Herman Melville - Billy Budd and Other Stories

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Cover image: On deck of a Man-of-War, Eighteenth Century . Engraving, 1878 © duncan1890/iStock

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Source ISBN: 9780007558193

Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007558209

Version: 2014-07-31

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On the face of it, Moby Dick is simply a story about a whaleboat captain intent on killing a white whale that had previously maimed him and destroyed his ship. As a result, Herman Melville’s masterpiece was underestimated when first published in 1851.

In truth, Melville was exploring themes relating to belief systems and moral and ethical topics; the story itself was merely a vehicle by which Melville could address his philosophy. To that extent, Melville viewed the novel as a means of accessing the minds of people who might not ordinarily pick up a book about the kinds of issues he felt driven to discuss. Ironically, those same people entirely missed the allegory, and Moby Dick was perceived as nothing more than an adventure novel.

As a consequence, Moby Dick , although initially successful, was quickly forgotten, and Melville reached old age an unsung talent. Today the novel is hailed as one of the greats, after the book was resurrected in the wake of World War I. The story was seen as timely and illustrated what can happen when desire for vengeance is allowed to take control. By the close of World War II, the book had become symbolic of the struggle for power between nations.

Melville is now described as a romantic novelist, because Moby Dick evokes a bygone and masculine age, when men risked their lives on the oceans in the procurement of whale products. The eponymous whale, Moby Dick, is an albino male sperm whale. Sperm whales are toothed whales specialized to feed on giant squid, making them extremely dangerous to harpoon and kill. To a whaler, the male sperm whale was the ultimate adversary. Sailors used to carve designs and pictures into sperm whale teeth as trophies, which were sold as pieces of scrimshaw.

Sperm whales were particularly prized by whalers because their heads contain reservoirs of a substance called spermaceti oil, creating their bulbous foreheads. This oil was used by humans as fuel oil and many other substances used in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The oil had a high value until similar substances were derived from crude oil instead, thereby sounding the death knell for whaling.

For the whales themselves, the oil assists with their ability to dive to great depths in search of prey. It was this behavior that made the confrontation scenes in Moby Dick so thrilling, as the whale would dive for long periods, leaving the whalers in tense anticipation of what might happen next. Then the whale would suddenly erupt from beneath to wreak havoc on the wretched humans.

The whale, of course, was in its own environment, while the people were entirely reliant on technology to remain alive. At that time in history, the high seas were the most challenging places for people to live, so Moby Dick was the ultimate “man against the elements” tale.

While the main characters in Moby Dick are Christian Americans, the others comprise a world population in microcosm, encompassing many races and creeds. This has been interpreted as Melville juxtaposing Christian mores alongside those of a non-Christian mindset.

In the end, the narrating voice Ishmael is the sole survivor, clinging to flotsam after the whale has gone. It becomes apparent that the whale is representative of Melville’s idea of the Christian God. It has punished those who do not believe, and it has punished those who believe too much, for the obsessive Captain Ahab has perished with his crew.