Ara Ara’s Mind

{AN: This is finally finished! This took me forever to right because I kept thinking I hard to this in a specific order. I thought that by myself I was going to find the meaning of Moby-Dick. Little did I know that keeping it simple would workout the best for me. I am very happy with how this turned out and if you were to talk to me about it, I would talk your head off. And no I still haven’t finished reading Moby-Dick.}

Moby-Dick is a densely complicated book many people never think to reach for. With its long chapters about the history of whales and ships, along with the different tenses and writing styles used, the story is hard to follow. At times it is hard to even understand what Ishmael, our unreliable narrator, is trying to say. Herman Melville has constructed a twisted, complex tale that forces its readers to consider every piece of knowledge, every outcome before they even understand the fate of the Pequod. As interesting as this has become, Melville did not originally plan for this story to be as intricate as it is. This original simple tale of a sea adventure ended up being a story that readers found hard to wrap around their heads. While over time, the book has gained popularity and notoriety, the true meaning of the story lacks consistency among its readers. This has led me to believe that Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick has no meaning. Or rather it has the meaning the individual reader will give to it.

I first read Moby-Dick in 2022 for a class I was taking in college. Expectantly, I was afraid to embark on such a long tedious reading for class. At first, I did not like it. I found it boring, contradictory, and confusing. But as I interacted with it in class I found a hidden element that everyone seemed to be missing. In my time away from college and the novel, I found myself drawn back to the story. In my return to Moby-Dick I found it once again boring and tedious. I found myself trying to analyze every line and every interaction for some sort of meaning; some overarching theme that I missed before. I, ultimately, found nothing, noting that even though I wanted there to be meaning in everything Herman Melville wrote there just was not. I did not realize that was intentional till I read an essay by Robert Klevay. In this essay, The Limits of Ishmael’s Readings, Klevay seeks to explain Melville’s, and Ishmael’s, inclusions of other books stating, “His [Melville] inclusion of so many references to other books creates a novel in which…[he] uses his narrator to reflect on the limitations of reading itself.” (159). From this line I was able to understand what Melville truly achieved. A completely interpretive book where the narrator, and author, are searching for meaning as much as the readers are. I began to see even more how Melville entangled himself into Ishmael and the world he created. As Klevay notes, “Ishmael cannot explain his feelings without reaching for a literary allusion, one that emphasizes the necessary effort to gain satisfaction with one’s place in the world.” (162). Leaving me to wonder if this attribute is something Melville assigned to himself. And seeing how restrictive this habit made Ishmael, I wondered if Melville was ever able to escape it himself.

As seen in his first book, Typee, Melville tended to write from his experience’s aboard ships and during his voyages. Moby-Dick was no different, taking from what he learned from his time on a ship in 1840. He was setting Moby-Dick up to be “a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern sperm whale fisheries.” (Correspondence, Horth, Melville 162). While there are still elements of this in the book, majority of the novel takes on a convoluted, confusing air. This shift from adventure to introspective is punctuated by Melville meeting Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne taught Melville how to analyze his thoughts and experiences, making him see not only the injustices and hardships in life but also the meaning of it. As their relationship grew, Melville started to use Moby Dick as an outlet for the complex feelings he began to have for Hawthorne. This is what caused Moby-Dick to change “from a romance to a fearful, fated work.” (The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea, Hoare, 181). Melville knew his relationship with Hawthorne would not last. While they learned from each other, they did not always get along. Phillip Hoare notes, “For all Melville felt for Hawthorne, it seemed he wanted more than his friend could give.” (179). There was always going to be a block between them, barring them from the relationship they could have. Melville started to expect it and, subsequently, began his search for meaning. For something else to take from Hawthorne. This longing for meaning and clarity embedded itself in Ishmael, giving readers a tale with no concrete explanation for what took place aboard the Pequod. Readers did not know what to make of this lack of meaning at the time, making Moby-Dick unsuccessful when it was first published.

The original publication of Moby-Dick came out in three volumes. It is unclear where each volume began and ended, but the three volumes differed from each other intensely. For readers of the time, the difference between issues made it hard to understand. A person from the Literary Gazette in 1851 stated, “What the author’s original intention in spinning his preposterous yarn was, it is impossible to guess…when we compare that first and third volumes, it was never carried out.” (Doubloon, Hayford and Parker,61). Many readers felt this way; confused and lead astray by an ambitious author. It was not until many years later that people began to appreciate Melville for his work. Richard Henry Stoddard explained in Melville’s obituary in 1891 that, “There was a wealth of imagination in the mind of Mr. Melville, but it was an untrained imagination, and a world of the stuff of which poetry is made, but no poetry, which is creation and not chaos.” (111). Melville was endlessly creative, but for some readers that was a curse more than a blessing. It took Moby-Dick until the 1920’s to be considered an American classic, due to an article celebrating Melville’s 100^th birthday in 1919. People seemed to gravitate towards the story, making a movie inspired by it and readers writing reviews for it. Maybe they were drawn to its dramatics. Maybe they grew interested in the lack of concrete meaning. Maybe they appreciated the differing writing styles. Who knows, but because they chose to look for meaning and analysis in Moby-Dick, it is now a celebrated American novel. With people still reading and interpreting it today, Moby-Dick’s quirks allow it to transcend the time it was made in.

There is nothing solidified in the meaning of Moby-Dick. There are so many different interpretations it is hard to keep track of them all. Some try to analyze Melville’s connection to Shakespeare at the time. Some claim that Ahab is the actual main character of the story. As Paul Daley notes in his article “some say this is a book about everything and always one for the times, no matter what they might be.” (Hope, Love, Fear: Why Moby-Dick is the Perfect Novel for Our Times). Often the common idea in these interpretations connects the story to manhood. It should come as no surprise to learn that a lot of men read Moby-Dick, and Moby-Dick is often associated with men. Probably because of the lack of women throughout the novel, as well as the connection men seem to form with Ishmael. They tend to see him as a man that they can relate to because they have been Ishmael. Veronica Faller wrote about this representation of manhood in Moby-Dick, stating that Melville is “deliberately showing his readers that those possessed by their own egotistical insecurity became not perpetrators of greatness, but victims of the desire for it.” (Tied By Chords Woven of Heart-Strings: A Study of Manhood In Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick,86). She sees Moby-Dick as commentary on human nature, claiming that through Ishmael and Ahab we see two different types of manhood that drive the story. This is a good insight to have about the story and it’s characters. Some may even find Fuller’s interpretation too deep and simply reach for Moby-Dick for comfort and camaraderie in uncertain times.

Melville achieved something beautiful with Moby-Dick. In the lack of finite meaning this book has, he was able to create a story that truly appealed to everyone in every time. While my first reading of the novel was less than pleasant, I have grown fond of the different tenses and writing styles that are meant to confuse me. And though my interpretation sees Moby-Dick about self-discovery and the lack of acceptance, someone else might see it as political commentary. The readers decide how they want to read Moby-Dick. They decide what they take from the scripts. I do not think that was Melville’s intention, but maybe it was.