Great Books: Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

The epic story of Captain Ahab’s lust for revenge against the white whale, Moby Dick stands as America’s literary summit.

In One Sentence: Herman Melville’s seminal work takes the whaling industry and turns it into a metaphor for all of America, while providing a penetrating look at the foibles of excessive pride and religious hypocrisy.

Iconic Characters: Ismeal, with what is perhaps literature’s most well-known opening sentence, will forever be embedded in our cultural consciousness. But it is Captain Ahab who is the true icon, illustrating in his fool’s quest the existential (and physical) dangers that come with lusting too much for revenge and creating the forever template of the True American (Male), the same one that’s been followed by every True American ever since, from Hemingway to Ron Swanson.

One Classic Scene: One of the techniques that Melville uses to increase suspense is to introduce Ahab long before we actually get to see him. He spends much of the early portion of the book hidden from view. He is first mentioned in chapter sixteen (IIRC), and then another dozen go by before he makes his first appearance. We hear a number of intriguing stories about him and Ismael is left to wonder what type of man Ahab is and what kind of voyage he has signed up for.

We get our first real sense of Ahab’s character when he gathers the crew and reveals the true object of their journey. He takes a gold doubloon, nails it to the mast, and offers it as a reward to the first crew member who sights the white whale. This is what ensues:

“Captain Ahab,” said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. “Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick–but it was not Moby Dick that took off thy leg?”

“Hark ye yet again–the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event–in the living act, the undoubted deed–there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn–living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards–the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. ‘Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone? Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!–Aye, aye! thy silence, then, THAT voices thee. (ASIDE) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion.”

What you can learn from it? Moby Dick is a difficult book, one that freely mixes styles and forms, is filled with entire chapters of scientific and technical jargon, and has numerous interludes that interrupt the main story. If your aim is to create a technical masterpiece that English professors will be debating 150 years from now, then by all means use Moby Dick as your inspiration.

But what about the writers who want to actually sell books in their lifetime? What does Moby Dick offer us? At its core, Moby Dick is a compelling adventure, one that slowly builds to a tense face-off between two bloodthirsty adversaries. It just so happens that one of those adversaries is a sperm whale. The same elements that make Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code so compelling are manifest in Moby Dick.

More than anything, what I urge writers to take from their reading of Moby Dick is the way Melville pushes forward the story through dialogue. Too often I see inexperienced storytellers trying to develop the plot through a lot of action and description. The most common mistake is to allow us too much inside the character’s heads. We have to wade through not only what they are going to do, but long explanations and justifications for why they are going to do it. This kind of writing tends to become boring very quickly.

Melville allows the conflicts and conversations between the characters to propel the reader forward. There are a number of compelling debates between Ahab and Starbuck, between Starbuck and Stubbs, etc. Sometimes we see the main characters try to engage God, or Fate, or whatever higher power they can find, in conversation. Even such one-sided monologues are preferable to narration.

Memorable Quote: “There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.”

Is it the Great American Novel? Yes.

Check out Decater's new novel, available now at Amazon. Plus, don't forget his earlier books: Ahab's Adventures in Wonderland and Picasso Painted Dinosaurs.