expansion westward and the annexation of
new territories quickly changed the idealistic idea of America as a home of
liberty and all oppressed. Consequently with this, the belief that those who
identified as American were racially superior developed. While Europe was still
struggling with its despotism, America was representing the supremacy of the
Constitution. American intellectuals faced the problem of the absence of a
separation between American and British cultures. The common language and
all cultural heritage were evidently derived from the colonial past. The great
minds of the age were obliged to create cultural foundations capable of unifying
the nation. Hence, James Fenimore Cooper complained that it was a hard task to
write fiction in the country with the weakly developed culture and then be
berated by explaining the educational essence of his novels as an attempt to
25
inspire “the mental independence of America” (Clark, 1999: 2). In concordance
with Cooper’s thoughts, Clark admits that writers during this time were divided
into two camps: those who tried to imitate conventional European forms and
make a living by selling them and those who endeavoured to inspire mental
independence of citizens of the young nation: “The writers whom we now
consider important, however, took the more difficult route of literary
nationalism and struggled to find native materials and themes. This biased them
towards the Democratic party for it was the Democrats rather than the Whigs
who succeeded in creating the ideology of a unique American identity. The
central element of this identity was the belief that the independence of the
United States had been a “dividing point in the history of mankind ... the
moment of the political regeneration of the world”. Because the United States
was a democracy, unique in its constitutional perfection, and because it had vast
natural resources, it was destined to be, in Melville's words “the van of nations”
(Clark,1999: 3).
The notion “Manifest Destiny” was coined in the 1840s by a journalist
and later an influential advocate for the Democratic Party – John L. O’Sullivan.
During the 1837-1845 period his articles already contained the words “manifest”
and “destiny” but the whole idea of the concept was still indeterminate because
it embodied the image of gentle expansion to the West and South. At the
beginning, he did not adhere to the most radical and crucial national programs of
his time, ingeniously imagining that the vexed question of establishing
democracy may be settled amicably. The huge part of Democrats and their
opponents Whigs (mostly commercial “aristocracy” businessmen and bankers
interested in following the British industrial way of developing) were sure that
according to God’s will, the United States should subsume all North America.
Then they considered the expansion of territories as a way of establishing
democracy. This establishment of democracy justified the territorial expansion
and the oppression of the Indians. American civilization as an ideal showcased
26
the high level of technological progressivity and inviolable postulates of
Democracy even vindicated the prevalence of racial prejudice claiming a
superiority of white skin. Finally, the two words were put together by
O’Sullivan in an article “Annexation” in the Democratic Review published in
July and August of 1845. The article was dispatched to defend the annexation of
Texas and to glorify America: “[Texas] comes within the dear and sacred
designation of Our Country” and “other nations…limiting our greatness and
checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent
allotted by Providence”. Further, he straightforwardly justifies and endorses the
annexation:“It is wholly untrue, and unjust to ourselves, the pretence that the
Annexation has been a measure of spoliation, unrightful and unrighteous—of
military conquest under forms if peace and law—of territorial aggrandizement at
the expense of justice, and justice due by a double sanctity to the weak…The
independence of Texas was complete and absolute. It was an independence, not
only in fact but of right…Texas has been absorbed into the Union in the
inevitable fulfillment of the general law which is rolling our population
westward” (Kohn, 1985: 141-142).
After the buying of Louisiana in 1803 and Florida in 1819, the idea of
accession of new lands seems not to be new for Americans and it penetrates
every mind, and imposes an opinion that a country needs “a sanctified mission
to extend what Jackson called 'the area of freedom' into lands occupied by
supposedly backward peoples” (Clark, 1999: 4). O’Sullivan’s extraordinary
stature and his thoughts were influential during this time, even long before the
eminent term “Manifest Destiny” was coined by him. In concordance with
O’Sullivan’s opinion, the journalist William Gilpin contended: “the untransacted
destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent–to rush over this vast
field to the Pacific Ocean–to animate the many hundred millions of its
people…to teach old nations a new civilization–to confirm the destiny of the
27
human race– to carry the career of mankind to its culminating point”
(Gilpin,2005: 24).
Unlike other expansionist theories, “Manifest Destiny” was remarked as
“pacifistic, quasi-idealistic, and enormously popular” (Cartwright, 1999: 291).
In fact, all military actions targeting Indians were warranted as a method of
civilisation and oncoming opposition interpreted as a manifestation of savagery.
Obviously, this contradiction between the idea and the fact was appalling for
intellectuals of that time and their absolute truth veiled by metaphor, allegory
and polysemy were to be the theme of their works while risking loss of
commercial success: “By confining the realm of reliable knowledge to
immediate sense experience, conservative intellectuals were able to condemn
any imaginative grasp of United States activity as being in direct contradiction
with the supposed moral regeneration of the nation. The widespread adherence
among reviewers and readers to such a conformist, pragmatic world view
explains in part the marginal status of the great imaginative works of the period.
It also explains the adoption of aesthetic strategies intended to satirise or bypass
the attitudes of the reading public, or which were the consequence of the social
isolation visited upon writers who explored the inadequacies of prevailing
beliefs. Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne and Melville were all in their various ways to
experience the venom of the reviewers and find the readership refusing to buy
their works” (Clark, 1999: 29).
The growing duplicity of this nationalist ideology was proved by the
Mexican peace treaty ratification (1848) as David Potter reacts: “[It] was an
ironic triumph for ‘Manifest Destiny,’ an ominous fulfillment for the impulses
of American nationalism. It reflected a sinister dual quality in this nationalism,
for at the same time when national forces, in the fullness of a very genuine
vigor, were achieving an external triumph, the very triumph itself was subjecting
their nationalism to internal stresses which, within thirteen years, would bring
the nation to a supreme crisis” (Rogin,1983: 371-372).
28
As already mentioned, Melville was a significant part of intellectuals of
that time and politically vexed issues heavily concerned and affected him. His
family was tightly connected with politics for over a century from the
Revolution to the Civil War and this connection influenced Melville’s themes:
Manifest Destiny, Indian removal, slavery, racism, territorial expansion.
However, he did not share the radical views of his family and this led to
disputes, especially with his brother Gansevoort Melville, a spokesman for
American expansion in the 1840s. On the contrary, according to Rogin’s view,
Herman Melville started his career as a spokesman for those who were suffering
from the American ideology of Manifest Destiny. Gansevoort justified and
encouraged the American expansion across the continent and towards Asian
shores and promoted militancy and hostility towards England for blocking the
American Expansion while his brother railed against it. Hence, Herman
Melville’s sheer criticism was evident from the very beginning of his writing
career until the time of his mature period, e.g. in “Moby Dick”, as Buell puts it,
“Melville tried to puncture democratic complacency by establishing a
continuum between European imperialism and Yankee enterprise” (Buell, 1992:
223). While Europe was struggling through imperialism and dreaming of
political equality of rights, America was expanding to the West, following
Andrew Jackson’s call to “extend the area for freedom” (Rogin, 1983: 74).
However, the proviso of David Wilmot, which proposed to abolish slavery in all
territories acquired from Mexico, portends “the wreck of Manifest Destiny on
the rock of slavery” (Rogin,1983: 74) which asserts that slavery is detrimental to
America’s future.
Consequently, the concept of Manifest Destiny, initially created with
purely good intentions, became equivocal, as we can be proved it by the
rendition of such historians as Albert. K. Weinberg, Frederick Merk, and
Reginald Horsman. They conclude that, in fact, the concept itself embodies two
opposed positions: “a noble, democratic, and exemplary aspect based on
29
Enlightenment ideals of a universal brotherhood of man that is respectful of
other peoples” which maintains all positive aspects of this ideology and “a base,
imperialistic and landhungry aspect driven by racism and desire for conquest, on
the other” (Niemeyer, 1992: 302).
In this work, we attempt to focus on Melville’s implicit criticism of
Manifest Destiny, the notion, which was aptly subverted by him in “Moby Dick”
as well as in other works. According to Levine: “Typee” and “Moby Dick” mark
a moment in antebellum America’s postcolonial status as a notion struggling
against continued British cultural dominion while forging its own nascent
imperial identity under the aegis of “Manifest Destiny”. Thus, Melville’s heroes
criticize imperialist expansion across the world’s seas while appropriating an
imperial language of discovery, exploration, and conquest for their interior
spiritual quest” (Levine,1998: 173).
Indeed, Melville and others were well aware of the pure and pacifistic
intentions of the theory of Manifest Destiny. However, the drive for American
expansionism corrupted this ideology and used devious ways to attain the goal.
Despite this, they still believed in the blessed power enclosed in Manifest
Destiny’s “noble aspect” and its ability to survive among precarious intentions.
Keeping this in mind, while reading “Moby Dick” one can find various forms of
confirmation of Melville’s attempts to highlight the good, humanistic aspects of
the concept. According to the bright idea of Enlightenment universalism – “men
the world over had natural rights” which the United States was taking the lead in
defending through its own example” (Niemeyer, 1992: 302). This thesis
describes America as a courageous pioneer in the political thicket, generously
presenting its example to other countries to be able to adopt its model of
government and. Melville’s writings aptly maintain this concept and depict a
universal bright national belief in the ability of the American people to modify
the world in a gentle and peaceful manner. He claims that America’s initial
mission was to be peaceful, not aggressive and militant: it “should forever
30
extinguish the prejudices of national dislikes. Settled by the people of all
nations, all nations may claim her for their own. You cannot spill a drop of
American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world” (Horsman, 2006:
255).
Likewise, the narrator of the whale story, Ishmael is the expositor of the
thoughts of the movement: Enlightenment universalism which believes in
people’s ability to live in a common brotherhood, where race, culture, religion
do not cause dissension. Referring to the Bible, Kelly admits that “he adopts
himself: “Call me Ishmael.” This name seems to signify the wandering, isolated,
and questing spirit” (Kelly, 2008: 64). In the course of the narration, Ishmael
constantly proves this idea. He asserts that common peace is an obligatory basis
and a surety of mutual coexistence for those who share any place, shelter or
even country: “it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the
place one lodges in” (Melville, 1992: 6). This thought which is given from the
beginning of the novel tunes all the rest and embraces Ishmael’s description as
an amiable, regardful and humanistic person. He is completely free of any racial
prejudice and all his own doubts, growing of politics theories, he attempts to
explain logically. Thus, the pagan tattooed islander, Queequeg, becomes his
friend in the short term; nevertheless, he has inherent fear of obscure
complexion, infidel signs on the body and wild habits but Ishmael justifies
himself: “It’s only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin”
(Melville, 1992: 22). He reasonably proves that those who seem strange and
scary to us can feel the same towards us while catching in a possible intimate
atmosphere– lying in bed with his future bosom friend: “I to myself—the man’s
a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to
be afraid of him” (Melville, 1992: 25). The most important and famous Ishmael
quote contests all anti-racial prejudice: “a white man were anything more
dignified than a whitewashed negro” (Melville, 1992: 61-62). Another point to
which Ishmael draws the reader’s attention is the loyalty to religion as he states
31
several times: “I have no objection to any person’s religion” (Melville, 1992:
89). Queequeg zealously follows Pagan rituals and Ishmael is invited to join his
profane rite. Then he has to express his respect to his future friend or ignore his
traditions. Ishmael chooses to follow Queequeg’s god and logically explains his
decision while using Christian doctrines: “But what is worship? thought I. Do
you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth—
pagans and all included—can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black
wood? Impossible! But what is worship?—to do the will of God—THAT is
worship. And what is the will of God?—to do to my fellow man what I would
have my fellowman to do to me—THAT is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is
my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why,
unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship” (Melville, 1992:
54).
Referring to the possibility of Paganism or any other religion seems odd:
we do “not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what
not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects” (Melville, 1992 85);
Ishmael humorously approves his acceptance of it and suggests that all “good
Presbyterian Christians”(Melville, 1992: 84) follow his thoughts: they “cherish
the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how
comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of
ants worshipping a toad-stool” (Melville, 1992: 84). Very persistently Ishmael
attempts to assure Captain Bildad that Queequeg is the follower of: “the same
ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and
Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother’s son and soul of us belong; the
great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world”
(Melville, 1992: 91-92).
This fact again proves the idea of Ishmael’s acceptance of religious
universalism and his humanistic approaches towards other nations, races, and
culture. It depicts him as a perfect citizen of the world, ideal American, able to
32
leave in a peace and to share territories with other nations likewise he solemnly
appeals to the multinational Pequod’s crew: “let us squeeze hands all round;
nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves
universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness”. (Melville, 1992: 427).
On the opposite side of the whale pursuit, which could be marked as
“dark”, is captain Ahab. This discloses the contemporary state of cruel and
greedy expansionism of Melville’s time. This part is accomplished by the
relative antagonist of the narrator – Captain Ahab who is posturized “to be the
absolute dictator of it” [the Pequod] (Melville, 1992: 100). While Ishmael
unintentionally appears as a missionary of Enlightenment universalism and of an
earlier version of Manifest Destiny, Ahab embodies the image of avaricious
expansionists obsessed by the monomaniacal idea of possession of new
territories. He sets his heart and life on chasing the white whale – tremendous,
colossal, unexplored monster and these attempts to catch him could, on the one
hand, be death-defying and, on the other hand, lends eclat to his hunter. All
mentioned facts are coinciding with the expansionists ideas of those who eagerly
wish to own westward. While using the inversion that creates an elevated
atmosphere around the captain, Melville introduces him as “Khan of the plank,
and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab” (Melville, 1992:
130). One can admit that several times Ahab is described as “a supreme lord and
dictator” (Melville, 1992: 123) on the Pequod and, interestingly, he is the “lord”
for almost all the members of the crew who submissively obey him (except
Starbucks’s unavailing attempts to talk Ahab into pursuing the White Whale),
e.g. Dough-Boy calls him “his lord and master” (Melville, 1992: 153) and the
horrifying harpooner Fedallah who is secretly smuggled by Ahab, depicted as
his slave: “Ahab—in his own proper self, as daily, hourly, and every instant,
commandingly revealed to his subordinates,—Ahab seemed an independent
lord; the Parsee but his slave” (Melville, 1992 543) . This total submission is
dictated not only by a promised enigmatic gold Doubloon but attributed to his
33
powerful inner force: though Ahab is himself controlled by his own object, his
power to control others is not thereby annulled but paradoxically multiplied”
(Cowan, 1982 97). As in the case with Ishmael’s name, Ahab’s name is not less
meaningful – initially, the name belongs to Israel’s king who was married to a
pagan Princess, which was not acceptable before God and did a lot of evil as
well. Likewise, “modern” Ahab worships his obsessive desire to revenge the
White Whale and invokes non-Christian rituals in order to get spiritual strength
and luck. The pagan way of consecrating Ahab’s barb in the heathen blood,
which is described at the end of the chapter “The Forge”, justifies the
inextricable connection between modern and ancient Ahabs. The culmination of
his demonic nature is contented in the exclamation “Ego non baptizo te in
nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!” (Melville, 1992: 499). The usage of the
Latin language (while Ahab appeals to the dark forces), which was historically
used as a universal language in science and religion, combined with the profane
rituals creates an enigmatic, sacred atmosphere. This scene subverts the image
of the captain as a pious Christian, proving Ishmael’s characteristics “Though
nominally included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it”
(Melville, 1992: 155). Owing to his dreamy obsession, he ruined himself, human
lives and the ship. This bitter end of Ahab’s whale chasing was prophesied by
another character with the Biblical name, Elijah, and also denounced the destiny
of avid expansionism.
Another example that can conclude Melville’s symbolical embodiment of
the concept of Manifest Destiny in “Moby Dick” is his comparison of Whale
Gams with the nations which vividly reflects historical peculiarities in the
formation of nations: “but here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied
activity with which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the
Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached
companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in extensive herds,
sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost seem as if
34
numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual
assistance and protection. To this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into such
immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that even in the best
cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and months together,
without being greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what
sometimes seems thousands on thousands” (Melville, 1992: 391).
Hence, we can conclude, that Manifest Destiny is a complex notion that
was coined by O’Sullivan but its concept has existed in the American national
consciousness since its establishment. Being founded on the humanistic
Enlightenment basis it was peaceful and oriented to bring up ambitious citizens
proud of their Young Nation united by Democratic equality. However, due to
different economic and political reasons, Manifest Destiny acquired an
ambivalent interpretation which was noticed by the intellectuals of the 1850s
and was reflected in their works. Melville belongs to the group of writers who
with the help of significant symbols depicted the reality of the 1850s and
criticizes the popular notion. Thus, analyzing Ishmael’s speech we can say that
he exposes universalist Enlightenment ideas. Also, his name refers to the
Biblical character and points his ability to be “outcast” as well as Ahab name
which correlates with the name of the wicked king mentioned in the Biblical text
who was an embodiment of evil. On the contrary to Ishmael, Ahab suggests
aggressive expansionism and total submission on board of the ship. Another
example of Manifest destiny theory is scrutinized through the vivid comparison
of Whale Gam with the nation where whales metaphorically associated with the
people.
II.2
The novel as an allegory of the American History of the 1850s
35
Melville’s explorations on the social, racial, economic and historical
topics reflect the political environment of the late 1850s. He touched upon these
concerns in his previous five books: “Typee” , “Omoo”, “Redburn”, “WhiteJacket” and especially “Mardi” which had been completed by the end of the
1840s. Melville’s early novels maintain his growing interest in the complex and
inconceivable way American society was developing, as well as in the changes
of life, the contradictions of social consciousness and the incontrollable
direction of American history, as Reynolds wrote, “in many of his early novels
Melville had played the part of the social reformer “lifting the veil off various
vices or iniquities (corruption among Christian missionaries, naval flogging,
slavery, intemperance ,and so forth)” (Reynolds, 2011: 136). By the time
Melville decided to write his great whale narrative, the history of America had
gone through several new “achievements”: settling the conflict with Great
Britain over Oregon, the annexation of Texas, military involvement in a war
with Mexico and with the purpose to extend the American territories to the
Pacific, the ratification of the peace treaty in 1848. The latter provoked the crisis
over the slavery question which was expanded by the passing of the Fugitive
Slave act in 1850. Growing separation and tension between the North and the
South were evident characteristics of the antebellum period: “it was Wisconsin
which invoked states’ rights to avoid having to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act,
and a Southern Supreme Court which ruled that federal law prevailed. By not
ending slavery, the Constitution carried with it tacit approval” (Green, 2000:
576). This was the cornerstone that made Melville forget about the thought to
gain commercial success by publishing “Moby Dick” and allow himself to write
his inner thoughts, emotions, investigations and conclusions about America’s
destiny.
Literary independence was another desirable step for Melville as well as
for his contemporaries and predecessors: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Poe
and Whitman. In 1941 F.O. Matthiessen identified them as the authors of
36
“American Renaissance”, one of the best-known and productive periods of
American literature. “During the American Renaissance. The proliferation of
popular social and imaginative texts was liberating, since it released rich images
for literary use, but at the same time it was potentially disturbing, since it
threatened to bring about a complete inversion of values and an obliteration of
genuine emotion” (Reynolds, 2011: 10). Sufficient independence in the choice
of topics could extend the boundaries of writing and let the American writer tell
the truth. Melville maintained that writers should “carry republican
progressiveness into Literature, as well as into life” (Rogin, 1990: 272). His
writings successfully combine the problem of correlation between the author,
current affairs, and his art.
Melville allegorically draws a parallel between the contemporary current
affairs and the whaling process or, as it was already mentioned, with everything
that connected with the aquatic world. This environment includes multiple
references to ocean and sea which are frequently compared by Melville’s with
the Indians’ prairie: “And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling
watery prairies” (Melville, 1992: 492). Another example vividly compares the
sea and the prairie: “These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly
feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards
it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her
masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the
tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants’ horses only show
their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing
verdure” (Melville, 1992: 500).
Also, we can find Melville’s allusions between seamen and the
inhabitants of the Indian prairie as well as the inhabitants on the ocean compared
with those who live on a prairie. Thus, on the quarter-deck, the harpooners have
“those wild eyes … as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves…” (Melville,
1992: 163) and the Nantucket seaman “lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the
37
prairie; he hides among the waves” (Melville, 1992: 65). The herds of whales
were directly compared with the herds of buffaloes: “Comparing the humped
herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo, which, not forty years ago,
overspread by tens of thousands the prairies of Illinois and Missouri” (Melville,
1992: 471). We can believe that the enigmatic image of “The White Steed of the
Prairies” is a veiled allusion to the White Whale. The horse was “the elected
Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses” (Melville, 1992: 194) similar to Moby
Dick’s outstanding position concerning other whales. The peculiarity that unites
Moby Dick and the White Steed could be found in their ability to be “the
object[s] of trembling reverence and awe” (Melville, 1992: 194) and they
“enforced a certain nameless terror” (Melville, 1992: 194).
The chapter “The Grand Armada” relates to the rough and slaughterous
invasions of the expansionists into native territories. As Niemeyer puts it:
“Ishmael’s metaphor comparing hunted whales to nations of the world provides
perhaps the clearest image of whaling as worldwide imperialism…With a man
bent on getting his whale like Ahab and a country bent on expansionism like the
United States, it’s no wonder” (Niemeyer, 1999: 307). Thus, in “The Grand
Armada”, the gam is presented as “ranks and battalions” (Melville, 1992: 394)
seems to be well-organized in the beginning of the battle but later demonstrating
“their distraction of panic” (Melville, 1992: 394). The situation could be applied
to any army of the aborigines who are instinctively brave and preconditioned to
defend themselves. However, because of lack of experience in organized
militant opposition and absence of a coherent military strategy, their braveness
vanishes in face of the well-armed and well-practised opponents. Ironically
Melville justifies the whales’ timidity: “there is no folly of the beasts of the earth
which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men” (Melville, 1992: 394).
However, the humble aborigine-whale army can threaten its oppressor and make
him “bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb” (Melville,
1992: 395). The end of the massacre was marked with the losses in the whales’
38
rank and Ishmael highlights: “his waif is a pennoned pole”, this image shows the
blind observance of America’s bureaucracy and established protocols even in
the whaling industry. Consequently, the gam demonstrates the spark of protest
over hawkish invaders that figuratively submerges the novel in the criticism of
American society and gives proof of the novel’s subversive vision: “in
Subversive fiction rebels or outcast become symbols of the democratic common
man always reenacting the American protest against tyranny. But the emblems
of tyranny had become part of American society itself– the statesmen,
capitalists, lawyers, clergymen, and “idle” rich that the Subversives viewed as
hypocritical, Subversive fiction thus represented a form of autocriticism within
American society, a turning inward of the rebelliousness that had once been
directed at foreign tyrants” (Reynolds, 2011: 200).
Consequently, the main conflict of subversive writings stems from the
confrontation between the two opposing characters: the oppressor who embodies
the aggressive power and the outcast who is exasperated by injustice and the
total submission which is demanded of the lower-class. Likewise, we can
observe that this hierarchy is peculiar to subversive writings– three captains:
obsessed Ahab, stern Peleg and fierce Bildad are opposed to the pariahs: flexible
Ishmael, adaptable Queequeg, and the Pequod’s ruined crew. This wicked
system reflects the internal organization of any state: the aggressive and
covetous power which is submissively supported by most of the population and
dominates the native people, were only slightly opposed by a few intellectuals.
Herman Melville belonged to the generation of the great American
romanticists, along with Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar
Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The romantic nature of the novel, where
the narrative is dedicated to the whaling ship Pequod, is complicated by
philosophical, psychological, tragic, self-reflexive, literary distraction. They all
interweave the metaphysical approach of the book into the narrative and, at first
sight, the watery setting and the whaling pursuit are used to distract the reader
39
from the evident connection of the novel with the American historical and social
background. Thus, we can say, that Melville does not suggest to the reader his
obvious interpretation of history and the romantic nature of the book, instead he
insists on an intricate reading in quest for its implicit meaning. Rogin claims that
the advantage of a romantic novel over a realistic one is its ability to hide an
explicit criticism of the state of the world. While realistic fiction: “more
obviously offers a window onto society. But the romantic rendering of history
has some advantages over fictional realism. Insofar as realism claims simply to
mirror the world outside the text, it obscures the narrative strategies by which it,
too, orders the world. At the same time, and especially in an American setting,
realistic fiction can imprison itself in surface detail. The romance, because it
does not aspire to record the social world, offers space for a critical perspective
on it. Melville’s romances do not escape society; they penetrate and
symbolically rework the social order” (Rogin, 1983: 83).
However, in the light of the fact that whaling occupied an important place
in the American economy in the 19th century, it seems unreasonable to
underestimate Melville’s choice of the watery setting and regard the story being
about whaling as “exotic” one. Juxtaposing whaling and the American society,
creates the setting that allegorically highlights the weaknesses of American
history, democracy, moral and social values and other important issues of life.
The lack of animal fat and lard was one of the problems of American
economics: the Indians never succeeded in livestock rearing and later the
colonials did not have enough to satisfy the requirements of the population.
Nevertheless, the Indians in particular made a great contribution to the
development of the fat industry because they were considered as pioneers in
whaling. Likewise, among the crew of the Pequod there was one of the most
skillful harpooners – “an unmixed Indian” (Melville, 1992:121) Tashtego. He is
described as the first harpooner (after Queequeg) and his “pure” Indian origin,
highlighted by Ishmael, served as the justification of his (and the Indians in
40
whole) outstanding ability as hunters who later retrained as whalers according to
society’s needs: “village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring
island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooners” (Melville, 1992:
121). Thus, whaling was one of the few spheres to which the Indians (and other
Pacific islanders) gained access. This fact explains the presence of “unplaced”
and even “outlandish” Queequeg, whose home is “not down in any map; true
places never are” (Melville, 1992: 56). Thus, whaling was a common industry in
19th century until the late 1850s which was marked by the discovery of oil in
Pennsylvania. Whale oil was accordingly replaced as a source of candle making
and lighting Hence, the plot which takes place on board the wicked ship does
not escape these developments of American history, on the contrary, the
narrative submerges the reader into the world of socio-political problems
through allegory or explicit expressions.
The chapter “Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish” becomes the climax of Melville’s
astute criticism where he argues in the form of dialogue with the reader about
politics: democracy, expansionism, laws and property. The epiphany appears on
the pages of this chapter, where Melville claims that property causes lack of
human freedom. Ishmael states the two main unwritten laws of whaling
regarding the whale carcass which could, in fact, be applied to any sphere of
life, especially economic and political. At the end of the chapter, he directly
shifts to the discussion of the underlying principles of captivity: “Possession is
half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But
often possession is the whole of the law.” (Melville, 1992:408). This is followed
by rigorous examples of different forms of “property”: animate ones or
inanimate (abstract notions or geographical places): “What are the sinews and
souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession
is the whole of the law? (…) What to that redoubted harpooner, John Bull, is
poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is
41
Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole of
the law?” (Melville, 1992:408).
All these examples may be meant to convince the reader that all men
belong to someone, disregarding the essential notion of freedom in a democratic
country. The concluding rhetorical question “And concerning all these, is not
Possession the whole of the law?” underlines the obsessive urge for property
which controls the life and destiny of the American people. Steinberg writes that
“Melville seems to be saying that the whole world had come to be divided into
the legal categories of fast and loose property. Writing from a vantage point in
the 19th century, he satirized a system of thought in which possession was the
only law” (Steinberg, 1995: 19).
The second doctrine “Loose-Fish” closely relates to the first “Fast-Fish”
and symbolically connects the invasion of the most powerful empires with the
fishery: “What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus
struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and
mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India
to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.”
(Melville, 1992: 408). The second doctrine has a framing structure – the first
and the last question concern the past and the present of America and reflect on
all human nature, deciding it is based on greed for gain. Thus, Heimert claims
that the perfect incarnation of the idea of American Manifest Destiny was “The
Great American Sea-Serpent”, a ghostly monster, which had allegedly been seen
in New England waters. The image of the “Serpent” was widely used in
different rhetoric: by the Whig, Melville and Eugene Batchelder, who
“published his Romance of the Sea-Serpent. His verses connected the chase of
the “serpent” with the advance of Americans into Mexico and the Californian
golden empire. But like Melville, for whom in “Moby-Dick” Texas was a “FastFish” and Mexico a “Loose-Fish” but the White Whale himself something more,
so too did Batchelder ascribe transcendent stature to the Serpent. To Batchelder
42
this emblem of American empire seemed the very Leviathan of the Old
Testament (Heimert 504).
Also, the same idea of economic bondage that ties humankind was
articulated by Ahab: “Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do
away with ledgers” (Melville, 1992: 482). One can admit that as a whaling
captain Ahab is unwittingly contributing to the development of the national
economy. According to Barrenechea, some critics remarked on Ahab’s
resemblance with several public figures of Melville’s time: “Daniel Webster
(Foster), Lloyd Garrison (Weathers), John C. Calhoun (Heimert), and James K.
Polk (Lawson)” (Barrenechea, 2016: 17). To illustrate the point that total
freedom can never exist even in a democracy, Melville uses the image of
Ishmael and Queequeg, being attached to each other at the side of the ship while
cutting-up the whale to show the correlation of interdependency of workers. The
illusion of freedom is broken by the system: “my free will had received a mortal
wound; and that another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into
unmerited disaster and death” (Melville 328). Likewise, his arguments can be
summarized by saying that men are all dependent on someone. The economic
grounds of democracy catch and confine them like a mouse in a trap: “If your
banker breaks, you snap” (Melville, 1992:328). “Melville grasps the emergence
of the great 19th century development of evolutionary thought by figuring the
monkey rope as a cord that unites all people in a system of complementary labor
even as they all were umbilically linked to their mothers” (Gunn, 2005:142).
Thus, we can say that Melville’s novel aptly coincides with the history of
America of the 1850s. His writing interlaces the current affairs and the whaling
process which becomes the main metaphor that reflect America and the world
itself. The gam associated with any aboriginal army while the whalers are
represented as American greedy expansionists. Through vivid epithets and
descriptions of the Indian whaler Tashtego, Melville touches upon the topic of
the role of the Indians in America’s life. The chapter “Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish”
43
is full of Melville’s criticism where he scrutinizes the question of rough
expansionism and refers to human infinite greed for gain.
Conclusions for chapter II
In this chapter, we have attempted to highlight the main aspects of the
notion Manifest Destiny which is a complex notion that was coined by
O’Sullivan but its concept has existed in the American national consciousness
since its establishment. Being founded on the humanistic Enlightenment basis
the notion was a peaceful one and was oriented to bring up ambitious citizens
proud of their Young Nation united by Democratic equality. However, due to
different economic and political reasons, Manifest Destiny acquired an
ambivalent interpretation which was noticed by the intellectuals of the 1850s
and was reflected in their works. By the time Melville decided to write his great
whale narrative, the history of America had gone through several new
“achievements”: settling the conflict with Great Britain over Oregon, the
annexation of Texas, military involvement in a war with Mexico and with the
purpose to extend the American territories to the Pacific, and the ratification of
the peace treaty in 1848. Melville allegorically draws a parallel between the
contemporary current affairs and the whaling process or, as was already
mentioned, to connect both worlds. The romantic nature of the novel, where the
narrative is dedicated to the whaling ship Pequod, is complicated by
philosophical, psychological, tragic, self-reflexive, literary distraction. They all
interweave the metaphysical approach of the book into the narrative and, at first
sight, the watery setting and the whaling pursuit are used to distract the reader
44
from the evident connection of the novel with the American historical and social
background. Thus, we can say, that Melville does not suggest to the reader his
obvious interpretation of history and the romantic nature of the book, instead he
insists on an intricate reading in a quest for its implicit meaning.
45
III. THE QUESTION OF RACE AND SLAVERY
III.1
Multifaced Pequod as a prototype of multinational America
The role of the Pequod has motivated endless amounts of research by
different scholars. Most of them agree that the international crew of the ship is a
symbolic embodiment of America with its multicultural population. Spanos
claims that the Pequod is not the only ship that conveys a metaphorical image of
America, (as for example the Fidele in The Confidence- Man ) but the Pequod
incarnates “the American Ship of State and the folly of its passengers as the
folly of the collective American national identity” (Spanos, 2009: 178). By
naming the symbolic ship of state the Pequod, Melville refers to the Pequots, an
Indian tribe slaughtered and nearly destroyed by the Puritans. Melville links the
aboriginal past of America and the ship: “Where else but from Nantucket did
those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase
to the Leviathan?” (Melville, 1992:7). It also proves the afore-mentioned
Indians’ superiority in hunting, which was a source of living for them. Thus, we
can say, that the link between the Indian hunters and the whale hunters,
established by the name of the ship, echoes the Puritans’ murderous violence
towards the Pequot tribe, as well as Ahab’s obsession to exterminate the White
Whale. However, neither the Puritans nor Ahab’s crew killed for a living like
the Indian hunters, but rather like a miscreants. Contrary to the Puritans, who
slaughtered the Pequot tribe, the ship the Pequod was both equipped to sail and
was destroyed by the Quakers – a group of Christians originating in England and
then expanded by missionaries in America. Ishmael characterizes these people
as “fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.” (Melville, 1992:76).
Hence, the Pequod’s fate is in the hands of three Quakers (as it was highlighted
by Ishmael): captain Bildad, captain Peleg and the chief mate Starbuck but the
46
main “puppet master” onboard is Ahab, referred to by D.H. Lawrence as “the
mysterious Quaker” (Bloom 30). Each Quaker plays an important role in the
Pequod’s destiny, beginning with the fitting-out of the ship and finishing with
the destruction of the wrecked vessel. The captain of the ship has three main
chiefs which represent different parts of America: Starbuck (Nantucket, New
England), Stubb (Cape Cod), Flask (Tisbury, Martha’s Vineyard). Thus,
Castronovo lays emphasis on the fact that characters depended on the place of
origin: Starbuck demonstrates New England morality, Stubb owes his “easy and
careless” character to the jaunty Westerner, and the typical hot-blooded
Southern man Flask is always ready to defend a “point of honor” in a fight
(Castronovo 121). Depending on the character represented, each chief mate is
served by an appropriate harpooner whose traits of character or habits correlate
with the chief mate’s peculiarities. The Islander Queequeg who is “brave”
(Melville,1992:352) and can “steer us manfully” (Melville, 1992:395) for “staid,
steadfast” (Melville, 1992:115) Starbuck with his “hardy sobriety and fortitude”,
whose adherence to superstition makes him similar to Queequeg. The Indian
Tashtego, “an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters”
(Melville, 1992:121), who is from the village of the “most daring harpooners”
(Melville,1992:121) serves Stubb. He is “a happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor
valiant” (Melville, 1992:118) who always smokes a pipe that also links him with
his Indian squire Tashtego. The African Daggoo, “a gigantic, coal-black negro
savage” (Melville, 1992:121) serves Flask who appears as not only a proper
mental reflection of his “knight” but also a fitting physical supplement to his
“short, stout, ruddy” (Melville,1992:120) chief mate. At the top of the Pequod’s
hierarchy is Ahab who is served by “five dusky phantoms” (Melville,
1992:221). This pyramid of power on the ship of state, the Pequod, was figured
out by Heimert as a political allusion. As Clark puts it: “The history of the
Republic was likened to a voyage, and its wreck at the hands of hungry “Ahabs”
who coveted Mexico's “vineyards” was greatly feared. Melville's voyage of
47
“The Pequod” gives allegorical expression to the radical Free-Soil fear that
Democracy's monomaniacal urge to dominate nature will at worst destroy the
Republic and at best contravene the libertarian principles enshrined in the
constitution” (Clark,1999:141-142).
Ahab, as the captain, makes the decisions about the direction of the ship.
The Pequod heads South but further on the ship turns East into the Indian
Ocean, the China sea and across the coasts of the Japanese islands. Melville
sends the Pequod easterly because it was considered as an unknown and
unexplored region by America, thus the East can be the new region to expand
territories: “As scholarship shows, parallels exist between the Pequod's pursuit
of the White Whale and America's westward strivings; between Ahab's
monomania and the expansionist and democratic outlooks of Andrew Jackson
and James K. Polk; and between Ahab's defiance of “God's Law Supreme” and
John C. Calhoun's uncompromising insistence that slavery be extended into the
new territories acquired from Mexico” (Duban, 1983: 83).
It is worth noting that the introduction of the seamen in the two chapters
of “Knights and Squires” is conducted in a strict hierarchical order: the first
three chief mates and then their harpooners accordingly. Hence, Gunn highlights
“a feudal note” both in the title of the two chapters as well as in the unfolding of
the narrative. On the one hand, the crew of the Pequod is constituted of the
equally stout fellows, ready to help each other in the face of death but, on the
other hand, “the feudal appellations are fully functional and descriptive” on
board of this ship. (Gunn 85). Ishmael highlights the evident superiority of the
chief mates: “Now these three mates—Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were
momentous men” (Melville,1992:120). Following this sentence, the metaphor
hints at the forthcoming appearance of the headman: “In that grand order of
battle in which Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on
the whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies”
(Melville,1992:120). All this leads to a chapter devoted to the king of the ship –
48
Ahab, whom the reader only faces for the first time, though the crew has already
spent a lot of time at sea. The ship obviously serves as a metaphor for the
possibility of establishing a new type of society where different races,
nationalities, and cultures can share peaceful co-existence. However, the
appearance of Ahab on the stage disrupts the basis of democracy on board of the
Pequod. “Melville's suggestion to employ the fraternity of sailors as nucleus of a
new form of democratic society is subverted by Ahab's hypnotic ability to
reestablish a kind of feudal order on board of the Pequod and to manipulate the
crew into following him in his own obsessive thirst for revenge even at the cost
of self-destruction” (Fluck,1995:210). Hence, the chief mates are presented
according to the feudal system before the introduction of the main feudal lord –
Ahab, likewise not far from his appearance we can observe another example of
the totalitarianism on the Pequod: the order in which the captain and the mates
are proceeding to dinner. In the opposite order to “Knights and Squires”, the
first is Ahab followed by his chief mates. They are called and enter the cabintable separately according to their range: Starbuck, Stubb, and then Flask. The
whole dinner is a paradox of the totalitarian system where the less significant
figure remains hungry due to the protocol: “Therefore it was that Flask once
admitted in private, that ever since he had arisen to the dignity of an officer,
from that moment he had never known what it was to be otherwise than hungry,
more or less” (Melville, `1992:152-153). While on the contrary, the “second
table”, the dinner of the harpooners (Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo) was
hearty and takes place in a rather friendly, democratic atmosphere where
different nationalities and skin colours delightedly share their meal with a fellow
creature: “In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless
invisible domineerings of the captain’s table, was the entire care-free license and
ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior fellows the harpooners.”
(Melville, 1992:153). The presence of Ahab during the dinner of the “first
table”, who embodies total power, juxtaposes the sophisticated despotism even
49
among one nation to “the second” multicultural table which can enjoy food or
allegorically life in a mutual joy. Heimert has pointed out that these three
harpooners symbolically present the three sub-races (African, Indian, and the
Pacific islander) which the American economic system submitted and exploited
during the 19th century. Interestingly, the fact that the silent leader of this
multicultural group, Queequeg, has no exact place of origin blurs the boundaries
of American expansionism, so he seems to be constituted of various features
belonging to each represented race. His resemblance to the black race is
maintained through the description “the harpooner is a dark complexioned chap”
(Melville,1992:14) and his black idol was “exactly the colour of a three days’
old Congo baby” (Melville,1992:23). Similarities to the Indians could be found
in Queequeg’s tomahawk pipe (Niemeyer,1999:304). Queequeg’s pipe breaks
the ice between him and Ishmael, likewise a ceremonial pipe or peace pipe
between the two races: “If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in
the Pagan’s breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and
left us cronies” (Melville,1992:53).
Observing the group of the three harpooners who serve Ahab’s chief
mates, the dark figure of Ahab’s stowaway, the mysterious Parsee Fedallah,
always stays off the grid. However, Fedallah is an evident counterpart of
Queequeg, and by pairing them Melville demonstrates an ambivalent view of the
East. Queequeg always demonstrates his “intellectualism” and natural delicacy
which he inherited as the son of the King of the island Kokovoko, Ishmael
highlights the aborigines “calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic
wisdom” (Melville,1992:52) and especially Queequeg is the best example of this
quality. As Ishmael asserts that in his complexion was something unusual:
“Queequeg
was
George
Washington
cannibalistically
developed”
(Melville,1992:51) that mostly could be rendered as a complement to his
uncommonness. He was neither a civilized man, nor a rough savage: “But
Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition stage—neither caterpillar
50
nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the
strangest possible manners” (Melville,1992:29). However, the intellectual and
sophisticated Ishmael finds a reliable and intelligent friend in Queequeg, who
projects the noble savagery inherent to all people and which was also stored
deeply in Ishmael’s consciousness.
“Contrary to Fedallah, Queequeg familiarizes the alien East. Queequeg is
a projection of Ishmael's imperialist guilt, a self-sacrificing savage whose
physical friendship conveniently transcends imperial politics and allows Ishmael
(a self-willed outcast from a civilization he disdains) to survive the inevitable
wreck of Ahab's juggernaut” (Bryant,2010:1050). The mysterious and enigmatic
side of the East is embodied in Fedallah who “remained a muffled mystery to
the last” (Melville, 1992:237).
On the contrary to the bosom-friendship between Ishmael and Queequeg,
the background of Ahab and Fedallah’s relationship is indeterminate: “by what
sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab’s
peculiar fortunes” (Melville,1992:237) and seems mostly based on subjugation
formed from an unknown basis. Hence, Bryant maintains that “Fedallah is the
oriental subaltern, abused by imperial oppression, from whom westerners
secretly, rightly expect revenge” (Bryant2010:1050). Another character devoted
to Ahab is a little negro called Pip who reflects Ahab’s madness and who can
soften Ahab’s heart for a while. “On the Pequod, Fedallah and Pip embody
projections of Ahab's innermost being, Fedallah as the demonic aspect of Ahab's
«characterizing mind» and Pip as the mad, maimed, indigent sign and
justification of Ahab's purpose” (Wenke,1995:136-137).
Thus, one can admit that the democratic relationships and fraternities
among the multicultural crew on the Pequod are complicated by the feudal
system of movement. At the pinnacle of the Pyramid is Ahab– the king of the
ship supported by three chief mates (Americans) who in their turn are served by
the three harpooners (the Pacific islander, the Indian and the African); then all
51
the rest of the crew. The Pequod with its multinational crew and American
movement incarnates America. We can believe that this metaphor deploys
America with its obsessive leaders who proclaim to find the best way of
developing a country but at the end they are obsessed with the desire to kill the
White Whale. Symbolically, the flag of the sinking ship which was is nailed by
the red arm of the Indian Tashtego.
III.2
“Moby Dick” as an American slave narrative
The slavery issue in America has had a long history since the Spaniards
conquered its regions. Unlike France, as Dorigny asserts, where the principles
grounded in the Declaration of the Rights of Man took five years to come into
force, America spent eighty-nine years before applying the universal statements
of the Declaration of Independence which claim that “all men are born equal”
and have “the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to
break the bonds of slavery in America. The bloody and fratricidal Civil War was
a terminal point in this conflict of the North and the South and after abolition
was supported and protected by the Constitution (Dorigny 80).
For Melville, the antebellum period was marked by the loss of the ideals
of the American system and the subversion of democratic beliefs. Despite all
accepted declarations the country was not able to create a place where every
citizen was happy, free and protected. It seemed that all sacrifices, in honor of
common equality and freedom, were unfounded. “Writers of the western frontier
also tended to interweave counter-imperial, dissenting rhetorics into their
narratives; especially as the United States moved closer to war with Mexico in
1846, their works increasingly ventriloquized the nation's widespread anxiety
52
over Indian Removal, slavery, and expansionism's threat to the character of a
nation founded upon republican, anti-imperialist principles” (Lawrence,2009:
61).
These expansion-slavery related issues influenced Melville’s works from
the late 1840s through to the beginning of the 1850s. Rogin writes that
Melville’s rebellious sensibility and the politically explosive issue of slavery of
the late 1840 engenders “Moby Dick” (Rogin,1990:361-362). Melville was not
once described as a politically ambiguous person but obviously, he was well
aware of the ideology and rhetoric of the antebellum period. His direct
knowledge in anti-slavery rhetoric could be explained by the friendship with a
leading member of the Free Soil Party – Richard Henry Dana Jr., editor and the
leading member of the Young America movement – Evert Duyckinck, an ardent
abolitionist and a leader of the Radical Republicans– Senator Charles Summer.
The bonds of these friendships influenced Melville’s judgment concerning the
question of slavery and foreshadowed “a book in which issues of slavery and
fugitive’s justice are as deep a subtext as they were in White-Jacket” (Levine,
2008: 60).
The novel is teeming with multiple references to the question of slavery
and allusions to the political events of Melville’s time. Hence, Duban points out
Heimert’s poignant political reading of “Town-Ho’s Story” which could be read
as an veiled allusion to the establishing of the Free Soil Convention of 1848.
“Free-Soil Democracy had its origin in the Baltimore Convention of 1844,
where the South, rejecting Van Buren, strove to tighten its grip on the party by
adopting the two-thirds rule. The consequent Barnburner revolt seemedespecially as the insurgency presented itself as a movement by younger
Democrats against their experienced elders-as a “mutiny” by “fresh water lads”.
This crisis is strikingly paralleled in the Town-Ho section of “Moby-Dick”. The
abortive mutiny of ten crewmen out of thirty, the early defection of seven of
Steelkilt’s associates, the ultimate capitulation of the others and the successful
53
commandeering of another ship, follow closely the sequence of historical events
from 1844, through the state-by-state bolts from the Party, to the Utica
Convention of 1848 and the formation of the Free-Soil Party at Buffalo.
Moreover, the geographical center of the new party was the very canal and lake
region from which Steelkilt and his supporters came.... The tyrannical Radney,
finally, has southern characteristics.... The account of Steelkilt’s long being
«retained harmless and docile» by the «inflexible firmness» of Radney, «only
tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest
slave's right,» could well stand as a paraphrase of the grievances with which
David Wilmot introduced his Proviso. The Free-Soil revolt flourished on the
refusal of northern Democrats like Wilmot to remain the «white slaves» of the
South” (Duban,1983: 103-104).
Carolyn Karcher remarks another interpretation of the chapter “The
Town-Ho’s Story” that connects it with black culture issues which identified
‘Moby Dick” as a slave narrative. The main character of the story-within-the
story, Steelkilt, is a prototype of the African slave who stood up against the
rough exploitation of the chief mate Radney. This conflict discloses “a paradigm
of the master-slave” relationship where the culmination is “a paradigm of slave
insurrection”. The very textual form of the story-within-a-story coincides with
that of the slave narrative (Berthold 136). It is worth adding that to decipher the
prototype of a slave in Steelkilt is a formidable challenge because it is a white
seamen who allegorically represents the slave: “this Lakeman, a mariner, who
though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by
that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave’s right;
thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile”
(Melville,1992:253). Contrarily to him, Radney is described as “the mate, (…)
ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious” (Melville,1992:253).
This fact unintentionally ingratiates the reader’s sympathy towards Steelkilt and
engenders disaffection towards Radney. However, Melville refrains from
54
drawing conclusions and does not justify Steelkilt or Radney: “Yet was this
Nantucketer [Radney] a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman
[Steelkilt], a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed” (Melville,1992:251).
Hence, to support the hypothesis that Steelkilt is a rebellious slave and rises
against the chief mate’s tyranny, we can quote the sentence “might yet by
inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human
recognition which is the meanest slave’s right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had
long been retained harmless and docile” (Melville,1992:251). Melville
highlights the “human recognition” as a measure of human rights which should
be applied to everyone on earth. As Butterfield points out Moby-Dick's language
tends to be more symbolically freighted than that of the slave narratives, its
narrative rhythms recall a fundamental rhythm of the slave narrative: a
movement or swing between abstract speculations of freedom and palpable
challenges to that freedom” (Berthold,1994:136).
Officially Melville was not a member of the abolitionist movement and
his participation in many actions was not determined. However, in line with
Hawthorne, Whitman, Emerson and many others, he sympathizes with the
abolitionist movement and stands with the North during the sharp confrontation
between the South and the North. It is worth noting that the movement was not
homogeneous and it reflects the influence of different political and moral
systems depending on the region or social class where it was used.
Due to the revival of the Bible parable about Dives and Lazarus one can
admit Melville’s criticism towards the ruthless exploitation of slaves from the
first pages of the novel. In Melville’s modern revival, old Dives enjoys his
prosperity sitting in front of the fire during the frozen night while Lazarus
“should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more
wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas”
(Melville,1992:10). The exaggeration referring to the colour of Dives’ clothes
“in his red silken wrapper– (he had a redder one afterwards)” (Melville,1992:10)
55
determines the idea that rich men became richer despite the poverty all around.
Melville openly names modern Dives “a president” but “masking the true sense
of metaphor by using the title “being a president of a temperance society” who
“lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs (…) drinks the tepid
tears of orphans” (Melville,1992:10). One can admit the parallel between the
image of modern Melville’s Dives and prosperous American dealers whose
wealth was obtained through iniquitous ways.
A rough criticism towards the horrible Fugitive Slave Law which was the
focus of controversy of the late 1840s, can be found in the chapter “Sermon”,
where Jonah’s ordeals are projected in the light of the fugitive slave issue. At the
end of the sermon, Father Mapple appeals to the valiant fighters with vicious
power: “Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and
destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and
Judges (Melville,1992:50). Here Levine assumes the link to Senator Webster
and Judge Shaw whether or not it was Melville’s ulterior intention (Levine,
2008: 61).
Alongside the theme of slavery goes the problem of whiteness vs
blackness throughout the novel. It seems that Melville subverts the common
view concerning the positive rendering of the white colour. Before the reader
meets the White Whale on the pages of the novel, the white squid rises to the
surface, a bad omen for superstitious Starbuck: “they say, few whale-ships ever
beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it” (Melville,1992:286). The
whiteness of the squid that foreshadows “Moby Dick”, also incarnates their
alienation and incomprehensibility: “No perceptible face or front did it have; no
conceivable token of either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the
billows,
an
unearthly,
formless,
chance-like
apparition
of
life”
(Melville,1992:285).
The narrator, Ishmael, does not define the whiteness of the skin as a racial
mark. Being anti-slavery inclined, the novel conceals the popular American
56
discussions concluding that white skin is racially superior while other colours
are regarded as a deviation. However, it is impossible to deny that “within a
novel … motifs of whiteness and blackness are continually used to both
structure the narrative and to connect (often ambiguously) the broadly moral
with the specifically social and racial, the temptation to reader Moby Dick's
whiteness in terms of race is hard to resist” (McGuire, 2003:295). Melville’s
equalizing thought that “white man were anything more dignified than a
whitewashed negro” (Melville,1992:61) was not groundbreaking during the 19th
century but the novel frequently confirms the idea. More than that, describing
the gigantic negro Daggoo, Melville mockingly admits that “a white man” looks
like “a white flag come to beg truce of a fortress” (Melville, 1992:122) standing
before Daggoo. Definitely, here the white colour does not have the advantage
that elevates a white man above other races. For Ahab, the white colour is the
colour of vengeance that follows and blinds him: “I leave a white and turbid
wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail” (Melville,1992:170). Although
it is mentioned that the colour of Ahab’s skin is white while he and black Pip
held “two hands together; the black one with the white” (Melville,1992:529),
Ahab is mostly described as “a solid bronze” (124) with “tawny scorched face
and neck (Melville, 1992:124) and “Egyptian chest” (Melville, 1992:188). His
affection for little black Pip shows particular attraction to the black colour:
“Like the ambivalent logic of minstrelsy, Ahab's attraction to blackness –
illustrated most directly by his association with Pip – both underlines the appeal
and the freedom of blackness and marks it as profoundly Other. Despite these
in-built limitations, we should give Ahab's anti-white crusade, and the
republicanism from which it hyperbolically draws, its limited due. From one
important perspective the hunt for “Moby Dick” is, or at least aims to be,
antithetical to the system of antebellum capitalism in which whaling played a
significant part. It is neither useful nor profitable. As Starbuck, surely the novel's
most straightforward apologist for industrial logic, famously asks: “How many
57
barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? It
will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market” (McGuire,2003:297).
Hence, the question concerning Ahab’s skin colour is left open but he
embodies total power on board of the Pequod , whatever the colour of his skin
may be. As the traditional norms of the 19th century America were subverted in
“The Cabin-Table” where Dough-Boy serves as a slave to three coloured
harpooners: “Dough-Boy! hard fares the white waiter who waits upon
cannibals” (Melville,1992:155). If white man can serve aborigines why should
the colour of the captain’s skin be white? As Duban claims, “Ahab embodies the
proslavery ideology of John C. Calhoun, Ishmael may well feel justified in
viewing the Pequod's demise as still another instance of the divine punishment
in store for those who stand opposed to «God's law supreme» concerning the
abolition of slavery” (Duban,1983:105).
The problem of freedom comes to the fore from the opening chapter when
Ishmael decides to go to sea of his own free will. However, being supposedly
free to choose his way, it was done for him by “those stage managers, the Fates”
(Melville, 1992:5). Hence, it is worth noting Schultz’s opinion, who claims that
“numerous instances throughout “Moby-Dick”, all involving diverse characters,
reveal a universe in which forces beyond human comprehension or control
intersect
with
individual
decisions
to
shape an
individual
destiny”
(Shultz,1999:648). Further on there, Melville raises the thorny question “Who
ain’t a slave? Tell me that” (Melville,1992:4), which appears as the main
approach of his abolitionist narrative. Furthermore, the chapter “Fast-Fish and
Loose-Fish” suggests the two forms of existence: while fastness refers to
possession, to be a loose fish means to be subjected to possession. The rhetorical
question at the end of this chapter provides both the answer to Ishmael’s initial
question about slavery and forces the reader to think further about principles of
slavery, property and capitalist subjectivity: “And what are you, reader, but a
Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?” (Melville,1992:409).
58
Mc Guire explains the political and philosophical basis of this chapter:
“the kind of «fastness» he is referring to is self-possession (what Emerson refers
to in «Experience» as «the capital virtue of self-trust»). And if fastness refers to
self-possession, looseness must refer to the ability to give up that ownership - in
terms of political economy to alienate oneself. This is surely what Ishmael is
referring to when he describes «The Rights of Man and the Liberties of the
World» as «Loose Fish « - he is making the point made by Marx and others that
the freedoms available under market capitalism boil down to the freedom to sell
one's labor, to alienate oneself. For the reader to be both fast and loose, as
Ishmael asserts, means the same as everyone being both a slave and a cannibal?
we both own ourselves as property and are able to exchange our labor, to be
possessed or owned by others? anathema to republicans but, in C. B.
McPherson's terms, the definition of possessive individualism and the basis of
capitalist subjectivity” (McGuire,2003:302).
Finally, we can say that the mid 19th century was marked with poignant
question of slavery which separated the North and South of America. This
problem was reflected in the writings of the famous novelists of this time.
Multiple abolitionist movements rose up in America but Melville had not
officially joined any one of them. Although, he was not a member of any
abolitionist movement, he demonstrated a deep knowledge of abolitionist
doctrines. Thus, “Moby Dick” has emerged as an anti-slavery narrative which
touches upon different problems such as race, skin colour freedom and property.
Throughout the novel we can find different examples which prove the
abolitionist attitudes of Melville. Hence, the chapter “The Town-Ho’s Story” is
politically motivated, both an allusion to the formation of the Free Soil Party and
a metaphor of the slave-master conflict. Closely connected to the slavery
question was the problem of race and colour which is marked by opposing
notions of whiteness and blackness. The Bible parable about the rich man and
Lazarus, and sea laws concerning fast-fish and loose fish are also representing
59
the people of America and its society. The hierarchy and feudal system on board
of the Pequod defend the assertion that “Moby Dick” is an anti-slavery novel.
Conclusions for chapter III
The role of the Pequod which has motivated endless amounts of research
by different scholars. Most of them agree that the international crew of the ship
is a metaphorical embodiment of America with its multicultural population. By
naming the symbolic ship of state the Pequod, Melville refers to the Pequots, an
Indian tribe slaughtered and nearly destroyed by the Puritans. Thus, we can say,
that the link between the Indian hunters and the whale hunters, established by
the name of the ship, echoes the Puritans’ murderous violence towards the
Pequot tribe, as well as Ahab’s obsession to exterminate the White Whale. We
understand that the Pequod presents the metaphor which displays America with
its obsessive leaders who proclaim to find the best way of developing a country
but at the end they are obsessed with the desire to kill the White Whale.
Symbolically, the flag of the sinking ship is nailed by the red arm of the Indian
Tashtego, symbolizing the fragility of America’s standing of the world stage.
The slavery issue in America has had a long history since the Spaniards
conquered its regions. The bloody and fratricidal Civil War resulted the
abolition of slavery. For Melville, the antebellum period (before the abolition of
slavery) was marked by the loss of the ideals of the American system and the
subversion of democratic beliefs. Although, he was not a member of any
abolitionist movement, he demonstrated a deep knowledge of abolitionist
doctrines that was reflected in “Moby Dick”. In our work, we attempted to find
the examples where Melville exposes his critical view according the question of
slavery. Consequently, we believe that the chapter “The Town-Ho’s Story” is
politically motivated and can be associated with different current affairs of
Melville’s time. Also the allegory to the American people and its society could
60
be found in the modern version Biblical parable. Thus, “Moby Dick” has
emerged as an anti-slavery narrative which touches upon different problems
such as race, skin colour, freedom and property.
61
CONCLUSION
Melville’s great whale narrative has remained popular all over the world
for more than a century despite the fact that “Moby-Dick is a thoroughly
American book, in themes, in style and in subject matter” (Vincent,1949: 63).
Melville was a witness of important changes and the fast growing significance
of America on the world stage. There was a compelling need for writers to
reflect these uncontrollable changes and speak the truth. The great challenge
faced by the American novelists was to love the country enough whilst
criticizing it sincerely and exposing the truth simultaneously. From his first
books “Typee” and “Omoo” continuing in “Moby Dick” and Billy Budd,
Melville purposely mixed different forms of narratives, interweaving his own
experience and vicarious knowledge with inventions and factual and fictional
material. This practice creates something like a mosaic composed of diverse
details but together they constitute a wide picture, a canvas which fairly reflects
America. Concerning Melville’s style, Shin wrote: “if we accept as central to
Melville’s poetics his textual practice of borrowing, cutting, cobbling, twisting
or reworking, this intertextual becomes an obligatory component to be addressed
in understanding his fictional world” (Shin 2).
The study of Herman Melville and “Moby Dick” still takes an important
place in twenty-first century literary studies. Currently, studies of “Moby Dick”
are awash with political, religious, racial, ethnic, and social interpretations. In
this thesis, we have attempted to summarize Melville’s implicit criticism of the
popular American Manifest Destiny doctrine which proclaims the uniqueness of
the American nation as a particular chosen people “to lead the ship of the
world”. All of this engenders a subversive vision of America in “Moby Dick”
which Melville skillfully conveys on the pages of his novel.
The underlying themes of “Moby Dick” are presented in religious and
political dimensions which show a close affinity with each other. Religion was
62
an inevitable component of life in the 19th century. One can find multiple
references to religion in “Moby Dick” in terms of sermons, lectures, digressions,
parables, and monologues. According to common perception of society of the
19th century, Christianity was the main measure of differentiating a civilized
man and a savage. This opinion could be justified by the episode where Ishmael
defends Queequeg while they are signing up to work on the Pequod. He tries to
assure Captain Bildad that Queequeg belongs to an ancient Catholic Church sect
that serves as proof of his civility. However, while instantly confirming the
importance of religion throughout the novel, Melville disrupts the canons of the
elevated style which should be applied while speaking about religion. His
rebellious way of writing about religious topics and ironical comparing of
people’s religious belief with the oyster’s view of the world shows Melville’s
ambiguous position towards canonical approaches of understanding of religion.
Father Mapple’s sermon grounds the correlation of religion and politics through
the identification of leader-people relationship (Ahab and his Pequod’s crew).
The political controversy of the novel is still constantly discussed by the
Melvillean scholars. The water, the Pequod, the crew allegorically deploys the
problems, the main questions, current affairs and difficulties of this time. Great
amounts of research are dedicated to exploring the political background of the
novel deployed through veiled allusions, hidden references and images which
we have attempted to find in our work. Ahab and Ishmael, the two opposing
characters unfold the political controversy of the novel depicting the
contradiction of Ishmael’s implicit protest over aggressive expansionism and the
despotism of Captain Ahab.) Alongside with political questions, comes the
problem of race and slavery which subverts the proclaimed American
democratic principles.
Concerning the idea of Manifest Destiny, which was coined by John L.
O’Sullivan only in the 1840s, there is a plethora of works, novels, and articles
which criticize and praise American society. Being originally humanistic and
63
pacifistic, later this theory was used as a justification of territorial expansions
over Mexico, Texas, the Caribbean and the Pacific islands. Obviously, Melville
was aware of devious ways of using the theory in expansionism, justifying the
act as we see it depicted in the novel. Thus, we see two opposing characters:
Ishmael– the expositor of Enlightenment universalism with his belief in a
common fraternity where race, colour, culture and religion do not separate
people. He believes in common equality that was proved by various quotes in
the thesis. In contrast with Ishmael, captain Ahab is the figure who deploys total
despotism and a tyrannical way of governing of the Pequod could represent the
whole of America as a macrocosm. One more significant and symbolical image
that discloses the criticism towards the raw use of Manifest Destiny as
justification of expansionism is the whale gam. The gam is as innocent as
aborigines as the whalers are well-practised and well-armed. To conquer the
weak opponent is neither a complex endeavour nor is it morally justified. Again
and again throughout the novel we observe links and references to American
current affairs of the 19th century. Several chapters such as “The Cabin-Table”,
“Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish”, “Knights and Squires” are devoted to the different
questions of ruthless democracy, captivity and freedom, despotism and tyranny.
The novel is submerged in the implicit criticism of the weak points of American
democracy.
One revelation that comes to our attention is the question of race and
slavery which is inextricably linked to the afore-mentioned topics that reflect
Melville’s disruptive vision of America. We believe that the main metaphor
which incarnates the image of America is the Pequod. The multicultural crew of
the ship which has democratic internal relationships, externally is subjugated to
captain Ahab and his obsessive mania. The feudal system is represented through
the captain, the three chief mates (the Americans) and the three harpooners
(different races). One can admit that Ahab is an embodiment of America’s
obsessive leaders who are personally motivated to destroy an enemy country.
64
The multinational crew, partially represented by the races who were oppressed
by America or even enslaved, is depicted as a unified organism where the race,
skin colour, and culture unite rather than separate its members. The rendering of
the white colour as superior is not supported by Melville. The skin colours are
mixed on the Pequod. The white colour refers to unknown, ambiguous, and
incomprehensible notions and is even connected to death (the white squid and
the white whale). The black colour, instead of representing morning, depicts Pip
with his “jolly brightness” (Melville 422) and “a lion-like” (Melville 121)
Dagoo. Multiracial harpooners are served by the white waiter–Dough Boy
during dinner, Biblical Jonah is an image of a fugitive slave, and rich Dives with
poor Lazarus demonstrate the facts that “Moby Dick” is an American slave
narrative.
Finally, we can say that “Moby Dick” is a great example of how to rethink
the social role of literature and the function of the author as an exposer of
drawbacks, flaws, injustices, and corruption of politics, society and the world
itself. Melville truly believed in the significance of a common man, equality,
justice and democracy
65
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