Pursuing the Whale from Quarantine, part 1
Chapter 32: Cetology
Fresh off the encounter between Ahab and Stubb ("Down, dog, and kennel!") and Stubb's dream allowing him to laugh off the insult (classic Stubb: "a laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer," Chapter 39), we pause the plot to have one of the strangest chapters of Moby Dick: Chapter 32, "Cetology." Cetology is the study of whales, and Ishmael gives us pages upon pages of him listing and whimsically describing every whale species he can think of. He organizes them into books and chapters, suggesting The Whale is a subject so vast that it could fill volumes.
What does that mean, "unless you own the whale"? By own he doesn't mean possess. Own has a second, less common meaning: admit or acknowledge to be true. What does it mean to own the whale? Let me try to explain.
We all have a picture of the world--no matter how "boggy, soggy, squitchy"--in our minds: some understanding of how the world works, and our place in it. That picture of the world tells us how to pursue a good life, and what to do with our time. The world is the sort of place, we might tell ourselves, where if a person does reasonably well in school they can get a job they'll enjoy that pays them enough to live comfortably and own nice things. That's a picture that puts us right in the center. In that picture, life is predictable and within our control. But "at last these fancies [yield] to that one portentous something in the picture's midst" (Chapter 3): The Whale. For the world is actually the sort of place that is home to this massive power that dwarfs us entirely and can destroy us with a thoughtless flick of its tail, and we can know almost nothing for certain about it. The existence of The Whale suggests we have less control, and the world is not as genial, as we would like to think. We share it with terrible and unknowable powers, like The Whale. Or the virus.
And yet we chase these powers relentlessly: "a dead whale or a stove boat!" (Chapter 36). Like Bulkington headed out on another voyage after only days on land, we cast off time and again to do battle with these monstrosities, to master them and make them amenable to man's needs, not with any great show of heroics, but with the practical workaday courage of Starbuck: "in him courage was not a sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasion" (Chapter 26). This morning as I type this, thousands of medical professionals are heading in to their day's work, almost certain to encounter a dangerous virus that puts them and their loved ones at risk. And still they go, rowing with all their might toward The Whale. And this rowing is done, meaningfully, facing the rear of the whaleboat. Each "[breaks] his own back pulling himself back-foremost into death's jaws" (Chapter 49). Small wonder Ishmael sees something glorious, even godlike, in man's capacity for this restless pursuit: "Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!" (Chapter 23).
Comments
In Melville's day, there was a lot that people didn't know about whales, in part because it was so hard to observe them. So The Whale makes sense as a symbol for all that is dangerous, powerful, but unknowable. In the stories of our day, we often use viruses the same way.
I think it is part of human nature to control things. When the world and sea is spinning around you, it gives a person solace to know that they can control something. In chapter 41, Ishmael talks about the great power and mystery of Moby-Dick. In despite of the legends told about the whale, “some there were, who even in the face of these things were ready to give chase to Moby-Dick; and a still greater number who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely…were sufficiently hardy not to flee form the battle if offered” (197). Some of those who knew of the whale’s danger were still unafraid of hunting him. Others were more ignorant of his strength and would not shy away from the fight. Today, we see this same pattern. There are those who know the dangers of the virus yet will still use their ability in an effort to stop the spread and help the infected. There are others who want to do their part in the fight even though they are not as educated on the virus. Perhaps this is one way to feel a sense of control on the world. I know many want to stop COVID-19 from spreading because of a heart of compassion but maybe their motivation comes from an effort to gain control on life. --Olivia Kalafian
I have not read all of the assigned chapters, but it seems to me that the mutiny you hinted at at the beginning of our time reading Moby Dick will be caused by the crew’s recognition of Ahab’s insane endless drive to tackle the whale, and their recognition that this task is impossible.
—Matt Ivins
-Matthew Anderson
I agree, Olivia. There's something fundamentally human in wanting understanding and control of the world. It's part of the dominion over creation that God gave us.
I think Ishmael makes an ideal narrator for just the reason you suggest, Matt. He joins in with the crew on the hunt for Moby Dick, but he's also able to step back at times and observe himself more coolly. His easy-going, take life as it comes attitude keeps him sane, and makes him a better observer and reporter of events. And he's able to laugh about it, as Olivia points out, but not *all the time*, the way Stubb does.
Matt A, great point about the eeriness of the story, and the warnings which keep building it. That eeriness helps us see the hunt as something mysterious and meaningful. It makes the whole book feel like more than an industrial-sized fishing trip.
~ivy