The sea plays a large role in Melville’s masterpiece, Moby Dick. Captain Ahab’s main antagonist is the great white whale, but one could argue that the sea is also the antagonist, in part. In fact, the sea is all encompassing, according to Melville, and the narrator Ishmael. The sea is home to Moby Dick as well as other countless marine life forms. It houses more life than any other ecosystem. It is the “phantom of life and the key to it all” as Melville puts it.
The sea is a part of everything and can be found in every direction. “Take any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream” (Melville 298). Ishmael is trying to illustrate to the reader how the sea or water at least, can be found in all directions and parts of the earth. This is truer on a ship than any other instance, as water is in all areas, including underneath the ship. The sailors on the ship must rely on the water to keep them afloat, or in irony, the water will be what kills them. This also shows how water is in everywhere, including in life and death.
The whale Moby Dick lives in the sea, as do many other forms of life. This is an illustration of how water could be considered the center of life. In Loomings, Ishmael makes the comparison of the desert to the ocean. One can easily see how little life the desert has compared to that of the sea. Also in relation to life are the sea air and the good it does one to breathe it. “I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the…pure air of the forecastle deck” (Melville 300).
Finally, the sea seems to have a sort of gravitational pull on some people. Certainly Ishmael felt this pull, as for him the sea was a way to keep his sanity. However, even Ishmael recognizes the other types of drawing water has on people. “Were Nicaragua but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?” (299). certainly, it is the wonder of thousands of gallons of rushing water that is Niagara’s attraction. Ishmael also uses the example of the beach. There is a certain wonder or awe in being able to stare as far as one can see into miles and miles of nothing but water and the occasional sea vessel.
It is more than anything the omnipresence of water that Ishmael finds so amazing. In Loomings, the reader sees the calming effect of that water, or the sea has on Ishmael. He needs to set to sea once in a while to save him from “methodically knocking people’s hats off” (Melville 298). Since the sea is really the key to his insanity, the ocean is even more encompassing to Ishmael than most other people. It is almost as though he needs to be cut off from society and the sea offers the perfect setting for that. To Ishmael, as to all humans, water is large and necessary part of survival.
Works Cited
Melville. Herman. Moby Dick.
