As we discussed last time, Melville mixes genres freely in the book. In this section, we get a series of prose soliloquies or dramatic monologues, a chapter that is entirely dialogue, like a play, another chapter that is essentially a historical survey of encounters with whales (which Melville took largely from existing sources), and relatively few chapters that are conventional novelistic narrative. Even in the more conventional chapters, Ishmael’s role as a narrator is unconventional. This is ostensibly a first-person narrative, as we discussed at the outset, but Ishmael now only occasionally appears as a member of the crew who is actively participating in the events of the plot. At other times, he more resembles a disembodied intelligence. If, as a famous critic has argued, one sign of a great work is strangeness, discuss how these factors combine to make this book both strange and great.
Melville makes Ahab simultaneously tragic, pathetic, and monomaniacal. He is a figure of ruined greatness, capable of the most profound philosophical reflection and the most extreme emotion. Melville mines only the greatest sources in English literature to form a character who is part Shakespearean tragic protagonist (Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Othello), part Miltonian fallen angel (Lucifer), and part Old Testament prophet and king from the King James Bible. Examine any of the passages from this reading in order to determine why Ahab is one of the most memorable characters in all of literature.
At one point, Ishmael assures us that Moby Dick (the whale, not the book) is not an allegory. Yet virtually everything about the whale virtually demands a figurative interpretation. Asking “What does Moby Dick represent?” is a five-word question that might require five thousand words to answer fully, so let’s attempt something more manageable. Of all the whale’s symbolic meanings, which do you find most compelling, and how does Melville make it so?
As I mentioned in class, I once took a semester course entirely on this book. One of our assignments was to take any passage we wished and re-lineate it as poetry. Use your post to do that. Note that you must not change anything about it except where the line-breaks occur. You must keep the same words in the same sequence and maintain the same punctuation. One concession: if you want to add capitalization at the beginnings of lines, you may, though this is not required. As part of your post, you must also explain why you chose the passage you did (presumably, you found it poetic already, though you should explain why) and how you approached reforming it into a poem.