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Abstract |
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As is plainly seen in his lecture titled The South Seas, Melville was strongly against European and American civilizers, who wreaked havoc on innocent Pacific islanders. His conscientious attitude runs throughout his works like a keel of a ship and his denunciation of white Christian civilization is endorsed by his incurable, deep-rooted sense of guilt as a white man and symbolized in the pursuit of and revenge on the white whale in Moby-Dick.
The story of Moby-Dick before the departure of the Pequod is more than just an integral part of the work, for it contains keys and clues to deeper and true understandings of the characters and symbols that appear after the departure. The whole book would remain mystified and enigmatic unless we duly grasp the implications of such key words as “phantom,”“shadow,”and “conscience.”
The narrations and monologues prior to his going to sea tell us that Melville is at once an Ishmael who rebels against his Christian society and a remorseless Narcissus who pricks his innermost heart. As is verbalized by Father Mapple, the bidding of Melville’s conscience is“to preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood,”and this bidding swings open the gate of his soul’s cruel and merciless sea where his symbolic battle with the white whale is fought out.
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