Down in the Whole World's Books: The Humanism of Moby Dick‪.‬

NOT MANY WORKS of art in the vast and various field we call the humanities may be said to represent in any direct or systematic way the philosophy we refer to as humanism. In fact, a great many priceless works have a decidedly theocentric matrix, such as Dante's Divine Comedy, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel, while those manifesting theological nihilism, such as Voltaire's Candide or Camus' The Stranger, are comparatively rare. Most of the humanities, or liberal arts, are a mixed bag when it comes to their representation of the relative importance of humanity and divinity in the cosmos. The question here is this: What are the implications for contemporary humanists of a classic like Herman Melville's Moby Dick--a novel that dramatizes alternative, conflicting worldviews? What does this story tell us about the human condition? The playful transmogrifications of Melville's often humorous style tend to mask the gravity of Ishmael's mood at the beginning of the story. He is a broke, angry, depressed young man who goes to sea as a way of "driving off the spleen" whenever there's "a damp, drizzly November in my soul" and he feels like "methodically knocking people's hats off." He appears to be an outcast like his biblical namesake, the "wild man [whose] hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him" (Gen. 16:12) Given the references to submerged hostility, we aren't surprised--after Ahab vows death to Moby Dick during his initial pep talk to the crew--to hear Ishmael say, "A wild, mystical, sympathetic feeling was in me; Ahab's quenchless feud seemed mine." As critics generally realize, of course, Ahab and Ishmael are co-conspirators representing different aspects of a single, complex identity.