MAN THE HARPOONS!

Now isn't that a phrase? Anyways this week we broke ground in Moby Dick and the Pequod finally brought down a whale. Two of them actually, and these events have unveiled a new face of whaling. Where we were once faced with war between man in sea we are now given an image of tragic victims of man's enterprise. This development was fairly surprising as I was expecting the novel to maintain it's combative disposition toward the whales in order to glorify those involved in the hunt, but as soon as we saddle up for the hunt we are immediately underwhelmed.

 Once the audience of the novel is actually faced with a real live whale it cuts the conception of them as blood thirsty sea monsters to ribbons, as immediately as the whales are cut to ribbons. The whale isn't killed with any great difficulty or loss of the crew, or damage to the ship. Ironically most danger that comes to the crew comes from the disposal of the whales body. The image of the corpse's disposal, after the creature is shed of it's valuable blubber coat, is of a scorned ghost floating out to sea as the vultures and sharks pick away at it. The idea of the whale having a ghost is indicative of a tragic death or unrighteous slaying, and with each new resource harvested the imagery  is more undignified and harsh. It borders on murder really, with all of the human tributes given to the whales in former chapters in order to set them up as enemies. What we are left with is the beginnings of a more modern look at whales as the gentle giants we know them as.

What I'm interested to see is how this is going to effect our views toward the rest of this journey that Ishmael is on. We're barely halfway through the book and there our image of these daring warriors at sea is unraveling. I still think it leaves room for some more enlightenment and development for Ishmael's opinion and narrative.