#moby dick analysis

[saranilssonbooks]

There is this Moby-Dick theory popping up now and then concerning the possibility of Ahab beating his wife and kid up.

Allow me a bit of Dick canon analysis.

It does seem the whole marriage and family thing was love based - especially if we dare to believe Captain Peleg fan boying in The Ship - but I am fully convinced that during his last shore stay he was difficult at best, abusive at worst (same chapter, same fan boy but in a less starry eyed state).

However, in making up theories, it is worth remembering that according to what Ahab eventually discloses to Starbuck, every day at least his son ventures up to his look out spot in hope of seeing the Pequod returning.

(My dream is to be recognized as a Moby-Dick knower, but I nurture a growing suspicion that I'm heading in the direction of notorious Ahab apologist. 😩)

[saranilssonbooks]

I love to see you bringing this subject up! I've seen it examined in academia, but rarely here.

My guess would be that the mother is dead, the father possibly alive. A fairly common practice during the Victorian era (the UK as well as the US) was for a widower with children to remarry as quickly as decently acceptable in order to have a substitute mother for his children. Often, these remarriages were first and foremost of mutual convenience and the woman a widow with children of her own to feed and house through respectable means. Additionally, it is worth taking into mind that statistically during the early to mid 1800s in aformentioned societies, every fourth birth resulted in the death of the mother, during birthing or due to complications in the weeks to follow. Thus, there were plenty of widowers around.

Furthermore...

I find it easy to imagine this being the general scenario for Ishmael's childhood background. Especially if his father had a profession which kept him absent for significant stretches of time. Biological mother dies having either Ishmael or a sibling of his; busy father remarries a substitute guardian, possibly with children of her own (in The Counterpane he describes hearing "...gay voices all over the house", so there were a number of people present in addition to the two of them) whom she loves; Ishmael becomes a necessary bicatch for whom she feels no true affection and allows to become more or less a punching bag for her own frustration. In all honesty, at least I myself find it very easy to imagine him being what you would call an odd child, which probably wouldn't help his cause. Further, if the father died after the remarriage and she became stuck with the stepson, well, not a good time for the kid.

To imagine a following scenario being that of him leaving home as quickly as he possibly could and end up enlisting as a sailor wouldn't be all that unlikely either. In chapter 79 The Prairie he adds that the has no higher schooling (which makes him one hell of a devoted autodidact!).

As for the divorce theory, I have little to add due to lack of research of my own. Hat off to thee, shipmate. Two factors I believ would greatly affect such a scenario - going either way - is 1. The influence of the parents' Presbyterian belief system (which is beyond my current insight), and 2. The family's status. Though Ishmael never mentions a privilaged background, he says in chapter 1 Loomings that he hails from "an old established family in the land".

Once again, thank you for bringing this interesting subject up and sharing your exciting analysis with us!! 🤍

okay i cant help myself. lets talk about ishmael’s stepmother from the tidbit about sleep paralysis.

i find this tiny choice in characterization to be fascinating - with just one word, it implies so much, yet leaves so much vague, leaves so many unanswered questions at the same time.

like. stepmother? why does he have a stepmother? are his parents divorced? dead? just... missing?

lets lay the groundwork - ill admit, i have little clue how custody had worked back in the 1800s, but i did do some research into divorce of the time. no-fault divorce (divorce that you dont have to justify/ have a reason for) was not legal in the states until 1969. in order to receive a divorce, a spouse needed to abuse, cheat on, or in some way wrong their innocent spouse. innocent is notable - technically, if you both wronged eachother, then you did not have grounds for a divorce, because neither of you were the innocent victim in this scenario. this meant if you were in an unhappy marriage, you would just have to suck it up - or, lie to the court, which was a thing people did and got away with. apparently, most places didnt care enough to actually check your claims.

another thing - ishmael notes that she is his stepmother, but does not seem to think this needs any explanation. this, to me, could mean a few different things -

one, its likely that, whatever happened with his biological parents, he was old enough to remember it, or at least remember them, since the usage of ‘stepmother’ implies a need in his mind for a distinction, whereas if he never knew his parents, he wouldn’t feel the need for it. but, his lack of clarification also tells that he was probably still young enough for this to significantly set in as his new normal, to the point where he doesnt consider having to need to explain it. this last point is corroborated by the contents of the passage - though he does not state directly state his age, he does say he was a child, and through his actions in the passage, one would be reasonable to assume he is, at most, no older than twelve.

two is perhaps that whether or not he recalls his biological parents does not matter - his stepmother had specifically instructed him that she would only be addressed as ‘stepmother’, and nothing short of it. this, too, is not an unreasonable thought - the passage paints her as a strict and stern person, and ishmael himself refers to her as ‘conscientious’, implying the type of parent to be very firm and unwavering.

now, that aside, we might see divorce as the less dramatic answer to the question - until you consider that, because of the aforementioned way things were done, this meant that one parent had to be significantly irreparable for a divorce to be allowed. one could assume that this person might have been his mother - afterall, she would be unlikely to get custody if she was in the wrong, and so it would fall to his father, who very well could have remarried another woman. note that is a stepmother - if ishmael was under the custody of his mother, he would likely have a stepfather instead, if any stepparent at all. now, this must have been rather extreme circumstances - from my brief reading, it seemed that the 1800s courts tended to favor the mothers, rather than the fathers, as it was seen in the child's best interest to be with their mother.

in the passage, ishmael informs us that it was around 2 o'clock, midday - his stepmother is the only mentioned in the scene, but this does not mean he has no other parent/ guardian. if he does live with his father, then it is entirely likely that he is simply at work in the 'flashback'.

it may seem most obvious to take the route of divorce as the answer, as we understand 'stepmother' to be something allotted for the new spouses of divorced parents. but, one must consider - children can, and often do call their caretakers any manner of things, their applicability not withstanding. for instance, i once knew someone who referred to his grandmother (who was his primary caretaker) as mimi, because it was his brother's nickname for her. it is not impossible that, finding no other term, ishmael deemed this woman to be known as 'stepmother', whether or not she actually was not withstanding.

now! another potential answer here would be parental death - it was the 1800s, afterall, people simply died all the time (well, not all the time, but you know what i mean). as we've established, ishmael's stepmother does not actually have to be his father's new wife, and perhaps she isn't. if ishmael's parents were dead, it would explain why he is seemingly mostly in the care of his stepmother, at least from what we can see. while we can assume that perhaps his father is simply at work, it is also equally plausible through the context provided in the passage that ishmael's father is not in the picture, as he is not mentioned, or even alluded to. nor, of course, is ishmael's mother.

im not sure why, but the picture this paints in my mind feels a lot more true to ishmael himself than the option that his parents are simply divorced - here we have a man, an orphan in more than one way, whose only caretaker was his strict stepmother, who, as he says it, seemed to him to want to punish him for every little thing. its a very lonely childhood - one that suits our ishmael very well. no wonder he clove so tight to queequeg - did he ever even know love that came without punishment and restriction, before he met his harpooner?

... goddamnit, ive gone and made myself sad, now.

[probably-an-alien]

To anyone interested in queer interpretations of Herman Melville's Moby Dick I strongly recommend reading Emma Rantatalo's thesis "A Cosy, loving pair”? – The Elusion of Definitions of Queequeg and Ishmael’s Relationship in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

This text explores the intersections between queerness and race in the context of the relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael and has some really interesting things to say both about how them being an interracial couple makes their relationship possible (within the context of the time and place it was written in and takes place) in the first place, while also exploring how that fact has lead to so many people arguing against interpreting their relationship as romantic or sexual.

In doing so the paper explores and critically examines, among other things:

how Ishmael's race is not often discussed, because society sees whiteness as the default

Queequeg's classification as an other, but simultaneous deviation from then common tropes about non-white characters like the myth of the noble savage

the link between homosexuality and cannibalism in 19th-century perceptions

the myths built around Herman Melville due to his posthumous classification as a "great American writer"

Rantatalo's paper was a very interesting and enlightening read and my hope is that this post will convince at least one other person to check it out.

[burningvelvet]

moby dick analysis on ahab & starbuck

thinking about how starbuck's father and brother died at sea (chap 26) from whaling and it's mentioned that his brother's limbs were torn apart and it's easily inferrable that he has post-grief PTSD/depression but as a poor nantucketer probably has no other way of earning a living for his wife and young son. so he has to cope with his job despite the traumatic, triggering nature of it. he copss by being the best at his job, by being extraordinarily cautious and careful in all tasks while not compromising his natural strength, and he's adamant at protecting everyone — even those, like ahab, who do not want it.

From the first description of Starbuck, chapter 26:

"Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was his own father’s? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn limbs of his brother?

With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck which could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such terrible experiences and remembrances as he had; it was not in nature that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in him, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man.

But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valour in the soul."

but then starbuck gets stuck as the second-in-command to captain ahab who already nearly died after losing a limb to a whale and also has a wife and young son on nantucket and also has PTSD/depression due to sea/whaling related grief and they have a connection and starbuck is the only person who ahab actually obeys. arguably he empathizes most via his relationship with pip, the only other person he really connects with, but for all his inability to trust or respect anyone, starbuck is the only one he remotely allows to contradict him or comes close to seeing as a worthy of his regard (chaps 109, 130).

but whereas we're told starbuck's trauma makes him more careful & reasonable (chap 26) ahab's trauma makes him more reckless & vengeful (chap 41). but they're both given to superstition because they've both been wracked by fear and tragedy. they both have common sentiments even though they also butt heads not unfrequently.

and we don't get to see starbucks reaction or opinions on ahab denying to help the captain of rachel — a father looking for his two missing sons lost at sea (chap 128) — but it's very interesting that starbuck's own father lost his two sons on the sea, and that starbuck and ahab both note that between the two of them they have two sons which they bond over.

the tragedy of how in chap 132 starbuck seeks to comfort a crying ahab but then has to walk away because ahab clearly won't listen to him — and then how in chap 135 it's starbuck who is crying before ahab and ahab toss starbuck away from him as he leaves him!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahab crying, chap 132:

"From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop. Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there."

Starbuck walking away from Ahab when he realizes Ahab refuses to take responsibility for his actions and instead blames fate for his own destructive behavior (or, that Ahab is really being driven by fate, depending on your interpretation & personal beliefs, & whether you think his is a matter of self-fulfilling prophecy or real prophecy), chap 132:

"'What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. [..] —Starbuck!'

But blanched to a corpse’s hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away."

Starbuck crying & pleading toward the very end, chap 135:

"Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck’s tears the glue.

“Oh, my captain, my captain!—noble heart—go not—go not!—see, it’s a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!”

“Lower away!”—cried Ahab, tossing the mate’s arm from him. “Stand by the crew!”

In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern.

“The sharks! the sharks!” cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; “O master, my master, come back!”

But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the boat leaped on."

From the first description of Starbuck, chapter 26:

"Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds."

Starbuck's last words as he tries to save the ship which Ahab left him in charge of, chapter 135:

“The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman’s fainting fit. Up helm, I say—ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!”

He instructs the men to be steady as he is defined by his own steadfastness, a synonym of loyalty; in other words he is bound by duty, but he nevertheless blames Ahab for making this end his duty. His feelings are strong and he's on the verge of "a woman's fainting fit" but he nevertheless instructs himself to be calm and stoic. He detaches from himself, referring to himself in the third-person, and is resolved to die "if he must." He hates his job, but he does it to the best of his abilities anyway. He hates what his life has become, but he lives it anyway.

And to come back to that one paragraph in chapter 26 wherein we have the first description of Starbuck:

"But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valour in the soul."

This seems to leave it ambiguous (but so intentional ambiguous that it admits to a certain level of probability) as to whether or not, as we learn from Starbucks own fears, he actually lost his calm in the end and died in "a woman's fainting fit." Aside from Fedallah and Ahab, the specifics of the sailors deaths aren't really alluded to. The dead crew mates are given a certain level of privacy and respect because Ishmael consciously protects them. To requote his words on Starbuck and show how they may apply to all of the Pequod's crew (but most especially Starbuck, one of the most stoic characters, who thus begged this description):

"But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete abasement of [the men of the Pequod's collective] fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valour in the soul."

As an aside, Queequeg isn't given a lot of focus in the end. He isn't given a lot of focus in the middle either, because he and Ishmael sort of grew apart, but I think it's maybe telling of how Queequeg's death may have upset Ishmael too much to even mention it (same with Pip perhaps).

[beigetiger]

You know you're cooked when you start thinking about the parallels between Ultrakill and Gaslight District as well as Gaslight District and Moby Dick

[balanceoflightanddark]

Moby Dick is a novel about a lot of things. It's a novel about rampant capitalism and how it affects the common man. It's an allegorical and existential fable about one man trying to find meaning. It's about the fruitlessness of the American Dream. Simply put, it means something to everybody.

To me in particular, it's a deconstruction of the concept of revenge. Which is probably one of the most surface-level themes in the entire novel. At this point, everyone knows at least the gist of the story. Captain Ahab gathers a crew of whalers on a long voyage to track down and slay the infamous albino sperm whale Moby Dick, which bit off his leg. In the end, Ahab's quest ends in failure as the whale kills not only him but sinks the Pequod before escaping back to the watery depths. Leaving Ishmael as the only survivor to recount the tale. We all know it and a lot of revenge stories these days do owe some credence or reference to the captain's obsession with his "nemesis".

It also perfectly demonstrates how utterly pointless and self-destructive the concept of revenge is.

I'm going to be approaching this on two fronts. One is the more allegorical interpretation with reference to religious texts following the idea that Moby Dick is a stand-in for Satan or Leviathan. The other is a more literal interpretation where Moby Dick is simply an unusually violent whale.

It has been speculated numerous times over the years that Herman Melville drew a direct parallel between Satan and Moby Dick. Or at the very least, painted Moby as some sort of otherworldly entity that makes the seas eerily calm and drives men to madness. This would mean any attempt on Ahab's part to slay the whale is doomed to begin with because he's literally fighting something beyond the capabilities of any man. Yet he "solves" the problem by effectively inserting himself into this Biblical narrative as God themselves.

"There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod.--On deck!"

-Captain Ahab, Chapter 109

That was his response to what he viewed as a mutiny by his first mate Starbuck. Yet the point still stands; the idea he'd say this means he's willing to put himself in a higher position than any mere mortal man. And thus, he should be the one to right the wrong of Moby Dick taking his leg.

The problem is that by this interpretation, Ahab's quest for vengeance is pointless. If Moby Dick is a stand-in for Satan, then that means that God, the real God, will eventually one day strike him down during the Day of Judgement. The same goes with the references to Moby Dick being Leviathan since the latter is also fated to die in the scriptures.

In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

-Isaiah 27: 1

So if we're going with this allegorical interpretation, Moby Dick will be punished someday. Yet the problem is that Ahab refused to swallow his pride and tried to get vengeance on the beast by himself. Which ends with predictable results.

The other interpretation is just as pointless and self-destructive. Maybe even arguably so since Moby Dick is literally just an animal. Yes, a large and unusually aggressive animal, but not exactly the source of all evil as Ahab describes him to be. Heck, the incident where Moby Dick took Ahab's leg was likely a case of self-defense against whalers trying to kill him. So it's unlikely that there was any intended malice to begin with. This actually is supported by the text where the white whale is attempting to swim away from the Pequod and only becomes violent when he's attacked.

What this means is that Ahab's vendetta against Moby Dick has no real merit. The incident, while tragic and would've scarred Ahab, was less some evil spurning him and more an animal defending itself.

Unfortunately for Ahab, either way, he's part of an industry that's built on whale killing. Even if Ahab wanted to, there would be a societal push to get even with the whale that maimed him since killing whales like Moby Dick is what's expected of him. It's something the Captain actually reflects on before the fateful final battle, and ultimately he feels locked into the conflict. That something beyond his control is pushing him outside of his own vendetta, and he's just as much disturbed by the thought as he has a grudge against the whale.

The ultimate tragedy here though is that Ahab could've turned back. Even within the society of whaling, he didn't need to go after Moby Dick. Captain Boomer, a whaler the Pequod meets at sea, also fought the white whale and lost his arm. Thing is, he didn't go after them again for revenge. He thought about it, considered it, and decided to take his loss lest he lose his life. Ahab wasn't as wise. Instead, he gave into his quest for revenge and paid the ultimate price for it.

Which is ultimately why Ahab's revenge was pointless. Even if he killed Moby Dick, it wouldn't change what happened. He'd still be down a leg and he'd still likely be hunting whales once his quest was done. In the end, he wouldn't have gotten better. What's tragic is that there was a good chance he probably could've bounced back. He admitted in his final speech that there was something he was uneasy about with his quest and the possibility of admitting defeat was always on the table. Unfortunately, Ahab's pride got the better of him. And the rest was literary history.

[treespen]

Mina: I would like to ask about whaling and how it was done in the old days please

Mr Swales: Beg your pardon young miss but it is time for my 6 o clock tea and-

Ishmael Mobydick: (materializes out of salt air)

[pennyserenade]

i'm being forced to read moby-dick, so i think its only right that i get to come on here and talk about it in relation to the x-files. the first order of business i want to bring up is the curious relationship first shared between the characters ahab and starbuck. after ahab announces to the whole crew that his motivations for this three year whale voyage is so he can find and defeat moby-dick, starbuck is a little perturbed. later, to himself, he muses, "my soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman!…but [ahab] drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! i think i see his impious end; but feel that i must help him to it." starbuck is seemingly possessed by ahab's mission, though he can't entirely understand it and doesn't readily want to dedicate himself and all the ship to it. like dana scully, our life-long starbuck, we see starbuck become enraptured in a quest that is not entirely his own for a purpose he cannot express.

later still, we get an insight into ahab's thoughts on starbuck. melville writes, "starbuck's body and starkbuck's coerced will were ahab's, so long as ahab kept his magnet at starbuck's brain; still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his captain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it." in episode one, dana scully and fox mulder share this relationship: she is presented to him as someone who could, if she'd like, effectively destroy him and his mission. he understands the importance of psychology and--dare i say it--manipulation the way ahab understands it with starbuck here. in order to continue his mission, ahab and mulder both know they must capture and hold the interest of their starbuck, lest their starbuck turn against them. while their white whales make sense to an ardent few, ahab and mulder know that it is starbuck alone who will make or break them. and starbuck, beyond all reason or doubt, commits.

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

a brief timeline of fucking events regarding myself and the studio album "kill the whale" by daniel emond because I'm losing my mind

>get recommended this album by an anon on tumblr

>listen to said album and have an Extremely goodbad time (fedallah and gay people i LOVE YOU, quishmael and the erasure of indigeneity and the Lots of other racist things happening in there i hate you i hate you i hate you

>begin a project to transcribe the album because dear god what are they saying

>find that daniel emond himself has posted the lyrics to reddit

>make a 30k google doc comparing the lyrics of the studio album, the reddit lyrics, and the recorded live performance lyrics (because they are all very different!) with commentary (WHICH I FORGOT TO POST AND WILL BE SHARING IMMEDIATELY)

>get mad, decide to leave a comment on emond's reddit lyrics noting some of my critiques, most notably, why queequeg has been raceswapped and also had much of his story/relationships/plot entirely removed

>get a FIVE PAGE RESPONSE from emond arguing that he did not in fact erase anyone's indigenous/pasifika identity and that he was 'casting for talent, not accuracy bc the characters are "more" than their cultural backgrounds and ethnicities' which is a load of horseshit in my opinion

>notably also in that comment he reveals that the studio album is in progress to be adapted into a full broadway musical performance

>respond again, admittedly meaner this time

>get ANOTHER response from emond, that starts like this

[ID: A screenshot of a reddit notifications email of a comment from u/Danielhenriemond that reads: "Very busy these days, so much to respond to here. Thanks again for critical insight and questions which have continued to live with me as I develop the project, in particular your inquiry into my vers..." End ID.]

>open the comment to find that it has been completely deleted 🧍so I guess I'll never fucking know

>weeks later emond SHOWS UP ON MY INSTAGRAM (which has no ties to my reddit, he def doesn't know I'm the same person) and comments on my art of his musical

>go to his instagram page to see that the musical is currently in a week-long workshop

>scream

>something has tied me to this musical and i have no knife to cut the line (threat)

[postmail]

“we need to talk more about pip” <- guy who doesnt have anything to say about pip but wishes so bad he did

[probably-an-alien]

All you dickheads out there need to listen to Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements!

It's such a great podcast. Each episode the hosts Ben Klug and Mark Sokolov analyse one or a couple of chapters from Moby-Dick and go really in-depth on so many of the details and deeper themes in the text.

Here's a link to episode 01:

[wallbeatjournal]

Could you elaborate on jughead and his bad Moby Dick takes?

he's basically representing the most boring and smug "what you see is what you get, authorial intent is the only way to interpret a story, and also the author is ALWAYS upfront about their intent with the public" angle on literary analysis when he argues that it's pointless to try to read subtext into the book. famously a crummy way to read moby dick and a crummy way to read riverdale and all the context around it as an archie comics adaptation. no metaphorical readings allowed unless the original creator says it's OK??! OK!!

it's a viewpoint he explicitly grows out of in season seven. the jughead of the more character-optimistic s7 reboot becomes very invested in metaphor and subtext and the idea that someone could write about a milkman murderer but make him something else to skirt censorship and then deny the connection publicly. (and also veronica critiques the unintentional incel undertones of his writing and he needed that ❤️)

[dusttt]

135 chapters and an epilogue. For the sake of practicality, let’s round it up to 136.

To expend it across a month now… thats 4.5 chapters a day

So I am somebody remarkably bored and in need of a test of my erudition. Naturally, this means re-reading starts on the 1st.

“I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.”

- C.S. Lewis

[godotdotdot]

moby dick and ahab's madness: being cis, being trans, and being a man.

the whale is the blindness of cis maledom that being cis can afford to men, and this is shown in how ahab is transed and transes manhood.

aka a little essay w a specifically transmasc lens bc fuck it we whale

Building off of toni morrison's unspeakable things unspoken and her interpretation of the White Whale as Whiteness, I'd like to call to mind how ahab is considered "mad" bc of his relationship to Whiteness and his subsequent desire to kill it. He has been traumatized by his Whiteness. He has been disabled by a concept hes supposed to derive power from, not be disenfranchised by, as a White person. I think a parallel concept can be applied for cisness and how it disables Ahab.

Consider: ahab's leg as castration.

I define castration as not purely physical but social, psychological, and of the ego as well; Ahab is rendered bedridden and unable to do what he does as a man (that is, whaling) for a very long time. When he comes back, he is different: the book describes his torrential emotions as having been sealed away inside of him, as madness

I also want to admit i can define my transness in the realm of castration: though i am a man, i have been disenfranchised of my male socialization, i have been disenfranchised of my security of manhood (as i must constantly defend that i am a man), i have been disenfranchised of the legitimacy that men are treated with in discussions; all of these things are bc im trans, and esp bc im very fem passing and not "traditionally" a man. by birth i have been castrated of my penis, which does not mean i cannot be a man; but its very lived consequence has been that i do not get to reap the benefits of patriarchy that, as a man, i should be supposed to.

For these reasons, i am a man but i am very comfortable in saying down w the patriarchy, fuck men, etc; my liberation is tied up in dismantling this concept that consumes me. and i think ahab is very similar, and i understand why he is interpreted as Mad by his less-mannishly-disturbed crew.

It's important to note ahab's madness is spurred on by a "betrayal" of cis maledom against him; but is it even a betrayal? After all, cis men can think deeply abt masculinity and their relationship to it and what these things mean to them: but i think what this initial cisness affords them is they dont have to, bc a cis man questioning his manhood doesnt matter bc socially, he'll still be read as, understood as, and treated like a man. manhood is afforded to them despite their questioning or lack thereof, so there is never this existential threat of it being taken away from them

except until there is. until youre faced with castration. Ahab's manhood IS taken away from him. The whale here is being blind, for never questioning WHY u have to whale in the first place, for giving into the capitalism, the white supremacy, the patriarchy that makes u a man. Because you'll still get got by the whale whether u question these things or not; but the fact remains that perhaps this tragedy could have been prevented. This blindness is afforded bc cis men get to be men without questioning it, but ahab's castration proves that cis men arent safe from the very existential confusion that all of manhood can face. cisness can castrate men. As we know thru being trans, manhood exists beyond the physical ability to be a man.

And yet: one of the most vital parts of this is that despite being castrated, ahab is still a man

He still captains, though frequently interrogated of his legitimacy; he still acts logically, though this logic is within the universe of his trauma; he still effectively does his job, though his style of management is unorthodox

he still is a man.

his crewmates try to disenfranchise him of his legitimacy and his manhood by questioning him and challenging him, and what happens from this transed man?

He spurs on the existential crisis within them. Stubb is disturbed and has to redefine and reassure himself od what manhood is, and that he is a man; he no longer is afforded that security of manness. Make no mistake that Ahab brings this on! We see a similar thing happen w starbuck; make no mistake that Ahab brings this on!

When we see a later captain whose arm is taken by Moby Dick we HAVE to note that an arm is not a leg. An arm has mobility and functional purposes that a leg does not have; an arm is not the penis.

I think in the same way you can read Ahab as facing down the concept of Whiteness and trying to destroy it (and how it undoes him because a.) he is one guy facing a systemic / societal construct and b.) because Whiteness consumes every part of you as it makes u go insane bc it's evil and therefore it's really hard to get out of Whiteness's grasp); but in the same vein you can read Ahab as facing down masculinity as a trans man, a guy who is castrated and who is a man but is still Other even within the sphere of manhood, in a way that none of the other crew is because of race or nationality or language but simply in the way of existence and being, something is off with him, something will always be there that is "wrong" (that has wronged him) and that will always delegitimize him

[breserker]

hi i'm 2.5 hours into the 24hour audiobook of Moby Dick ama

[sherbertilluminated]

Calcareous ooze shoutout in the Moby-Dick supplemental reading tonight!