Hermann Melville "Moby Dick"

1.2. Approaching The Truth Through Oceanic Metaphor

On August 18, 2010, The New York Times published a review of the Folger Shakespeare Library‘s new exhibition, ―Lost at Sea: The Ocean in the English Imagination, 1550-1750.‖ The reviewer, Edward Rothstein, highlights salient aspects of the exhibition, including navigation tools, ocean charts, books, and paintings – all records of man‘s efforts to understand the ―medium for the exercise of international power, the site of exploratory fantasy and the terrain over which Divine Providence exacted mysterious judgments.‖ He quotes the exhibition‘s framing of the various ways in which the English sought to make meaning of their relationship with the sea: ―Technological know-how and cartographic knowledge were essential, but so also were narrative understanding and religious faith.‖ Perhaps it is inevitable, given the subject matter, that Rothstein includes Melville‘s rendering of the ocean in his discussion of the lingering effects of Shakespeare‘s vision of the sea as ―a literal setting and metaphor for instability.‖ Rothstein adds that the depiction of the ocean in art and literature ―implied a spiritual instability, a powerful conception that reached across three centuries into the world of Moby-Dick.‖

Scholars have approached the complex topic of Melville‘s own spiritual instability in an effort to better understand his vision of truth as it relates to the concept of a higher power. Those looking to discover further insight into his religious and spiritual opinions must find new ways to approach the meticulously woven tapestry of his fiction. As Emory Elliot suggests, ―An examination of the nature and role of religion in Melville‘s works must begin with an acknowledgment: to focus on religion is to illuminate particular threads in the narratives that can never be fully unraveled from others – the philosophical, anthropological, political, psychological, economic, sexual, and aesthetic – that constitute the astonishing multiple perspectives of Melville‘s work‖ (175). While unraveling these threads may prove impossible, it seems that one can still identify significant patterns to provide a clearer meaning. I would like to propose a comparison between two such threads in Moby-Dick: the dark mysterious ocean that serves as the essential backdrop to the novel and how it intersects with Melville‘s much scrutinized religious views. A close reading of these two elements in the novel will show, more than a literal explanation of his personal beliefs could, how Melville develops the ocean into a compelling, accessible vision for his perception of the truth of both divine and human nature.

Based upon the letters and institutional associations of his family members, we know a great deal about the religious beliefs of the people who surrounded Herman Melville as he was growing up. His personal beliefs, however, have proven to be much more complex and elusive. Melville did not make a habit of recording his beliefs or even his doubts about religion in literal terms. However, in the journal of perhaps his closest friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, we have a secondhand glimpse into Melville‘s views on spirituality and religion:

Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had "pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated"; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief. It is strange how he persists – and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before – in wandering to-and-fro over these deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sand hills amid which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. 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. (432-3)

Hershel Parker writes that this excerpt from Hawthorne‘s journal ―is the only known testimony that Melville was obsessed with the problem of his own immortality‖ (2: 300). He also points to Hawthorne‘s conclusion that Melville‘s honesty and courage make him ―better worth immortality than most of us‖ as a defense against claims by Melville‘s contemporary reviewers that his writings in some way proved he was ―not just irreverent but downright irreligious‖ (2: 301). It is worth noting that Hawthorne uses a specific landscape, the desert, to evoke the terrain over which he imagines Melville‘s spiritual wanderings occur. Melville himself, however, through the language of most of his novels including Moby-Dick, offers a symbolic wilderness much more suited to his vision of spiritual questing: the ocean.

Melville was aware that on the surface, the ocean may appear ―dismal and monotonous,‖ and as unlikely to provide meaningful insight as is the quest symbolized by Hawthorne‘s image of the desert, but he offers an alternative perspective that matches his own perception of his relationship to religious belief. In addition to Hawthorne‘s account of Melville‘s spirituality, Parker also includes more direct evidence of Melville‘s personal philosophy by citing notes about other writers Melville admired. Apparently, Melville found affinity with and confirmation in the religious perspectives of John Milton. Parker explains that [w]hen he identified with Milton, it was as a rebellious thinker. John Mitford in the introductory ―Life of Milton‖ mentioned the poet‘s wanderings in religious belief,‖ spurring Melville to comment: ―He who thinks for himself never can rema[i]n of the same mind. I doubt not that darker doubts crossed Milton‘s soul, than ever disturbed Voltaire. And he was more of what is called an Infidel.‖ Knowing the grandeur of his own literary achievements, whatever the opinion of the world, Melville did not scruple to acknowledge the ―singular coincidence‖ that both he and Milton avoided churches, especially those in any way connected to the state, and both rejected ―any settled articles of belief.

Parker goes on to give several examples of issues about which Melville vehemently disagreed with Milton‘s philosophy, in case anyone should mistake him for merely following in the same rhetorical footsteps of the great poet.

Melville‘s development of the ocean as a symbol capable of encompassing the unfathomable questions of life is evident throughout the narrative of Moby-Dick. In ―The Ship,‖ Ishmael explains his desire to join the whaling voyage. Ishmael has been to sea before, he reports, having made ―several voyages in the merchant services‖ (79). These previous voyages, however, are unsatisfactory to both Ishmael and Captain Peleg. Peleg scoffs at them and denies that they constitute any meaningful experience at all, at least as far as whaling is concerned. Ishmael senses Peleg‘s distrust, and when pressed, says that he wants to join the crew of the Pequod for reasons that seem at once practical and Romantic: ―to see what whaling is‖ and ―to see the world‖ (79). He acknowledges that his previous experience at sea has afforded him neither opportunity, but he believes this voyage will simultaneously provide both. After testing Ishmael‘s propensity to stomach the perils of whaling, Peleg orders him to ―take a peep over the weather-bow‖ in an attempt to expose the exceedingly monotonous and forbidding‖ aspect of the ocean, or the world‖ that Ishmael hopes to see. ―Can‘t you see the world where you stand?‖ he challenges. Ishmael admits that while he feels a ―little staggered‖ by these questions, he is still determined to ―go a-whaling‖ (81). Even if he does not or cannot express his reasons, he has faith that through whaling he will gain access to at least a portion of what lies beneath the surface of that apparently unfathomable sea, and thus amplify and enrich his vision of the previously unseen world.