Moby Dick Essay Essay

Moby-Dick is a novel of darkness. Though Melville did not intend it, his story, I find, can scarcely be understand at night by a dim light on my patio, looking out over the starlit desert. As I read, I hotshot the darkness of his story. I am not moved to fright or horror by it, but I feel those shadows move in. Psyche is adjacent but not yet touchable. Something is missing, at least if youve only read to Chapter 40. There is darkness, jocularity, hints of imminent catastrophe, and pleasant old English to be read.The story is only just developing. Ahab, Ishmael, Starbuck, Stub, Flask, and Moby-Dick all of these characters atomic number 18 well k straightawayn in our modern, literary world. Ishmaels narrative sets their qualities clear, but this is only a tool of literary character development. The reader is not drawn into the horror that has occurred (Ahabs dismemberment) or into the horror to come until Chapter41. We are faced with Ahabs hallucination in Chapter 36 and, with I shmael we stand in awe of the power of the man, overlooking the depth of his madness.Chapter 41curiously named by the title of the bookfinally brings the horror to ingenuousness as Ishmael personifies the shadow within Moby Dick- the whale, and the madness in Ahab. Moby-Dick, the White Whale itself, is only a representation of the sperm whale species so clearly unique and delineated by Melville in earlier chapters. It is difficult to be either drawn to himMoby-Dickor repelled by him. That can only happen at a time the whale becomes the personification of the psychological iniquity. When we personify something, we move it closer to its archetypal meaning.In this essay, Moby-Dick becomes the personification of Shadow in all of us. Within that Shadow are found fear, vengeance, ferocity, and murderous rage. Personification by itself is not enough. Moby Dick is used as a vessel by the shadow, and once the Shadow is contained by the name of Moby-Dick, any cardinal with knowledge of ar chetypal images can clinically dissect it and, thereby, miss what Melville is trying to accomplish linkage of the archetype to the insane Ahab. So the archetype is doubly personified, head start in the embodiment of the White Whale, then in the humanity of Captain Ahab.Shadow exists in the strawman of humanity, insane or not. If we are to understand madness, it moldinessiness be personified. As the chapter opens, Ishmael ponders over his own participation in the excitement generated by Ahabs grandiosity. Transference has occurred and now Ishmael senses, A wild, mystical, sympathetically feeling Ahabs quenchless feud seemed mine (1967, p. 155). The counter transference is manifested in the arousal of the crew to do Ahabs bidding. Before that can happen, though, Moby-Dick must become real.Ishmael relates the factual calamities caused by the sperm whale then, the rumors running widespread throughout the fishery. He points us to these facts and rumors and further says that it is not surprising that whalemen should go still further in their superstitions declaring Moby-Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time) (1967, p. 158). Ishmael cites contemporary authors who rave of the ferocity of the sperm cell whale saying even sharks nearby are struck with the most lively terrors and often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks (1967, p. 57). These contemporary authors bug out the process of personification. The whale seems to live in rage and fury. The phantom of fear and threat from the white whale strikes animals into their instincts to be fearful of such a recondite thought. The sharks indeed can be personified as Ahab and his crew, fearful of the whale and the shadow within it. Moby Dick has been shown to hold the Shadow and all the malicious implications of that Shadow. Our fears and terrors now establish a pointthe whale, in space and time upon which to hang.In some strange way, our fears and terrors have an altar upon which we can sacrifice them. The whale becomes the god and, give care Ahab, we point to it as source and origin of all that ails us, consciously and unconsciously. The whale/Shadow lives each day with us. We have reflected, as Ahab has, on its presence and now contemplate its destruction. The moral here is about to be conveyed through the character of Ahab, as his emotions represent the act of emotional self-defense.According to Sigmund Freud, The mind may ward off the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and by redirecting libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or projecting, those same faults onto another person or object, which in this case Ahab projects those faults on Moby Dick, the white sperm whale. And now we turn to Ahab. Ishmael presents us with one telling sentence The White Whale swam before him as a monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating i n them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. (1967, p. 160)As with many a madness, Ahab suffered a physical trauma. He lived through the physical healing of that wounding but his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another and so interfusing, made him mad. (1967, p. 160)Ishmael incorporates poetic speech in his attempt to say that this madness personified in Ahab could afflict any of us. The soul of a human is affected by physical punishment such as humiliation penetrates the mental convey of mind of the victim. One, in act of self-pity, will act upon the most dangerous undertaking to remove the humiliation from their mental state.Ahab comes to personify Madness itself as evinced in his ravings to the crew, his introspection in Chapter 37, and now by Melvilles delineation of the onset of that madness, in the voice of Ishmael. The reader makes this move, not Ishmael. Our own Shadow points to Ahab instead of indoors Ahab are substance, which will hold our conception of our own potentiality to madness. We nod our heads in affirmation of Ishmaels narrative as he talks of this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Jobs whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals (1967, p. 62).It is Shadow that drives this Captain beyond his ability to understand. So Shadow stands now doubly personified in whale and man. The shadow which presents itself through a mans raving mad passion subconsciously pushes a victim to think and act beyond the norm to rid our minds of that threatened psyche and the burning fire of revenge in the human soul. We have seen the psychology in this fiction. Now ask where resides this fiction in psychology? Dont let the enormity of this story vitiate the metaphor. This happens every day in the consulting room.Personification of Shadow gives the client the means whereby to heal. The therapist must recognize the opportunity and make t he most of it. It is Psyche that has allowed the presence of Shadow in the consulting room. It is Psyche that allows Shadow to walk with Healing. I have only told the beginning of this story within the story. Once personified, how will the madness and hatred come to conflict? Who will win? We all know the story ofMoby-Dick. But have we ever stopped to think that its ending isnotone of catastrophe, but one of integration?