In “The Prairie,” Ishmael explores the ways in which man has denied spirituality in the pursuit of science. Early in the chapter, Ishmael’s reference to two psuedo-sciences — Phrenology (the study of shapes in the skull as indicative of underlying characteristics of the mind), and Physiognomy (the study of the face as indicative of underlying character or personality) — recall the pseudo-science of an earlier chapter. In “Cetology,” Ishmael uses the common opinions of men to override reason and influence his classifications of whales as fish. By contrast in “The Prairie,” Ishmael uses reason to twist these modern refusals of the spiritual into evidence of the same. Enter the whale’s forehead.

If in man an expansive brow (like Shakespeare’s) suggests genius, then in the whale we must see genius of a magnitude past comprehension, and what points to god more than that which we cannot comprehend? In beholding a whale’s brow “you feel the Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than beholding any other object in living nature.” In short, science points us away from god and toward the body, and the body points us right back to god.

Chapter 79: The Prairie

Now read the face,
See everything placed –
Rest assured,
Once inured
No doubt you will meet
Nobility steeped
In each corner, all around.

From prairie there rose
No sign of a nose,
But it’s fine,
We don’t mind.
It’s simple and sleek,
And no one can tweak –
Even kings can’t boast the same.

And oh, take note!
And oh, it’s plain!
And oh, the world bespoke
In his visage just the same.

Now look at the brow,
Could heaven allow
Such a mind
Laid behind?
It’s not that he writes
Or speaks to our plights,
It’s the genius of his life.

(c) and (p) 2010 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea July 28, 2010
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea February 12, 2011

As the Pequod nears its ultimate encounter with Moby Dick, the density of portent becomes almost overwhelming for a reader. Either Ishmael knows that the mystery of omen makes for good tension-building, or he simply tends toward the side of human nature that seeks explanation in times of senseless plight — a last ditch to find meaning or purpose in suffering.

In “The Pequod meets the Delight,” the tragedy of others brings Ahab’s hubris into sharp relief. The Delight recently encountered Moby Dick and lost five men in the fray. Its whale boats are splintered, and its crew down-trodden. Much like in his encounter with the Rachel, Ahab shows that he has lost all touch of compassion, turning his back on dire human need in order to speed his course on to face the very thing that caused that need in the first place.

In the process of flying the burial of a killed member of the Delight’s crew, Queequeg’s coffin comes into view hanging from the taffrail of the Pequod. In one clear sense, we can interpret this image as portent of coming death. But for those familiar with the coffin’s ultimate significance in the story, we can see the image also as prophesy of salvation buoyed on the care shown during the dire sickness of a friend. Of course, I myself take the image as Freud himself might — sometimes a coffin is just a coffin.

Chapter 131: The Pequod meets the Delight

It was a wind-blown summer’s day,
Time was passing like an open book in the breeze,
Colors bled out into the nothing new,
Then we passed her in her grievance.

All eyes turned to the shattered boat,
Splintered planks as sun-bleached corpse,
Then a hammock sown into a sheath
Around a lifeless memory.

And Ahab trumpets for catastrophe,
And strikes his purpose into their misery.
The ship cries out for resurrection, now,
But death comes first, and then a sea of tears.

There hangs a coffin on the taffrail
For all to see as we speed away
Into his everlasting promises.
The coffin waits to save a solitary soul.

(c) and (p) 2010 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea July 20, 2010
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea December 26, 2010

It comes as no surprise, then, in this most tempting of books to over-analyze, that Moby Dick himself resides in these waters, and that upon entering the Pacific, Ahab’s purpose “intensified itself.” Of course, Ishmael’s naive, joyful, and ponderous fulfillment of a childhood dream also provides a perfect foil for Ahab’s rash and jaded acceleration toward fulfilling the dreams of his old age, and perhaps Ishmael’s poetics merely found the raw and vicious potters’ fields of the Pacific an apt grounds for these opposite ends of the human experience to contrast.

Chapter 111: The Pacific

A dream rolling over me,
Rolling on, the sea
Rolling over me.

A dream rolling on,
The sea touching all –
Receive of the harmony.

Out over the ocean,
I feel every notion
Of peace, and of suffering.

In every great undulation,
Every soul, every patient
Belief, every broken sleep.

A dream rolling over me,
Rolling on, the sea
Rolling over me.

A dream rolling on,
The sea touching all –
Receive of the harmony.

Just as the sea touches rivers
In the valleys, as they quiver
From hearts to humanity,

Each of us touched and delivered
By the shadows and glimmers
Of all time, of all human beings.

A dream rolling over me,
Rolling on, the sea
Rolling over me.

A dream rolling on,
The sea touching all –
Receive of the harmony.

(c) and (p) 2009 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea July 29, 2009
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea June 12, 2010

Early in “Stubb’s Supper,” Ishmael parallels Stubb with a group of sharks, both of whom feast greedily on Stubb’s recently caught whale. Having one black crew member, Daggoo, cut his steak from the whale, and a black cook, Fleece, prepare the steak, Stubb settles down to enjoy the spoils of his hunt. Stubb quickly finds fault with the cook’s preparation, and calls him to deck to answer for the mistake. Ishmael turns the ensuing exchange into a masterful commentary on race and power.

The cook, Fleece, enters as a minstrel show, shuffling and arthritic, to stand formally before Stubb. As Stubb begins to lay into poor Fleece, however, Ishmael gives us a Fleece who responds with a nuanced mixture of deference and defiance, submitting to Stubb’s humiliating order to preach to the sharks overboard, but turning his sermon into a spiteful prayer for death to oppressors.

Of course, Stubb has all the power in this exchange, and so he turns Fleece’s rebellion into entertainment. After all, not unlike the sharks, Stubb likes his meat rare and tough, and in the end, that’s exactly the meal Fleece gives him.

Chapter 64: Stubb’s Supper

When I die, I’ll go to heaven,
When I die upon the sea.
When I die, I’ll go to heaven –
The blessed angels will deliver me!

Stiff of leg, with nature’s reason,
So the minstrel shows betray,
But I’ll preach another season
To the sharks who wouldn’t listen to be saved!

Oh, they feed upon the river,
And they feed upon the sea,
And they feed until they wither
With the burden that they gathered in their greed.

Sharks own the river,
Sharks own the sea,
Sharks don’t deliver,
But the blessed angles will deliver me!

When I die, I’ll go to heaven,
When I die upon the sea.
When I die, I’ll go to heaven –
The blessed angels will deliver me!

(c) and (p) 2009 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea July 17, 2009
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea May 8, 2010

I realized that my thoughts about this week’s chapter have been influenced by the book’s iconic status as well, albeit in a totally different way.  After evoking preacher-as-captain imagery in the preceding chapter, Ishmael begins Chapter 9, “The Sermon,” by setting Father Mapple in stark contrast to Ahab, as Mapple sings a hymn about salvation at the hands of a forgiving God. Mapple’s sermon continues with a masochistic message about Jonah displaying true repentance by being “grateful for punishment,” and concludes with a message for all spiritual leaders: “Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!” The sermon seems a ready foil for Ahab and his madness.

But we haven’t met Ahab at this point in the story. In fact, Ishmael hasn’t even reached Nantucket, or heard of the Pequod. Sure, Ishmael is a masterful storyteller, and Moby-Dick an extremely well-planned tale. And sure, every good storyteller builds themes before introducing the main plot arc. But still, like most people (I think), I went into Moby-Dick looking for the secret of Ahab, because that’s what Moby-Dick means as an iconic piece of literature. What I got instead, of course, was the secret of Ishmael — a terrifically entertaining story. It’s nice to remember that, for the most part anyway, the classics are classics for a reason — not because they are painful to read though good for us, but because they’re really good books that have entertained people for centuries.

Chapter 9: The Sermon

Purge your pride, in the belly of
Desire, in the valley of
Required opportunity –
Delight in obedience.

The flame burns true as a compass, there’s
No skew on perspectives you
Want to simply justify –
And so do you slumber.

But, oh!
The hand of God is up above!
And, oh!
You cannot run from boundless love!

Carried down with a tempest of
Renown, to the stillness of
Each round individual sphere –
Peace now is a punishment.

So beg your Lord for the trying reward
Bestowed for the congress of man,
Each lost in his wickedness –
And so, with your pilot!

And, oh!
The hand of God is up above!
And, oh!
You cannot run from boundless love!

(c) and (p) 2009 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea July 6, 2009
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea March 20, 2010

In “The Blanket,” Ishmael examines and discusses a whale’s skin. In noticing small lines “engraved upon the body itself,” Ishmael first compares the whale to Egyptian pyramids and cliffs etched with undecipherable hieroglyphics, thereby establishing the skin as text. Ishmael continues, noticing the scar tissue that accompanies these lines, and here things start to get gloomy. The scars remind Ishmael of the scrapes left behind on rocks after contact with an iceberg. However, he notes that the scars on the whales most likely come from fellow whales. Connecting the violent erosion between vast and indifferent forces of nature with the violence of contact between members of the same species is quite an image. Add to that a discussion of men and whales, both needing warmth as an essential condition of life, both living in a world so devoid of warmth that they must make it themselves, and I’m ready to retreat into a fetal ball for the next week.

But we know Ishmael has been in a mood since the day we met him. What I find interesting is the fact that this particular mood can be so compelling, even as a guilty pleasure. Why do we indulge it? What’s so sexy about a scar? What’s so macho about hardship?

Ishmael closes the chapter feeling hopeless about making any comparison between man and whale: “Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!” In “The Blanket,” he gives us lament for the mortal insignificance of mankind. Bleak, Ishmael. Bleak.

Chapter 68: The Blanket

The skin of a man does tell of his history.
The skin of a man is thin as the breeze.
The skin of the whale is written as mystery,
Scarred in the vast, unspoken sea.

Learn your lessons from his presence,
Lifeless, laid at your feet.
Thick skin, blessed warmth, and refuge
Need a man to survive.

Much as the whale, does man need an inner warmth,
Though banished to live out his days in the cold.
Much as the whale, is man but a stranger
On the Earth he calls his home.

Learn your lessons from his presence,
Lifeless, laid at your feet.
Thick skin, blessed warmth, and refuge
Need a man to survive.
Thick skin, blessed warmth, and refuge
Need a man to survive.

(c) and (p) 2008 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea October 5, 2008
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea October 24, 2009

Queequeq and Pip are alike in being non-white members of the crew. They are also both given the hardest and most unpleasant labors of the ship. Queequeg’s duties are assigned because of his elevated station of harpooneer, while Pip’s duties are assigned because of the low station dictated by his race. However, as Ishmael describes Queequeg in his labors, peering down at him in the muck of the hold, you hardly get the sense that the white crew envies the task. Sure, Queequeg gets a higher pay, but he still has to do the most unpleasant and dangerous work of the ship. All three harpooneers are foreign non-whites, more respected than Pip, perhaps, but still subjugated.

Death for both Queequeg and Pip becomes a process of taking stock of what they have in the world. Queequeg has the coffin his colleagues built for him. He has the clothing and personal items he now stores in his coffin. He has Yojo. He has the heritage of a complete (though indecipherable) theory of the universe, tattooed on his body by the spiritual leader of his homeland, which he carves into the wood of his coffin. Most of all, Queequeg has the opportunity to actualize in all these ways. By contrast, the utter isolation Pip faces in death is a small echo of the isolation with which Pip faces life. Pip lives stripped of privilege, status, professional respect, community and heritage — all left ashore by unwilling ancestors on a different kind of voyage long since past.

The most significant contrast between Queequeg and Pip lies in their treatment as dying men. “Not a man of the crew but gave [Queequeg] up” on his deathbed, whereas Pip is actively abandoned to die. However, the crew visits Queequeg on his deathbed at least in part to watch for secrets of death to be revealed in the “waning savage.” Pip’s lack of heritage makes him subhuman to the crew, but Queequeg’s presence of heritage makes him an exotic. Ishmael later marvels at how quickly Queequeg rebounds from his ailment, noting how “a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day.” Perhaps Queequeg realizes that his resignation towards death is an expected part of this dynamic as Pip stands over his deathbed, celebrating how “Queequeg dies game!” Deciding not to give in to the expectation of noble savage, Queequeg chooses to recover himself and live. In health, Queequeg reclaims his death experience by carving his tattooed heritage onto his Nantucket coffin, furthering his negotiation towards counterpane.

Ch 110: Queequeg in his Coffin

Make your peace with death,
Your peace with death,
Your peace with death, Oh
Your peace with death,
And then come alive
For the rest of your days.

Listen to me:
I want to tell you ’bout a man
Who came to his endless end, Whoa!
He threw his arms around the great
Testament.
He had us build a coffin
Sound in every way
And he stepped into the rest of his days.

Make your peace with death,
Your peace with death,
Your peace with death, Oh
Your peace with death,
And then come alive
For the rest of your days.

Let me tell you, now:
The man he had his coffin filled
With all of his Earthly needs, Whoa!
And put his body with the like
Accessories.
He took his god, Yojo,
And held him to his heart,
And he rose again, a purity apart.

Make your peace with death,
Your peace with death,
Your peace with death, Oh
Your peace with death,
And then come alive
For the rest of your days.

(c) and (p) 2008 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea August 10, 2008
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea February 1, 2009