Herman Melville begins Moby Dick in a fairly similar way to how Poe started The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, where the narrator introduces the reader to a written account of their past experiences: spirited adventures that were inspired by a passion for the sea. Poe writes of Pym’s oceanic desires when stating: “I never experienced a more ardent longing for the wild adventures incident to the life of a navigator” (13). Melville seems to be commenting on the collective human aspect of Pym’s yearning when Moby Dick’s narrator Ishmael states: “Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea?” (19). Ishmael actually spends the entirety of chapter one describing this magnetic, even magical, pull that the ocean has over human life. Through his descriptions, Ishmael makes it seem like there is some type of metaphysical component connecting humans to water, an inherent desire that attracts us all to the ocean at some point in our lives.
As a New England native, I can attest to this belief, having spent the majority of my summers either on the beaches of Rhode Island or Cape Cod. Many memories of my childhood are engulfed with the images of beach scenery, and even as I grow older, my admiration for the ocean seems to only grow stronger. To most, life by the water is picturesque, since it is a life of leisure. We venture to the ocean for a chance to relax, to marvel at the beauty of the world around us, to allow the melody of the reverberating waves soothe away the shrilling noise of our everyday life. Like Ishmael says: “Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever” (19).
Yet, Ishmael is not specifically drawn towards this serene essence of ocean life; his longing for the sea derives from an underlying urge for pure adventure: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote” (22). Like Pym, Ishmael wishes to escape to the water as a way to transform the mediocrity living of his life into a soulful voyage of time. He does not want to be a mere passenger of a ship (or of his dreams), he wants to be a sailor, actively participating in the action and excitement aboard a whaling vessel. A character fully invested in taking advantage of the present moment, Ishmael represents a youthful and eager spirit wishing to seize control of the fate of one’s own life. With his adventurous fortitude, Ishmael does not seem to see the temporality to one’s dreams or the incessant hold that destiny has over humanity. When presented with the memorial tablets of lost shipmates, Ishmael reflects: “Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance.” (45). Clearly noted as a man skeptical of religion, Ishmael does not consider a life after death, and therefore pays no mind to the outcome of his voyage, or what destiny may have in store for him. He continues: “Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water” (45). Rather than maintain a life of idle stature, staring hazily into the eyes of religion for a sign of direction, Ishmael decides to be the navigator of his own agency and use the will of his adventurous soul as his only source of guiding inspiration.
– Angela Concilio
