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originally posted by: ketsuko
Some thing to keep in mind:
Someone mentioned Ishmael sounds Arabic? Indeed. Ishmael was the son of Abraham by his wife's servant Haggar. Even though Ishmael was the elder of Abraham's sons, Isaac was the legitimate son by Abraham's wife Sarah and was the inheritor of Abraham's legacy and blessed by God as the father of Israel.
Now the jealousy that Sarah felt for Haggar and Ishmael led to the pair being cast out into the desert which led to God saving them miraculously when Ishmael was about to die of thirst. A spring suddenly welled up and saved them. God also blessed Ishmael, but it is a dubious blessing. He was blessed to have descendants as numerous as the stars but they would forever be as a thorn in the side of men (something like that). Islam also carries a version of this legend and I believe they claim descent from Ishmael and thus lay claim to Abraham's legacy too.
You could say this is one of the oldest dysfunctional family stories in the world.
Now, Melville uses Ishmael to be the narrator's voice! Chew on that and stir in his motto. Also consider that first person narrators are unreliable narrators because we readers have to rely on them to tell us what is going on, but what we get is filtered through their experiences.
Also it is interesting to consider that one of the signs Ishmael uses to decide to go to sea is his sudden need to follow funerals and walk by coffin shops. Foreshadowing? Anyone here who has completed the novel knows what I mean and will also see how Melville also ties Ishmael to his Biblical counterpart with that little miracle that saves him at the end so he can tell us his story.
Ishmael is also pre-occupied with the sea/water ...
Hart became widely known with his novel Miriam Coffin; or, The Whale-Fisherman (1835). This was the first novel to deal with whaling in Nantucket, a subject later made famous by Herman Melville in Moby-Dick. Hart's work was the most important fictional influence on Melville's novel. Hart wrote the book to encourage congressional support for the whaling industry. He interviewed local people to obtain an accurate account of their lives and the workings of the industry. Unlike Melville, Hart concentrates on the community in Nantucket, and places less emphasis on the whalers. The novel was based on the historical career of profiteer Kezia Coffin (1723–1798). It describes the corrupt financial dealings of Miriam, a whaler's wife, whose unproductive market speculations are contrasted with the heroic and productive labors of her husband, fighting nature and dangerous savage peoples to bring home useful raw materials
The carpet bag was invented as a type of baggage light enough for a passenger to carry, like a duffel bag, as opposed to a wooden or metal trunk, which required the assistance of porters. It was a good traveling companion: in 1886, the Scientific American described it as old-fashioned and reliable: the carpet bag "is still unsurpassed by any, where rough wear is the principal thing to be studied. Such a bag, if constructed of good Brussels carpeting and unquestionable workmanship, will last a lifetime, provided always that a substantial frame is used." Its use implied self-sufficiency: in Jules Verne's 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days, Phileas Fogg and Passepartout bring only a carpet bag as luggage, which holds a few items of clothing and a great deal of cash.
originally posted by: AnkhMorpork
a reply to: zosimov
Thirdly, as I was being led straight to the contemplation of the ocean regarding it's strange and almost mystic allure to people of all kinds, along with a good explanation of his desire to set off on a whaling voyage, I also had the sense of being forced to consider the possibility that there were two narratives running parallel to one another, the other one of which was of an allegorical nature, as if the whale and endless processions of the whale, while forming a phantom menace in the minds eye, is also a "hump" and a "snow hill in the air", as the chapter ends.
It makes me wonder what he's really up to in the telling of this story, which reads as if reading the book version of a lost video horror story, with a maritime-inspired foreboding not unlike the movie Jaws, as we flyover the scene, and are equally drawn, as he was, in sympathetic harmony with the promise of an ocean voyage.
Where is he hoping to take us?
Which only lends to the whole story, the desire to read on bravely, but questioningly, and wondering if he isn't speaking in metaphors half the time with an almost hypnotic aim and intent.
Here we go...
originally posted by: zosimov
Have you taken this any further with another read? Any new ideas? Also, what do you think Melveille meant by calling the whale a "hooded phantom", and a "snow hill in the air"?
originally posted by: Dan00
a reply to: zosimov
Thanks, zosimov. I enjoyed that very much and I enjoy puzzling over how those two might have hit it off. They look like a pair, don't they? In 1850 Hawthorne would have been 46 and Melville 31. Melville lost his father and eventually went to sea, Hawthorne lost his father when he was away at sea.
Thanks again.
originally posted by: Dan00
a reply to: zosimov
Well,
Thank you again. I am blown away that we have such access to that sort of detail about the "royalty" of American Lit.
Digesting,,,