Response Journal Week 6- Mayumi

Response Journal 6

At the very beginning of Chapter 61, Melville dives into an existentialist reflection on the masthead (of course). Melville writes: “No resolution could withstand it; in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn” (230). This is not the first time Melville has slipped into a spiritual state of mind, however it is the first time he explicitly states the occurrence of something out of the ordinary: his soul leaving his body. This doesn’t faze him; rather, it seems to be a natural process and commonplace with the presence of the sea. His soul is almost in tune with the waves, swaying like a pendulum, and he can even sense the presence of a Sperm Whale when he feels bubbles under his eyelids. Is this yet another of the sea’s powers – to separate a soul from its body without harm? And where did his soul go? Did it become part of the sea?
Also in Chapter 61 were the battle cries that accompany the tumultuous whale hunt. Each major character involved in the hunt, the three mates and three harpooners, each has a distinct battle cry or approach to inspiring the rest of the boat to row faster and with more zeal. What I noticed though was how each harpooner had short, two-syllable war cries, which were incomprehensible and not very intimidating (“kee-hee!”), while the mates inspired the crew with longer shouts of instruction or lamentation. This is a good example of what Mathiesson wrote on page 374 concerning Melville’s belief of his innate connection to savagery, yet in many ways he is clearly not. Each ‘savage’ character is developed enough to his own version of a nonsensical war cry, yet all the war cries are simple variations of one another and are all in the same format.
At the end of Chapter 65, we again encounter Melville’s conflict of savagery, this time showing the savagery revealed in the so-called civilized man, Stubb. Melville asks a series of rhetorical answers leading up to the conclusion that we are all hypocrites when it comes to civilized society and that we are truly savage when our habits are examined closely. Melville points out that Stubb is actually eating a whale steak with a utensil made of oxbone and picking his teeth with a feather from the same fowl he was eating.
Chapter 72 “The Monkey-rope,” also fits in with the theme of savagery. In this chapter, Ishmael is tied to Queequeg by a canvas rope, virtually marrying them together. Each person’s fate relies on the position of the other- if one falls, so does the other. Although Ishmael believes that he and Queequeg are equals at this point because their fates rely on each other’s, their physical positions indicate otherwise. Ishmael is standing high and dry on deck while Queequeg is standing on a dead whale trying to cut its blubber off with sharks at his feet. Ishmael even thinks that it’s funny to jerk Queequeg around so that he would fall close to the bloodthirsty sharks. Not to mention that Queequeg is also in danger of having his leg cut off since Tashtego and Daggoo have very poor aim. All of this (differences in positions) seems to indicate that Queequeg’s life actually lies in Ishmael’s hands; Ishmael holds the power.
After reading so much about the technical differences between whales, the functional uses of whale parts, and such, I began to wonder why Melville deemed such dry technical prose necessary to the novel. I then realized that Melville is fascinated by the technical and mechanical details because he is trying to reconcile every technical aspect with its philosophical meaning. The novel is a philosophical exploration of every technical detail. This can get tiresome at times, but I must remind myself to continue searching for the philosophical counterpart to every technical description. To Be Continued…