Choisya wroteBut surely Melville had forsaken the Divine, that is religion and God, by the time he wrote Moby Dick? (According to the biogs.)
Choisya, I do not really know what I am talking about here. I am just trying to sift (intead of sieve) the plankton out of the water... you know what I mean? I am groping in the dark half of the time.
ziki
I am in the dark metaphorically and physically ziki. I am going through a patch of SAD at present - the long dark days of winter at this time of year tend to get resurrect my depression. Perhaps reading MD, The Jungle and Kafka at the same time, and struggling in the British Classics, is not a good idea
ziki wrote:
Choisya wrote
Choisya, I do not really know what I am talking about here. I am just trying to sift (intead of sieve) the plankton out of the water... you know what I mean? I am groping in the dark half of the time.
ziki
In these chapters as in previous ones the obsession of Ahab is revealed even to the extent of him having hired special Oriental boatmen to assist the hunt and has smuggled them on board having 'laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation' Yet when the men come back from the first boat lowering Stubb says admiringly "Who would have thought it, Flask!" cried Stubb; "if I had but one leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderful old man!" and Flask replies with equal admiration "I don't think it so strange, after all, on that account...If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing. That would disable him; but he has one knee, and good part of the other left, you know." "I don't know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel." responded Stubb, perhaps a reference to Ahab's lack of piety. From the time of the pagan ritual of rum drinking with the men there has been a Faustian pact with them.
Starbuck, on the other hand, at the height of a terrible storm in Chapter 51, when the men were lashed to the ship with bowlines, and 'wordless Ahab stood up to the blast' had no such feelings and sounds a note of warning: 'Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose [Ahab] would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat.... Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eves were pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale (ship's compass) that swung from a beam in the ceiling. Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.'
In Chapter 46 Ahab ponders how to keep the men on his side even though he has acted in a way that could cause mutiny. Melville seems to hint here that everything can be bought at a price: 'Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic object- that final and romantic object, too many would have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash- aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab.'
In these ways the crew were complicit in Ahab's fatal obsession and in the long run will contribute to his misery and his death. Just as we, in the course of earning our daily bread, many times contribute to the ills of the world. 'Plus c'est la meme chose, plus can change' (the more things change the more they stay the same
)
Starbuck, on the other hand, at the height of a terrible storm in Chapter 51, when the men were lashed to the ship with bowlines, and 'wordless Ahab stood up to the blast' had no such feelings and sounds a note of warning: 'Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose [Ahab] would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat.... Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eves were pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale (ship's compass) that swung from a beam in the ceiling. Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.'
In Chapter 46 Ahab ponders how to keep the men on his side even though he has acted in a way that could cause mutiny. Melville seems to hint here that everything can be bought at a price: 'Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic object- that final and romantic object, too many would have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash- aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab.'
In these ways the crew were complicit in Ahab's fatal obsession and in the long run will contribute to his misery and his death. Just as we, in the course of earning our daily bread, many times contribute to the ills of the world. 'Plus c'est la meme chose, plus can change' (the more things change the more they stay the same
)
fanuzzir wrote:
I was hoping that we might enjoy together the first chase scene, Chapters 47 and 51, and watch the characerizations emerge. It occurs after the most explicit criticism of Ahab in Chapter 46, "Surmises," where he refers to the "terrible old man." Then we see his terror at work. What role do others play in another man's misery?
Message Edited by Choisya on 01-07-200704:15 PM
