Melville's Wicked Book: An Interpretation of Moby Dick: Introduction

Upon finishing Moby-Dick, Herman Melville wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne and said “I have written a wicked book and feel as spotless as the lamb.” This vague and highly suggestive statement describes an equally vague and suggestive novel. In the words of Bewley: “where the possibility of exegesis is so vast, the result must be inevitably a loss of salience.” Indeed hundreds of book-length interpretations of this novel are currently available, each interpretation varied. Still more books on Moby-Dick are collections of many short essays and journal articles attempting the same thing as the books: to identify what Moby-Dick actually is about. Because the book is abstract in its theme, bizarrely designed, and frequently uses byzantine language, it is difficult for both the average reader and experienced critic to understand the author’s intent. This makes it difficult to read, and to gain anything from it, resulting in many readers understandably giving up and concluding Moby-Dick is boring. Other readers, particularly those who have spent a great deal of time with the novel, claim the novel is one of the great American novels; some claim it is the American novel; and some that it belongs among the greatest Western novels ever written. To prove the truth of these claims we must attempt an interpretation. But how can one interpretation succeed where so many have failed? Moby-Dick, too, is vast in theme: where would we begin? Many readers begin with their own concept of the novel’s purpose, and usually conclude the book is either a critique of America, or a warning: Ahab is the negative example and Ishmael the positive example. However, any good reading of a book should first take into account the author's idea of his own novel’s purpose, which brings us back again to Moby-Dick as a wicked book. As this interpretation shall demonstrate, considering the novel primarily in light of this question and its moral and theological implications will unfold the most important parts of this intricate machine. Melville tells Hawthorne in another letter: “this is the book's motto (the secret one), —Ego non baptiso te in nomine—but make out the rest yourself.”The character Ahab delivers the rest of the line “sed in nomine diaboli!” The full translation then is: I do not baptize you in the Father’s name, but in the devil’s name! In what capacity then could the novel be baptized in the devil’s name? Nietzsche makes a similarly curious claim about true philosophers: “We investigators, like all conquerors, explorers, navigators, and adventurers, are men of a daring morality, and we must put up with our liability to be in the main looked upon as evil” [emphasis mine]. Melville’s and Nietzsche’s similar statements should give a sense that the core of the book is concerned with morality, and specifically going beyond conventional false morality. Indeed, the center of Moby-Dick’s narrative is an epic novel that, through the tragic hero Ahab’s quest for the whale, describes man’s hunt for meaning in evil and suffering and the quest for Truth and God. This quest rejects religion and ultimately ends in Ishmael’s modern worldview: pessimistic agnosticism. To construct and prove this interpretation, we must first lay its foundation by looking at what kind of author Melville was, and what kind of novels he wrote. Second, we must briefly summarize the characters and the general plot of the book. Third, we must understand some of the major themes that run through the novel. Fourth and finally, we will have the necessary tools to attempt the general meaning of the novel—to understand why Moby-Dick is a very wicked book, and therefore why it is among the greatest novels produced by Western culture.