I want to follow up on a few things about Moby-Dick that I'm not sure were clear to everyone.
First, of all, why does Ishmael go to sea, and how does he feel about the city? Ishmael goes to sea because he says he does this whenever he feels stifled by the city and feels that he needs to get away. He feels all the discomfort and anxiety about the city that Thoreau discusses in "Walking." Unlike Thoreau, however, Ishmael finds his cure in going to sea rather than going West.
He goes to sea as a sailor rather than a passenger for a handful of reasons including the fact that he doesn't have to pay for passage, but the more important reasons all have to do with work. He is very clear about the fact that he finds value in the hard work of being a sailor, and he contrasts that hard work to the behavior of the passengers, which he describes as passive and almost bovine. The language he uses calls attention to the virtue of hard labor. It almost sounds like Benjamin Franklin in its glorification of manual work, and it sounds like Emerson and Thoreau in its discomfort with indoor intellectual work--the type of work that Emerson and Thoreau say will ruin a man unless he gets outside and experiences nature.
I also asked you to think about the chapters that focus on the symbolism of the white whale and Ahab.
The chapters about Moby Dick and symbolism are almost a game for Melville. He spends paragraphs and paragraphs discussing how symbolism works all around the world. He looks into what whiteness means in different cultures and different countries and different ethnic groups. All his examples show that whiteness can represent just about anything, or, for that matter, nothing at all. When he talks about the science of color, he finally reveals his bottom line: scientifically speaking, whiteness is simultaneously the complete absence of color and also the full collection of all colors. Whiteness, as a symbol, is simultaneously everything and nothing. The white whale is simultaneously not a symbol (it's just a whale) but also a blank slate that can be a symbol for anything. For Ahab, it is a symbol of everything he hates. For Ahab, the whale is a transcendent symbol in what he sees as a cosmic battle in which he sees himself as both a victim and avenger, as both a god and satan ("from Hell's heart I strike at thee!") in which he is willing to transgress any law, any divine command, any predetermined fate to get his vengeance, but in which he may also be capitulating to those very laws (he can't defy nature, he can't defy God, he can't avoid his fate).
The book is a tangle of symbolism, that actually reveals the very problem of symbolic interpretation--there is no perfect symbol. All symbols may be interpreted in a multitude of different ways just as all stories can be told from a multitude of different perspectives. The book is almost a cautionary tale about the dangers of symbols and interpretation. When we can attribute any meaning we please to anything we please, we can find ourselves turning into Ahab chasing white whales.
First, of all, why does Ishmael go to sea, and how does he feel about the city? Ishmael goes to sea because he says he does this whenever he feels stifled by the city and feels that he needs to get away. He feels all the discomfort and anxiety about the city that Thoreau discusses in "Walking." Unlike Thoreau, however, Ishmael finds his cure in going to sea rather than going West.
He goes to sea as a sailor rather than a passenger for a handful of reasons including the fact that he doesn't have to pay for passage, but the more important reasons all have to do with work. He is very clear about the fact that he finds value in the hard work of being a sailor, and he contrasts that hard work to the behavior of the passengers, which he describes as passive and almost bovine. The language he uses calls attention to the virtue of hard labor. It almost sounds like Benjamin Franklin in its glorification of manual work, and it sounds like Emerson and Thoreau in its discomfort with indoor intellectual work--the type of work that Emerson and Thoreau say will ruin a man unless he gets outside and experiences nature.
I also asked you to think about the chapters that focus on the symbolism of the white whale and Ahab.
The chapters about Moby Dick and symbolism are almost a game for Melville. He spends paragraphs and paragraphs discussing how symbolism works all around the world. He looks into what whiteness means in different cultures and different countries and different ethnic groups. All his examples show that whiteness can represent just about anything, or, for that matter, nothing at all. When he talks about the science of color, he finally reveals his bottom line: scientifically speaking, whiteness is simultaneously the complete absence of color and also the full collection of all colors. Whiteness, as a symbol, is simultaneously everything and nothing. The white whale is simultaneously not a symbol (it's just a whale) but also a blank slate that can be a symbol for anything. For Ahab, it is a symbol of everything he hates. For Ahab, the whale is a transcendent symbol in what he sees as a cosmic battle in which he sees himself as both a victim and avenger, as both a god and satan ("from Hell's heart I strike at thee!") in which he is willing to transgress any law, any divine command, any predetermined fate to get his vengeance, but in which he may also be capitulating to those very laws (he can't defy nature, he can't defy God, he can't avoid his fate).
The book is a tangle of symbolism, that actually reveals the very problem of symbolic interpretation--there is no perfect symbol. All symbols may be interpreted in a multitude of different ways just as all stories can be told from a multitude of different perspectives. The book is almost a cautionary tale about the dangers of symbols and interpretation. When we can attribute any meaning we please to anything we please, we can find ourselves turning into Ahab chasing white whales.
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