The Key To It All
It's fun pretending to be Ahab, at least as long as it lasts. I mentioned what I do to a colleague in another state one time, and she suggested that I should teach the entire novel in character. I'm not quite certain I could do that. Truth be told, Ahab Day is really only Ahab twenty minutes--and that's enough. It takes a lot out of me. He broods too hard. He wants answers. The malignity he sees in Moby Dick eats at him until he is left living on "with half a heart and half a lung." It's easy to access that sort of energy, yes, because we've all been there. As the great Scar once said, "Life's not fair, is it, Simba?" It hurts to dwell there though.
It is much better to be Ishmael. He gets to live. He also gets to achieve his quest--right there in chapter eighty-seven.
But the hint is in chapter one--as Ishmael muses on water:
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
It's easy to see this as the clear manifestation of the Socratic maxim: Know thyself. To see, understand, and accept that reflection. As usual, though, as with all things Melville, it is a bit more complicated.
You see, there are a number of instances in the novel of characters staring at their reflections in the water. The clearest of all is Ahab's mirror expression in the beginning of chapter one hundred thirty-two. He see his reflection--
Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel—forbidding—now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.
--and cannot "pierce the profundity." He goes on to wonder about everything about himself, coming as close as he possibly can, here at the eleventh hour, to giving up his quest, but he cannot.
As the chapter ends, he passes to the other side of the deck and gazes over on that side, chillingly:
Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly leaning over the same rail.
The problem is in how Ahab looks at the water and looks at the situation, and it is clearly stated in chapter eighty-seven, so very close to Ishmael's "Tahiti moment." (See chapter fifty-eight, "For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!) The Pequod has passed through the Straits of Sunda and is chasing a vast number of whales. Simultaneously, pirates chase the Pequod. Ahab sees a metaphor here--chasing and being chased by death, by God, by Moby Dick, by himself:
As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some such fancy as the above seemed his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their curses;—when all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab’s brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its place.
The contrast, here, between the way Ishmael sees the situation and the way Ahab does could not be more stark. Just pages on, as a great slaughter takes place (though the Pequod will not profit from it), Ishmael sees the peace in the center of the turmoil:
And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.
The contrast became clear to me just a few years ago. Ahab, for all his depth, sees only the surface. When he does see past the surface, as in chapter one hundred thirty-three, he sees the jaws of Moby Dick opening up to swallow him. Ishmael, on his quest for peace, started as he left his old home and opened up to Queequeg, sees PAST the surface, PAST his own reflection, PAST his SELF.
There might be a lesson in that.
It is much better to be Ishmael. He gets to live. He also gets to achieve his quest--right there in chapter eighty-seven.
But the hint is in chapter one--as Ishmael muses on water:
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
It's easy to see this as the clear manifestation of the Socratic maxim: Know thyself. To see, understand, and accept that reflection. As usual, though, as with all things Melville, it is a bit more complicated.
You see, there are a number of instances in the novel of characters staring at their reflections in the water. The clearest of all is Ahab's mirror expression in the beginning of chapter one hundred thirty-two. He see his reflection--
Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel—forbidding—now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.
--and cannot "pierce the profundity." He goes on to wonder about everything about himself, coming as close as he possibly can, here at the eleventh hour, to giving up his quest, but he cannot.
As the chapter ends, he passes to the other side of the deck and gazes over on that side, chillingly:
Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly leaning over the same rail.
The problem is in how Ahab looks at the water and looks at the situation, and it is clearly stated in chapter eighty-seven, so very close to Ishmael's "Tahiti moment." (See chapter fifty-eight, "For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!) The Pequod has passed through the Straits of Sunda and is chasing a vast number of whales. Simultaneously, pirates chase the Pequod. Ahab sees a metaphor here--chasing and being chased by death, by God, by Moby Dick, by himself:
As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some such fancy as the above seemed his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their curses;—when all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab’s brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its place.
The contrast, here, between the way Ishmael sees the situation and the way Ahab does could not be more stark. Just pages on, as a great slaughter takes place (though the Pequod will not profit from it), Ishmael sees the peace in the center of the turmoil:
And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.
The contrast became clear to me just a few years ago. Ahab, for all his depth, sees only the surface. When he does see past the surface, as in chapter one hundred thirty-three, he sees the jaws of Moby Dick opening up to swallow him. Ishmael, on his quest for peace, started as he left his old home and opened up to Queequeg, sees PAST the surface, PAST his own reflection, PAST his SELF.
There might be a lesson in that.
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