The Allegory

That which represents both itself and something else is allegorical. The relationship between what is perceived as truth and what is real is often weaved so intricately that we are unable to distinguish between the two. What's interesting about allegories is the thread of truth found within the tale that often draws on historical, political, or cultural context. The reader or the observer has to really examine what is presented and determine what is true versus what is real. On the surface, it appears that truth and reality are at opposite ends. Rather, the differences help us to understand meaning beyond actual representations, a glimpse, perhaps, into the metaphysical and spiritual. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville expands Melville’s earlier travel narratives by incorporating spiritual and political allegory. What appears to be internal conflict can best be described as an effort to unravel the truth from reality. This paper examines the complex tapestry of Melville’s novel and how it is manifested in the character Ishmael and in the exploration of “whiteness” introduced in Chapter 42: “The Whiteness of the Whale.”

Ishmael is a very interesting character for he is both the narrator and survivor of the Pequod. He is similar to his namesake from the Bible, in that he is a wandering outcast. Except that his wanderings are on the water whereas Ishmael from the Bible is a wanderer upon the sands of the great desert sea south of Israel. Melville’s Ishmael examines and analyzes almost every event, sometimes speaking himself into circles without much conclusion. Harrison Hayford describes Ishmael as a “sympathetic but perplexed observer” in “‘Loomings’: Yarns and Figures in the Fabric” (Hayford 658). Seen as an internal conflict, Ishmael turns “every object, situation, and person [confronted] into a problem, which cannot be solved, a mystery whose lurking meaning cannot be followed to its ultimate elucidation” (Hayford 659). This analysis by Hayford helps us to understand Ishmael’s character and what seems to be confusion or uncertainty. Not of reality. Rather, Ishmael is often in a state of wonder. Hayford states that “wonder and mystery are constantly being evoked, at the same time that inability to solve or to understand is being declared” (Hayford 659). As Hayford continues to speak about Ishmael’s characterization it seems that Ishmael is a representation of a man who happens to be “a compelling but insoluble mystery” (Hayford 659). As both the narrator and the embodiment of man we may better understand Ishmael and ourselves. Human beings by their very nature are complex. A confrontation may be just as difficult for us as it is for Ishmael who continues to struggle with what seems to be opposing ideas as is the case in Chapter 42, "The Whiteness of the Whale."

The “insoluble mystery” continues in Moby-Dick, even to the nature of the great beast. Ishmael discusses the concept of whiteness and its mystical attributes: debating whether the whiteness of the whale is representative of the divine or whether it is representative of something to be feared, like death: "it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things....the very veil of the Christian's Deity....the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind" (Melville 165). Chapter 42 is dedicated to circular narrative and the very nature or essence of whiteness: "[it] is not so much a color as the visible absence of color and at the same time the concrete of all colors..." (Melville 165). It is both beautiful and ugly; inviting and disarming. In "What We Talk around When We Talk about The Dick," Elizabeth Savage begins by saying:

"Moby-Dick's content and its form obviously departs from traditional literary values like coherence, the reconciliation of opposites," however, she concludes this statement by adding that "the novel has more often been recognized for mastering all of these characteristics..." (Savage 93).

Melville's novel presents the reader with a myriad of opposites that are presented in a manner that is not customary to the reader; such as light versus dark or good versus evil. Rather Melville presents the opposition through the symbolism of "whiteness" and how it can be used to represent both good and evil; life and death; and even the consolidation of all the colors to create light or the absence of light.

Because "The Whale" is white; the question becomes "What is the White Whale?" or "What does his whiteness represent?" Ishmael shares with us that Ahab views the white whale as an evil creature. However, Ishmael is not certain that this is the case. Melville's narrator offers us internal dialogue, offering both sides and demonstrating both the virtuous and the vile nature of whiteness in the world around us. Here he tells us that Moby Dick's whiteness might represent good or evil, glory or damnation, all colors or the "visible absence of color" the essence or nature of whiteness" (Melville 165). Savage makes an interesting observation about a scholarly study of Moby-Dick in that "the book is about reading, writing, and the multiple ways to tell (to 'know' as well as to 'say') the truth" (Savage 95). Not unlike the fairy tale, Melville has crafted a story that adds a little bit of magic, superstition, and mystery, as well as a whale size serving of moral and religious themes.

A great example of this type of storytelling can be found in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. J.R.R. Tolkien is considered the foremost expert on the fairy story and had delivered an often quoted Andrew Lang lecture in 1938 on the fairy tale genre and the elements found in these fantastic stories. In a letter to Michael Straight, the editor of New Republic Tolkien states:

“I think that [the] fairy story has its own mode of reflecting ‘truth’, different from allegory, or (sustained) satire, or ‘realism’, and in some ways more powerful. But first of all, it must succeed just as a tale, excite, please, and even on occasion move, and within its own imagined world be accorded (literary) belief” (Tolkien 232).

In this imagined world, we get to experience real emotion through events and Tolkien prescribes in the A manuscript of “On-Fairy-Stories” the key to generating literary belief:

“Joy can tell us much about sorrow, and light about dark but not the other way about. A little joy can often tell more about grief and tragedy than a whole book of unrelieved gloom” (qtd, in Fisher 183).

Many fairy tales contain dark or tragic events with small glimmers of light and hope; only at the end. Tolkien called this upturn a eucatastrophe and stated:

"I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (...) And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth… (“Eucatastrophe”)”.

Eucatastrophic fairy tales introducing opposition emphasize one of the purposes of fairy tales and its appeal for the adult audience; that of truth. Unlike the fairy stories described by Tolkien, Moby-Dick does not have a sudden upturn and ends with tragedy and the lone survivor, Ishmael. However, like a true allegory, we discover the truth in the telling.

Out of preservation, this essay has been more formal rather than personal, yet the concepts of light and truth have been a part of the daily conversation when my father was alive. The wounds of his illness run quite deep and as I reflect on his passing, I realize it has only been ten months. What I know of truth, I learned from him. What I know of light is like that thread of truth; it is woven through every part of my life and I can’t dismiss its presence in my life. My father was asked to write a paper discussing light and the seminal work of J.R.R. Tolkien which embodies those things that I refer to: “The Moral Mythmaker: The Creative Theology of J.R.R. Tolkien”. When first diagnosed with cancer, my father began writing a story for his family. The very first paragraph of his allegory, The Schlendering Report, which he wrote on May 18, 2021, is full of imagery of shared memories as well as the mysterious and supernatural:

On the second of May 1821, Georges Schlendering crossed a wide, shallow stream canopied by yellow-tinted aspens, to the foot of a broad, stone staircase leading from the water’s edge up into a defile that was almost overgrown with conifers and scrub oaks. As to why he crossed the waters to that place he could not say, except that it appealed to him. Certainly, he had other business to attend to downstream, but the pull of that gradually rising cut tone carved into the mountain’s root drew him as no other divergent path had attracted his heart and mind before. It was more than an adventure; it was as if destiny were whispering to him from the shadows.

Works Cited

“Eucatastrophe.” Tolkien Gateway, 20 June 2009, tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Eucatastrophe.

Fisher, Jason. Mythlore, vol. 27, no. 1/2 (103/104), 2008, pp. 179–184. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26814574. Accessed 23 Feb. 2020.

Hayford, Harrison. “‘Loomings’: Yarns and Figures in the Fabric.” Moby-Dick, A Norton Critical Edition Second Edition ed., W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY, 2002, pp. 657–669.

Hyde, Paul N. "The Moral Mythmaker: The Creative Theology of J. R. R. Tolkien." Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel 3, no. 3 (2002). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/re/vol3/iss3/28

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Edited by Hershel Parker and Harrison Hayford, A Norton Critical Edition Second Edition ed., W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002.

Savage, Elizabeth. “What We Talk around When We Talk About The Dick.” Feminist Teacher, vol. 21, no. 2, University of Illinois Press, 2011, pp. 91–109, https://doi.org/10.5406/femteacher.21.2.0091.

Tolkien, J. R. R., et al. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.