The Symphony

1. Overall structure of the novel

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Moby Dick is a novel by the author Herman Melville and published in 1851. It has the
open form which Melville borrowed from the Romantic aesthetics. It consists of 135
chapters along with etymology and epilogue. The whole novel is divided into three
parts. Part 1 consists of chapters 1-15, part 2 chapters 16-35 and part 3 chapters 36135.
In the beginning the novel talks mostly about whaling in general which is why many
people saw it as a whaling handbook because of the exhausting number of information
and facts, everything you can imagine about the whale hunt, about the whales and
whaling etc.
The Symphony is chapter number 132 and it is very important because it is a
beginning of the end, meaning that is leads to the main question which is Ahabs
belief.
The story is about Captain of the ship Pequod, whose name is Ahab. The ship with its
crew leaves Nantucket on a cold Christmas Day. Ahab is chasing the legendary white
whale called Moby Dick, because he took his leg and Ahab sees that whale as the
embodiment of evil. He's got his own harpoon crew and he hopes that they will find
and kill Moby Dick. Starbuck was another important character in this novel because
he was the ship's first mate and because in Symphony chapter, he leads a conversation
with Ahab about their killing spree; then we come to The Symphony chapter which is
the beginning of the end of the whole novel, meaning it leads to the battle against the
whale; Moby Dick rams the Pequod and sinks it, Ahab is caught in a harpoon line and
hurled out of his harpoon boat to his death, all of the remaining whaleboats and men
are caught in the vortex created by the sinking Pequod and pulled under to their
deaths. Ishmael, who was thrown from a boat at the beginning of the chase, was far
enough away to escape the whirlpool, and he alone survives.

2. Why is Symphony chapter important?

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The Symphony chapter is important because in this chapter, Ahab has his moments of
doubt for the first time and he is again having a conversation with Starbuck, about this
never-ending chase for the white whale. In this chapter, he laments over not seeing his
wife and child, we can see his whole life described in this chapter: everlasting
wanderings in the sea, searching for the whale who may kill him (and who did kill
him), he escaped from the peaceful life he might've led with his family, and he's
calling himself a demon because he left his wife to be a widow with her husband still
alive. In this chapter, there is also a good description of nature, of everything beautiful
that one can see in the open sea and of course, symbolism and the difference between
masculine and feminine.

3. SYMPHONY CHAPTER.

3.1 How does it begin? Conversation between Ahab and Starbuck?

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This chapter begins with Ahab watching the sea and the nature that surrounds it, and it
begins with the description and difference between masculine and feminine. Ahab
stands on the deck, thinking about his family and lamenting over everything he had
left behind him, and notices Starbuck watching him. The two of them start talking, and
exchanging stories about their families. Starbuck is trying to convince Ahab to leave
this killing spree behind them, change the course and go back to Nantucket to their
families. But no matter how much Ahab wanted that, apparently his will to kill the
legendary whale is much stronger. The chapter ends with all of them, including
Fedallah, looking over the rail.
3.2 Symbolism

You could even take the entire novel as one huge symbol. Everything practically is
symbolical, from the names of the ships, from these various encounters of the Pequod
with other ships. You also have this idea of what might help human beings in this
seemingly hopeless situation that we are all thrown out to sea as the crew of the
Pequod without really knowing our proper destination, chasing after something that
we dont know actually what we are chasing, what is the true character of that we are
looking for, etc. So, you have all sorts of symbolic dimensions which tell something
about the human condition which is again, from Melvilles perspective and Ahabs
perspective, very bleak, gloomy, very dark and very pessimistic.
You have the symbolical contrast between the masculine and the feminine
principle in nature where you have contrasting images of, for example the sea and
the blue color which stands for the masculine. Normally, the sea and water are in the
symbolical vocabularies of many cultures associated with feminine or femininity.
However, in Melvilles novel the sea, because of the ruggedness of sailors is somehow
brought into connection with masculinity. So, the masculine would be the sea and
color blue; the femininity would be the air and the color white. You also have the sea
in accordance with his symbolical imagery associated with roughness. So, it is
something robust and rough probably coming from his experience as a sailor.
Whereas, the air is associated as the feminine principle with something pure and soft,
purity and softness is associated with the air, whereas roughness and robustness is
associated with the sea. And again on the masculine part of this equation the sea is
associated with he says trouble and murderous thoughts, such as the whales and the
sharks. So, he also associates the sea, the masculinity with robustness in the sense of
destructive impulse, impulse towards destruction, murderous thoughts, hinting or
referring to Captain Ahab and his wish to murder Moby Dick, whales and sharks, so
the reference is very clear. On the other side of that equation, associated with
femininity, the air and softness and purity, you have he says gentle thoughts
symbolically represented through the birds that fly through the air. So, birds are here
associated with something more noble, more gentle, more feminine, more soft and
pure. However, on that particular day these two opposites seem to come together, the
outcome of that is the harmony in nature.

Another representation of symbolism would be the difference between life on the

land and at the sea. Ahab associates life on land with luxury, beauty and comfort,
with good, natural food. And life at the sea is everything opposite.
There is a symbol of their ship, Pequod: Named after a Native American tribe in
Massachusetts that did not long survive the arrival of white men and thus
memorializing an extinction, the Pequod is a symbol of doom. It is painted a gloomy
black and covered in whale teeth and bones, literally bristling with the mementos of
violent death. It is, in fact, marked for death. Adorned like a primitive coffin, the
Pequod becomes one.
Moby Dick (The White Whale) possesses various symbolic meanings for various
individuals. To Starbuck, Moby Dick is just another whale, except that he is more
dangerous. The Samuel Enderby's captain, who has lost an arm to the White Whale,
sees it as representing a great prize in both glory and sperm oil but seems very
reasonable in his desire to leave the whale alone.
To some, the White Whale is a myth. To others, he is immortal. Ishmael grants that
Ahab views the whale as an embodiment of evil. Ishmael himself is not so sure. In its
inscrutable silence and mysterious habits, for example, the White Whale can be read
as an allegorical representation of an unknowable God. As a profitable commodity, it
fits into the scheme of white economic expansion and exploitation in the nineteenth
century. As a part of the natural world, it represents the destruction of the environment
by such hubristic expansion.
Queequegs coffin alternately symbolizes life and death. Queequeg has it built when
he is seriously ill, but when he recovers, it becomes a chest to hold his belongings and
an emblem of his will to live. He perpetuates the knowledge tattooed on his body by
carving it onto the coffins lid. The coffin further comes to symbolize life, in a morbid
way, when it replaces the Pequods life buoy. When the Pequod sinks, the coffin
becomes Ishmaels buoy, saving not only his life but the life of the narrative that he
will pass on.
3.3 Nature

We have descriptions of nature. It is a wonderful, beautiful day at the sea. Thats the
day of perfect harmony in nature, the winds have stopped, the weather is beautiful, the
sun is shining and there is no clear dividing line between the sea as the masculine
element and the air as the feminine element. You almost have an erotic imagery of
harmony in nature which comes as a result of this perfect union of the two elements,
of the masculine and the feminine element, the sea and the air, of the blueness and the
whiteness. Even Captain Ahab who is almost invariably gloomy and dark, this would
be one of rare occasions when he himself seems to be cheerful and a little bit more
optimistic because he is influenced by this exceedingly beautiful day and as a
consequence of that he has one of a very rare moments throughout the novel in which
he makes peace with the world and the world with him as well, and he is even moved
to tears, Starbuck appears and then they start to talk. Sturbuck tries to use this
temporary weakness and emotionality of Ahab to try to persuade him to something, he
fails of course in this.

3.4 Whiteness of the whale

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Moby Dick is an impersonal force, one that many critics have interpreted as an
allegorical representation of God, an inscrutable and all-powerful being that
humankind can neither understand nor defy. Moby Dick thwarts free will and cannot
be defeated, only accommodated or avoided. In Chapter 42, "The Whiteness of the
Whale" narrator tells us that Moby Dick's whiteness might represent good or evil,
glory or damnation, all colors or the "visible absence of color." Melville himself writes
in this chapter that the fact that Moby Dick is white can mean all sorts of very
different and contrary and opposite things. Because whiteness in our culture usually is
associated with something good, something positive, it is associated with innocence.
At the same time he makes it clear in this chapter that it can also mean many other
contrary and opposite things, it can mean something ghastly, it can mean something
ominous, something very negative, something threatening, etc.
Moby Dick belongs to the so-called sperm whales. They can be up to 15 meters long
and male specimens can weigh up to 45 tones. In many natural objects, whiteness
refines and enhances beauty, as in pearls, or confers special qualities such as
innocence or purity. There is an elusive quality that causes the thought of whiteness to
heighten terror, such as the white bear of the poles or the white shark of the tropics.
Among humans, the Albino is considered shocking and loathed, while the whiteness of
a corpse is a distinguishing and disturbing feature. In its most profound, idealized
significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul. White is portentous because it
is indefinite, not so much a color as the visible absence of color. While Melville does
confront symbolic interpretation of the color white as symbolic of purity or innocence,
he instead finds whiteness to represent absence or opacity. This suggests that the white
whale Moby Dick resists any definition or internal meaning. Whatever meaning or
symbolism that the whale holds exists entirely in relation to others' perceptions of it.
To be explicit, Moby Dick gains definition and symbolic value only in terms of its
relation to Ahab and, to a much lesser extent, the other members of the Pequod crew.
3.5 Ahab's life philosophy, life vision and his metaphysical belief; semitranscendentalist belief and role of nature

Ahab is a man of great depth but few words. When he speaks, others listen because he
moves them with charismatic persuasion.
The Pequods obsessed captain, represents both an ancient and a quintessentially
modern type of hero. Like the heroes of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, Ahab suffers
from a single fatal flaw, one he shares with such legendary characters as Oedipus and
Faust. His tremendous overconfidence, or hubris, leads him to defy common sense and
believe that, like a god, he can enact his will and remain immune to the forces of
nature. He considers Moby Dick the embodiment of evil in the world, and he pursues
the White Whale monomaniacally because he believes it is his inescapable fate to
destroy this evil. Unlike the heroes of older tragic works, however, Ahab suffers from
a fatal flaw that is not necessarily inborn but instead stems from damage, in his case
both psychological and physical, inflicted by life in a harsh world. He is as much a
victim as he is an aggressor, and the symbolic opposition that he constructs between
himself and Moby Dick propels him toward what he considers a destined end. To

Ahab, the White Whale is a faade, a mask, behind which lurks the "inscrutable
thing," the force that is Ahab's true enemy. Ahab is certain that the force is evil. Others
find the evil in Ahab's ego, in his own soul. To understand Ahab, we must understand
that it is this force behind the mask that Ahab really wants to kill. Ahab believes that
the force wants to injure him, to limit his role in the world. Ahab sees that inscrutable
power as evil. Some scholars argue that it is not the whale, or the force behind the
whale, that is evil; the evil is in Ahab. Others see the captain as simply insane. Ahab is
out of control as he rants about attacking the force behind the faade of Moby Dick.
He wants to kill the whale in order to reach that force. Ahab seems to want to be a god.
As great and charismatic a man as he can be in his finest moments, the captain is
destructively egocentric and mad for power. To Ahab, we might conclude, the White
Whale represents that power which limits and controls man. Ahab sees it as evil
incarnate.
Ahab is not that much even concerned with only finding Moby Dick and killing him to
take revenge upon him for having been maimed by him, but we see that there are
metaphysical reasons behind it, very philosophical, metaphysically-religious reasons
as he actually wants to ponder into the mysteries of the universe through Moby Dick.
So, he is a sort of a transcendentalist, captain Ahab, who just like Emerson and
Thoreau believes that every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact and thats
exactly what Moby Dick means to him, he does not know actually his real meaning, he
can pin down the meaning of Moby Dick himself, but he assumes that he represents
something much more profound, some force that he is driven by himself (Moby Dick).
So, he sees in him something very ominous, some sign from some other world and he
is not quite sure, as he says in this chapter, whiter Moby Dick himself is a perpetrator,
whether he is an agent of some higher force behind him, or whether he is the
embodiment of that very force. So, practically it is a very romantic theme, you have a
captain who is a monomaniac. So, he is monomaniacally looking for the whale to take
revenge upon him and at the same time to ponder the secretes, the mysteries of human
existence, of the meaning of life, of the universe itself. So, it is a very bleak and
pessimistic vision, it is a very pessimistic novel when you take into consideration
captain Ahabs worldview. So, we may say that both Melville and his protagonist
captain Ahab are disappointed transcendentalists. Why disappointed
transcendentalists? Transcendentalist in the sense that he believes in nature and natural
world as a reflection of some higher spiritual truths, or as projections of some deeper
metaphysical forces that work behind these natural appearances. But, disappointed in
the sense that, unlike Emerson and Thoreau who kind of formulated their theory which
is very optimistic and which was based on these premises, Melvilles view is far more
pessimistic and so is Captain Ahabs. So, he does believe that there is some higher
force, some sort of deity or god behind all of that who is also moving, making moves
and playing sort of, you also have Shakespearean echoes there, some sort of deity
which is, however, very hostile to human beings in his perspective at least, very
hostile, or at best indifferent. So, nature seems to be very indifferent to human beings,
but nature as a reflection of some higher force maybe god behind it. So, his view of
the entire universe is very pessimistic and gloomy and dark actually (Ahabs). So, it is
not just about taking revenge on this very simple level, but it is about chasing Moby
Dick in hope that he would grasp the secrets, the mysteries of the universe and of
course he never succeeds in this. The entire mission fails, Ahab is punished for his

excessive pride and this monomania that is driving him throughout the novel because
when they do encounter Moby Dick for the second time in Ahabs life he sinks the
ship and kills the entire crew and Ishmael, the narrator who appears at the very
beginning of the novel, is the only one to survive and of course he has to survive
because somebody has to tell the tale in the manner of Coleridges Ancient Mariner
who is the only one who survives to tell the tale about the killing of the albatross, you
also have many parallels there too.