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 Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, on the first sight appears to be a great adventure story about the hunting of a white whale. Deeper analysis reveals it’s a story about the quest for the meaning of life. The novel is full of symbolism, starting from major characters like Moby Dick, Ishmael, Queequeg, Ahab and others, and finishing with inanimate objects, which seem to be animated, like Pequod, the ocean, masts and so on. With the help of these symbols Melville explains the nature of reality and metaphysics. Melville’s contemporary philosopher, Ralph Emerson, was also concerned about the issues of the metaphysical quest. In his essay, The Oversoul, he tells his own vision of spiritual reality that lies at the heart of the universe. In this paper we will discuss Emerson’s and Melville’s visions of the meaning of life. A brief summary of the ideas, which pertain to Moby Dick, found in Emerson’s The Oversoul will open the discussion. After that we will explain how Melville creates symbolic significance for Ishmael as narrator, Queequeg, Ahab, Moby Dick, Pequod with its crew, The Ocean. The ideas of Emerson and Melville will be compared, and personal reaction to both authors will be given with own vision of nature of reality.

Ahab and the Metaphysical Quest based on the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melvill

During the first part of the semester we have read, discussed and analyzed two papers: “The Oversoul” by Ralph Emerson and “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville. The 1^st one is a philosophic essay, reasoning about the reality and its perception by the human, the 2^nd – is a novel, portraying a fascinating voyage of the whalers in text and questing for the meaning of life in the context. This paper is aimed at comparing different views on the meaning of life by two great metaphysicians.

Emerson conceptualizes the oversoul as a set of all the souls in the world, which are closely interconnected – “oversoul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other”. He insists on our Unity of man and nature, reasons about our vision of the world “we see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree…”. Emerson finds the soul is the ultimate driving force of everything; people are the instruments of the soul. God Among other important concepts in “the Oversoul” essay there are: time, the light, God, heart, spirituality, nature, truth and wisdom, unity of man and God. From my experience of reading this essay I have found Emerson’s writing to be very difficult to understand. His way of thinking is too abstract and I was not able to completely apprehend his vision of reality.

Herman Melville, in his novel “Moby Dick”, uses a lot of symbolism: in the objects like whaleboats and coffin, in the characters like Ishmael and Queequeg, Ahab and Moby Dick etc, and the world around. The next part of the paper is devoted to search of symbolism in the main characters of the novel.

Ishmael is a sailor, affected by the ocean and alienated from other people. This affection is the primary reason for joining the whaleboat ‘Pequod’ which captain is in search of the White Whale, Moby Dick. Ishmael believes in the majesty of Moby Dick and its supernatural power. Ishmael is a Christian who has a close pagan friend, Queequeg. Even the name Ishmael is symbolic – it is the son of Abraham in Bible. Later Biblical Ishmael was expelled from his parents. So Melville’s Ishmael is a symbol of outcast. Ishmael is an observer of all the events, conflicts and intrigues. He is able to learn and change, it can be proved by many circumstances. For example, he learned that Queequeg is very civilized man and his appearance (“He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor”) is delusive. It is also symbolic that Ishmael was saved by another ship, Rachel “that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan”.

Queequeg is a son of a king of the island Kokovoko. He is a pagan, who wants to learn among Christians and experience the world. He becomes a close friend of Ishmael after they share a bad in the Spouter-Inn. Later he joins Pequod as a harpooner. Queequeg helps Ishmael to understand many things including the importance of the soul and unimportance of appearance: “You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart”. Queegueg is a symbol of mankind because he represents different social and religious features, he signs with infinity symbol.

Ahab is the mysterious captain of Pequod. He is “a grand, ungodly, god-like man”, who does not want to obey to God or Devil. Moby Dick has bitten his leg and Ahab replaced it with an artificial limb made of whale’s jaw. Ahab is a symbol of God, he is superior to others and he has set a superior goal for himself – to kill Moby Dick the White Whale. He does not care about commercial purpose of Pequod’s voyage and the safety of his crew, he is not afraid of Moby Dick’s supernature. Ahab can be identified as a Devil who confronts God (Moby Dick), their confrontation is like the same of good vs. evil. The evil is inside of him, in his soul. Ahab is able to motivate people and make them following him in his obsession; Ahab has made a single whole from the boat and the crew: “They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all; … all the individualities of the crew, … fear; guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to”. Finally, at the end of the story the good defeats the evil and Peqoud is sank.

Moby Dick, the white whale, is a key character in the whole novel. It can be concluded that this whale is intelligent – he proved it in the battle with Pequod – he is tricky and able to cheat his pursuers. Moby Dick is a part of Ahab not only spiritually but physically – later we get to know that the ivory leg of Ahab is made of Moby Dick’s jaw. The white whale is a symbol of deity. Moby Dick is like God who confronts the Devil, it is good that confronts evil. Moby Dick is a mysterious figure it can appear in different places at the same time, it is omniscient and immortal. But Moby Dick can be concerned as the symbol of evil for captain Ahab

Pequod whaleboat. This ship is doomed to die from the very beginning: the word Pequod is an Indian tribe supposed to die some day. It is noticeable that the boat by itself is symbolic and closely interconnected with Bible. Major crew members have names that coincide with some from Bible and their background coincides with the same of Biblical characters. Like Ahab – is the name of evil king, Ishmael – son of Abraham who was exiled and alienated, Fedallah – sounds like Allah and has prophetic features etc. Pequod is the place of all major events in the novel, it is like a universe with its inhabitants. Three masts of Pequod can be related to the crew members (by the way number 3 is everywhere in the novel and it is symbolic, probably):  there are three mates (Starbuck, Stubb and Flask), there are three captains, there are three harpooners. Later the masts were burned during storm and this is a symbol of three crossed people – Jesus and two thieves. Pequod is demonic in some way because of its captain: “Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.” Although Pequod is a symbol of doom and death it has given a new life for Ishmael, the only survived crew member.

Melville’s novel has other symbols. Ocean represents eternity; land is the record of past, coffin, prophecies and others.

Both Melville and Emerson express deep thoughts about the world around us and our understanding of it. Melville’s thoughts are hid under easily readable story and ordinary reader may miss it. Emerson expresses his views through intricate philosophic aphorisms and is much more difficult to perceive and read. Of course their views agree in some positions and disagree in others. They both agree with the existence of soul but Emerson insists on the existence of oversoul, which unites every soul in the universe. Melville assumes souls can be united under certain circumstances when they are driven by the same ideas and motives (like Pequod with its crew driven by quest for Moby Dick and motivated by Ahab). Both metaphysicians agree with unity of man and nature, they agree with the existence of God and his omniscience. Emerson emphasizes the importance of past events in understanding reality and Melville uses land as symbol of record of the past. Emerson highlights the importance of truth and Melville had written the whole novel which depicts a quest for meaning of life or truth.

The ending of “Moby Dick” can be interpreted as the good always defeats the evil but the price of victory can be overpriced. All the prophecies came true. Those who were warned did not pay proper attention to the signs. So they were disobedient and their doom was decided. Ishmael survived only to tell us the story.

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