Response Journal Week 3- Caleb

Something that people (Gabriel and Mayumi) seem to be touching on, which I also found to be interesting is Melville’s use of perspective and voice in these chapters. In “Cetology”, the narrator seems to shift from Ishmael to Melville himself, since there’s no way Ishmael could even pretend to be such an authority on whales—this is his first whaling voyage. He then transitions to a sort of omniscient narrator (perhaps still Melville) who is able to observe the inner-workings of the crew’s eating habits, including the cabin-room where Ahab and his three “emirs” eat (a comic affair, with Ahab forbidding any talk, and Flask is not only not allowed to have butter, but only has a few moments to eat before he has to return to the job). Then, in “The Mast-Head”, we transition back to Ishmael who, as Mayumi points out, waxes beautifully about the “infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves” (133). The end of that chapter, however, turns into a more dryly sardonic Ishmael, who warns ship owners against hiring “a sunken-eyed Platonists” who “offers to ship with the Phaedon instead of Bowditch” (135). Ishmael himself is quite the philosopher, a perfect example of such a thinker-sailor, so one cannot help but take his warning ironically. We then switch to Ahab’s point of view, then Starbuck’s, then Stubb’s, and then to an odd little musical of sorts, and then back to Ishmael, who reassures the reader by starting chapter 41 (p. 152) “I, Ishmael…”

In the “Mast-Head” section, Ishmael says something interesting that could, perhaps, shed light on these drastic perspective changes. “…lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible imagine of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every… dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some indiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts…” (136). This “identity crisis” could represent a sort of transcendental omniscience or omnipresence that Ishmael is transitioning to. We talked about the Ishmael’s transcendentalist “my body is but the lees of my soul” speech, and this seems to further that, in addition to once again stressing the metaphor of the sea as knowledge (with the fishes being ‘elusive thoughts’). I found this whole passage fascinating, and I’m interested to hear what everyone thinks.

After Captain Ahab reveals to the crew his true purpose in the voyage (the smiting of the Great White Whale), I liked Starbuck’s reaction: “How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab?” (139). Vengeance isn’t profitable and, since the Pequod’s goal is profit, Ahab seems to be almost hijacking the ship, controlling it for his own purpose. While everyone else is gung-ho about it (Ahab basically bribes the crew with booze), Starbuck recognizes the futility and impracticality of going after Moby Dick. Like Gabriel send, Moby Dick can represent a sort of God, “not only ubiquitous, but immortal” (155), and the development of the whale almost parallels man’s quest for a higher power. Ahab even recognizes it as “not only all of his bodily woes, but his spiritual exasperations” (156). Ahab’s search for Moby Dick, is a search for meaning and purpose in a random and unjust world. He repeatedly tries to find some sort of reason for his misfortune, when really it was “inflicted by an unintelligent agent” (156).