Transformation and Mixture in Moby-Dick :: Moby Dick Melville

Classroom discussions of Moby-Dick often result in a heightened aw areness of Melvilles depictions of dichotomy in nature for example, the contrasting set up and sea respectively represent heaven and hell and the foul-smelling monster in Chapter 92 produces a fragrant and valu competent substance called ambergris. that interpreting Melvilles Moby-Dick only as an exercise in duality limits the scope of this complex novel. Melvilles contemporary, Margaret Fuller, also seems aware of the confining opinion of duality and states in Woman in the Nineteenth Century manful and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into one other. Fluid hardens into solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman genius provides exceptions to every rule (Fuller 293-4).Fuller explains that duality is a limiting and schmalzy concept, especially when used to describe nature. Transformation and mixture are concepts that more(prenominal) accurately characterize both nature and the writings of Fuller and Melville. tenfold perspectives are ideal for these authors, as is evident in Melvilles many-sided Ishmael. At the end of the novel only Ishmael survives because he is able to view life and nature in an all-encompassing fashion.Melville is preoccupied with jewel caskets in this novel, exploring the connection that this object has to nature -- an object that is made from nature (wood) and holds another part of nature (a body) after a natural progression has taken place (death). Melville seems fascinated by this odd and frequent custom of reality of burying bodies inside a wooden box. Even seamen who remain available to land, such as Queequeg, desire such a burial at sea. This coffin motif begins within the first few lines of Chapter 1, Loomings, when Ishmael thinks of funeralsWhenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth whenever it is a damp, soupy November in my soul whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral procession I comely (Melville 3).This statement in the beginning of the novel introduces the reader to the coffin vision that Melville uses throughout Moby-Dick and serves as the metaphor for transformative mixture throughout this paper.In Chapter 110, Queequeg in his Coffin, Chapter 126, The Life-Buoy, and the Epilogue, Melville explores many different and interesting representations of Queequegs coffin. Queequegs coffin cannot be defined only in terms of duality it is not evidently just a coffin and a life-buoy.