Here's my analysis of why Ishmael was the sole survivor of Moby Dick and the sinking of the Pequod. I'm proud to say I received an A on this essay.
Abstract
In the final minutes of the sinking Pequod, the representation of Greed and Masculinity, two orphans are thrust into the sea: a bold sea-hawk and a meek man. Two orphans; only one survivor of the fates. Ishmael lives to tell his tell not because he is courageous like the bird, or a well-oiled corporation like his ship; he survives the wreak because he faithfully adheres to his role as an Orphan archetype, or more specially, his embodiment of the female orphan archetype carries him to safety
Essay:
Female Orphan at Sea
Awash in the violent sea of sin, the Pequod, the archetypal Home, Greed, and Masculinity sinks to its death. Two orphans are thrust into the sea: a bold sea-hawk and a meek man. Two orphans; only one survivor of the fates. Ishmael lives to tell his tell not because he is courageous like the bird, or a well-oiled corporation like his ship; he survives the wreak because he faithfully adheres to his role as an Orphan archetype, or more specially, his embodiment of the female orphan archetype carries him to safety.
Essay:
Female Orphan at Sea
Awash in the violent sea of sin, the Pequod, the archetypal Home, Greed, and Masculinity sinks to its death. Two orphans are thrust into the sea: a bold sea-hawk and a meek man. Two orphans; only one survivor of the fates. Ishmael lives to tell his tell not because he is courageous like the bird, or a well-oiled corporation like his ship; he survives the wreak because he faithfully adheres to his role as an Orphan archetype, or more specially, his embodiment of the female orphan archetype carries him to safety.
The Orphan archetype has been played out in the centuries hundreds of times over, as a young orphan starts out with a cruel family or an absent family, and seeks out adventure as well as a replacement familial unit. What makes Ishmael unique, however, is that his Orphan’s journey is more archetypal to a female Orphan versus a male Orphan. In most classic tales, the orphan finds him or herself on journey for glory, and once tested by evil, return home. However, the boys return as wealthy heroes or die as martyrs, whereas the girls return more or less to the same state as when they first began, with little more than some knowledge of the world and a story to their name. Ishmael may not even have a name to give.
From the trepid start Ishmael forges himself out as the archetypal Orphan. “Call me Ishmael (18),” he asks his listeners. It is almost to imply that this is not his real name, for no one throughout the novel ever speaks his name directly. While it seems plausible that one would change his or her name for matters of privacy or issues of shame, it appears that ‘Ishmael’ is a moniker he conceived for himself for its cemented history of being a name for an outcast, an orphan to the world. He wants to be seen as The Orphan figure from the start so his listeners may garner ethos as Ishmael as a storyteller and unlikely survivor.
Like the sky-hawk beating its wings from its natural home in the air down to the perilous ocean to become an outcast of the sky, Ishmael too is a self-created orphan. He talks about his family only once when he berates his step-mother for her poor treatment to him as a kid. She was constantly “all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless (37).” He speaks of his past only in a memory of horror when he felt something hold his hand, and for no other warm recollection. He walks around Massachusetts sober and suicidal, turning himself into an orphan from his family. While both boy and girl Orphan archetypes can break away from unethical treatment by their families, this step-mother struggle for Ishmael is unusual for the male Orphan, for the boy archetype will often rail against no parents or absent father. His sole memory of family aligns himself with the female force, foreshadowing his leaning towards femininity which will later serve him to safety.
As the Pequod sinks in the final passage of the book, so does the archetypal Family. At the last moments of life Tashtego is still fixing up his home, the father Ahab is still giving orders to his brood. As an Orphan, Ishmael is drawn to the ship and its crew like a beacon of hope from his suicidal loneliness. In his hyper-imposed “family” Captain Ahab dominance and strength are a representative “father” for Ishmael to respect, whereas First Mate Starbuck lives as the “mother” figure with his Christian values and many conversations with Ahab to make more emotional-based decisions regarding the crew. Queequeg and Ishmael become ‘Man and wife. They say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other…Thus. Then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cozy, loving pair (57)”, transforming Queequeg into a Prince Charming archetype whom rescues Ishmael in his loneliness and away from an evil doom by providing a floating coffin. Even Pip acts as a sort of “younger brother” on the ship after his demise into insanity and neediness of a father, Ahab. As an Orphan archetype Ishmael tries to fit in, wanting desperately for him and the crew to “squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness (323).” Nonetheless, Ishmael never quite surrenders all of himself. He can never be a cold killer of whales as he ponders if the leviathans have philosophical thought. He can never truly understand the monomaniacal nature of his captain, and the greed of revenge his ship embodies. Ishmael may lose himself in the fires of sin with his shipmates but eventually he will always return to his senses, asking, ”My God! What is a matter with me?….How glad and grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being brought by lee! (328).” He is a thoughtful outcast, and he sets himself as someone apart.
Ishmael’s apartness is not just an extension of his Orphan archetype, but of his female Orphan archetype. Most boy orphans are awkward from their peers due to their physical appearance, or smart mouths. Female Orphans on the other hand are often outcast for their thoughts. This feminine trait is what wholly sets Ishmael apart and ultimately makes him the sole survivor. He was once a school teacher, prefer to read things and teach things versus a more archaic view on men of building things or destroying things. He himself notes that the “transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a school master to a sailor (20).” His sophisticated brain is apparent to the salted veterans on first impression of him, teasing him that “thy lungs are a sort of soft, d’ya see; though does not talk shark a bit (72).” His heightened vocabulary is not his only sign of apartness. For several chapters Ishmael disappears all together to simply observe as an outsider, or when he does appear in his text, he will tangent off on elements of boats and sea creatures. He calls himself an “architect” of projecting the systems that surround him—never once does he call himself a hunter. He and everyone around him knows that his an intellectual odd duck from land fleeing to the sea to be placed on a whaling ship, and yet his Orphan nature of seeking some adventure and stability has him pressing forth, while the female aspect of his Orphan archetype never allows him to sink too deep into the chaos of the evil and greed around him. It is through a combination of his tenacity and femininity that Ishmael is able to save himself from becoming a helpless sparrow sucked into the murky blue of sin, greed, and bloodthirsty revenge as felt by his crew.
At the end of things, these two Orphans of bird and man seem to have little comparison in their ends, for one lives and the other drowns in the cold evil sea. However, this symbolically rich passage can be used to show that both poor souls are in fact destroyed, the hawk in his death, and Ishmael in the loss companionship, loss of a father figure, a mother figure, his prince charming, and his social structure. Why one lives and one dies is a matter of gender patterns. The male bird dives down to the action following “the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there (427)”, where the sky-hawk meets his end. By contrast, feminized Ishmael remains at the back of the ship, watching his world splinter apart without rebellion.
Ishmael’s rescue is not build on his own vigor but the happenstance of a maternal figure, ship Rachel, who, “on the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan (427).” Ishmael is a damsel in distress, with this parent coming to his rescue.
Ishmael returns to shore without masculine spoils, reputation, nor companionship. He is an orphan once more However, while the price he paid in becoming a female Orphan archetype was his valor, in return, he gained his life by being quiet, observant, and ultimately helpless without the kindness of men.
Bibliography
1. Melville, Herman, Harrison Hayford, and Hershel Parker. Moby-Dick: An Authoritative Text;. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002, 1967. Print.
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