The above picture from: edomforwhales.tumblr.com/post/100850634265/sperm-whale-during-the-days-of-commercial-gives us a nice idea of how large whales are in comparison to humans.
In his novel “Moby Dick” Herman Melville often emphasizes the physical human likeness of the Sperm Whale. There are several chapters where Melville gives detailed descriptions of varying anatomical features seen in the Sperm Whale. He dedicated entire chapter(s) to the skin, head, the blowhole, and the tail.
He begins by describing the whale’s skin in a chapter called, “The Blanket”. Ishmael tells us, “the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a new-born child”(Melville, 246). Here not only is Melville comparing the whale’s skin to that of a human but is implying that it is in fact superior. In the chapter, “The Fountain” the whale’s spout/blow hole is being described as having, “regular lungs like a human beings”(Melville 290). As Ishmael goes forward in the chapter you again see his tendency to find that the whale’s anatomy is superior, “In man, breathing is incessantly going on- one breath only serving for two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to attend to, walking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time” (Melville 291). In his chapter regarding the tail, he does not even attempt to compare it with humans, but relates the tail to Hercules, and other gods. When the Pequod crew passes through the channel they encounter whales that have just given birth, and compares the nursing whales, to nursing infants and describes the way the both gaze. The whale quickly demonstrates its superiority by displaying its unbelievable strength.
In making these comparisons and contrasts Melville is expressing Ishmaels idolization of the Sperm Whale.
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Whales Weep Not!
D.H. Lawrence
They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.
All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge
on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs.
The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers
there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of the sea!
And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages
on the depths of the seven seas,
and through the salt they reel with drunk delight
and in the tropics tremble they with love
and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods.
Then the great bull lies up against his bride
in the blue deep bed of the sea,
as mountain pressing on mountain, in the zest of life:
1and out of the inward roaring of the inner red ocean of whale-blood
the long tip reaches strong, intense, like the maelstrom-tip, and comes to rest
in the clasp and the soft, wild clutch of a she-whale’s fathomless body.
And over the bridge of the whale’s strong phallus, linking the wonder of whales
the burning archangels under the sea keep passing, back and forth,
keep passing, archangels of bliss
from him to her, from her to him, great Cherubim
that wait on whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the sea
great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies.
And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-tender young
and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of the beginning and the end.
And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring
when danger threatens, on the surface of the ceaseless flood
and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat
encircling their huddled monsters of love.
And all this happens in the sea, in the salt
where God is also love, but without words:
and Aphrodite is the wife of whales
most happy, happy she!
and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin
she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea
she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males
and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.
http://www.kalliope.org/en/digt.pl?longdid=lawrence2001061770
