Aliki Caloyeras

My contribution to the English 102 Gam (02.20.06):

I must begin with a confession: Moby-Dick overwhelms me. At the moment, while I am in the midst of reading Moby-Dick, I can think of no other novel that instills in me such anxiety. It is not because Moby-Dick is long or difficult to read. It is not because reading Moby-Dick requires patience, persistence, and perseverance. It is not that Moby-Dick bores, confounds, or repels me as I’ve heard it does many readers. On the contrary, Moby-Dick pulls me in and entangles me in its mesh of excess.

All weekend, as I read and reread various chapters of this fascinating and downright bizarre book, I racked my brain trying to come up with something, just one thing, to talk about today. But each time I settled on just one thing, just one passage, just one motif to meditate on and briefly discuss, I found that the singular thing I chose proliferated into something much bigger and much more difficult to grasp.

Let me give you an example. After going back and forth, choosing and then changing my mind about what to talk about, I finally picked out chapter 60, “The Line,” in which Ishmael describes the whale-line–the rope used to haul in the harpooned whale. I was struck by how this seemingly mundane object is imbued with such mystery and power in the chapter. Ishmael calls it the “the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line” before going on to detail how it is made and of what materials as well as how it is stored and used. On the surface, I see why these kinds of details may bore or turn off some readers. But a closer look reveals the odd, domestic similes he uses to describe the line and the activities it allows for:

Take, for example, the line near the top of p. 228 : “When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the american line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.”*

Or, take the 2nd full paragraph on the same page which describes the reasons for leaving the whale lines exposed and hanging over the side of the ship: “This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This arrangement is indispensable for common safety’s sake; for were the lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea. . .”

As I read this chapter I was reminded of other times in the book that “line” imagery comes up. I thought of Queequeg’s early appearance in ch. 4, “The Counterpane,” where Queequeg’s arm, which is “tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure” is likened to “a strip of that same patchwork quilt” that covers Queequeg and Ishmael as they sleep (37); or later in “The Monkey Rope” chapter (ch. 72) when Queequeg is tied to Ishmael by a so-called monkey rope. Ishmael describes their dangerous connection on p. 255:

“It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down to his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed” (255)

This reminded me of “The Grand Armada” chapter (ch. 87) where Starbuck sees “long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase,” Ishmael narrates, “this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped” (303). This page also includes one of Melville’s original footnotes about whales occasionally giving birth to “an Esau and Jacob,” recalling once again the twin imagery of chapter 72.

I wondered what other occurrences of this motif I could find in the text, so I did a search of the Princeton digital version of Moby-Dick online. I found 256 occurrences of variations of the word, “line. That number rises to 438 occurrences if you includes similar words like, “cord,” “rope,” “thread,” “hemp,” “yarn,” “strand,” as well as related words like “loom,” “weave,” and “knit.” There are only 427 pages in the book, but that’s right, 438 occurrences of the “line” motif. . . in case anyone was wondering why Moby-Dick overwhelms me.

How is one to deal with such a pervasive and intricately woven pattern of line imagery? In Moby-Dick, a simple object such as a “whale-line” is never just the thing it seems on the surface; it is a single stitch in a complicated and crazy counterpane that pulls the reader in, too–everything is connected in every direction. And the same thing that connects you to your fellow man also threatens to pull you under. . .

I want to conclude by suggesting that the last paragraph of ch. 60, “The Line,” not only addresses why the whale-line is “magical” and “horrible” but also describes one reading experience of the novel itself: “. . . so the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play - this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side” (229).

* All references are to the Norton Critical Edition of Moby-Dick.

The Breakdown:

“Lines”: A digital text search of one of the online versions of Moby-Dick reveals that variations of the word “line” appear 256 times in the novel.

Synonyms of the word “line”. . .

“Cords”: . . . 75 times.

“Ropes”: . . .53 times.

“Threads”: . . .11 times.

“Hemp”: . . . 10 times.
[. . .although the whale-line is later made out of ‘golden’ Manilla rather than dark hemp.]

“Yarn”: . . . 6 times.

“Strand”: . . . 3 times.

That adds up to 414 appearances of the word “line” or its synonyms in the 427-page novel.

Add to that the 24 combined occurrences of the words: “Loom” (10); “Weave” (8); and “Knit” (4), and you have 438 occurrences of line-related words strung through the text.