Moby Dick Good and Evil

Moby Dick

GOOD and EVIL in HERMAN MELVILLE'S

MOBY DICK

According to Melville scholar John Bryant, commenting in Ungraspable Phantom: Essays on Moby Dick, the Old Testament Hebrew word for "good" refers to that which "gratifies the senses and which gives aesthetic or moral satisfaction," while the New Testament Greek word means "moral or physical quality and sometimes that which is noble, honorable, admirable and worthy" (45), a reference to specific traits held by a human being which are expressed via his/her psychological makeup and how one behaves under ordinary and at times extraordinary circumstances. In contrast, William S. Glein, writing in the Meaning of Moby Dick, declares that "evil" comes from the root Hebrew meaning "to spoil... To break into pieces and so make worthless which binds together both the evil deed and its consequences" (75).

When we look at Herman Melville's American classic Moby Dick, first published in 1851, the presence of good and evil is best represented and personified by two major characters, being Ishmael and Captain Ahab. However, many believe that "the great white whale" itself of Moby Dick stands as the ultimate symbol of evil in the novel, yet how can a "dumb brute" be seen as evil when it merely reacts and behaves to save itself from the madness of men? Thus, good and evil in Melville's masterpiece is completely dependent on the behaviors and psychological expressions of Ahab, the mad captain of the Pequod, and Ishmael, a young man seeking adventure on the high seas as a whaler and inexorably caught up in the great chase to kill the white terror known as Moby Dick.

The opening lines of Chapter One of Moby Dick introduces the main protagonist Ishmael and what he says here as our first-person narrator is very indicative of his "good nature as a young and somewhat experienced whaler who as a person is honorable, admirable and worthy of our sentiments and feelings" (Hayes, 134):

Whenever I find myself growing grim... whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses... (or) methodically knocking people's hats off, then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can" (Melville, 4).

This passage which begins with some of the most widely-recognized words in the English language ("Call me Ishmael") demonstrates that Ishmael holds some very deep moral and ethical convictions related to his own inner turmoil which he deals with by heading to the sea, where he feels free and peaceful. As a "good Christian" who would rather "sleep with a sober cannibal (i.e., Queequeg) than a drunken Christian" (Melville, 89), Ishmael clearly represents everything that is good -- he is conscientious, morally strong, virtuous, honest and concerned for the welfare of his fellow human beings.

At one point in the novel, Ishmael reveals even more about his "goodness" by declaring that "I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person does not believe as he does" (Melville, 134). This passage shows that Ishmael is very open-minded and willing to tolerate the views and opinions of other people regardless of their religious convictions and perhaps the lack of them. He is also very concerned with how a person's religious beliefs might negatively impact the lives of others, for he states.".. when a man's religion becomes really frantic, when it is a positive torment... (and) makes this earth... An uncomfortable inn to lodge in, then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him" (Melville, 135).

All in all, Ishmael symbolizes the true "goodness" of man (at least from a religious perspective), one who is dedicated to the rights of others even when he feels they are morally wrong and one who is willing to face adversity at great cost to himself, something which truly comes about as a test of his "goodness" when he confronts his alter-ego, his doppleganger, the dark shadow as contrasted with the whiteness of Moby Dick in the form of Captain Ahab.

From the viewpoint of Melville scholar Lawrence Cleveland, the character of Captain Ahab, the sole master of the whaling ship the Pequod, "lost his leg to Moby Dick" which makes him "the victim of an attack by a vicious animal" ("Captain Ahab," Internet) in the form of a giant albino sperm whale. Yet by the time one reads Chapter 36 of the novel, it becomes clear that Ahab, named after a biblical figure that was married to Jezebel "who sponsored false prophets and gods, killed true ones and destroyed altars devoted to the Lord or Jehovah" (Smith, 267), is now a man possessed and "obsessed with destroying Moby Dick," due to the having lost his leg to the mighty jaws of the mysterious and terrifying white whale, humped with a crooked back and pierced by lances from past attempts to kill him.

By Chapter 37, the reader is convinced that Ahab is mad, for he admits "I am demonic, I am madness maddened!" (Melville, 436) as a result of his fanatical pursuit of Moby Dick, a fanaticism which reflects Ishmael's description of a religion which is "frantic" and produces "positive torment." As proof of Ahab's madness, the following passage reveals the so-called dark underbelly of the beast, the quintessential evil element in Moby Dick:

Aye, aye! It was that accursed white whale that razed me... I'll chase him round Good

Hope and round the Horn and round the Norway Maelstrom and round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! To chase that white whale... till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out!" (Melville, 432).

Although it cannot be disputed that Moby Dick itself stands as a symbol of evil, due to removing Ahab's leg and the limbs of many other past pursuers and being responsible for the drowning deaths of untold numbers of Nantucket whalers over the years, he has only reacted as such because his very existence was threatened by mankind in the form of hunting and harpooning; in essence, Moby Dick was simply protecting himself and reacted as any wild animal would to threats of death. Simultaneously, Captain Ahab's obsession to destroy the white whale is also evil, for only true evil can be found in man, rather than in animals. Thus, "the evil that Moby Dick appears to have is the (same) evil within Captain Ahab" who has "projected his own feelings and instincts onto Moby Dick" (Cleveland, Internet).