Chapters 23-33

[peter_coffin]

Not enough time for discussion on the last post, but I wanted to get back on schedule.

I am so behind on the reading.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, it is very noticeable. Doesn't some of it also play into the idea that we're listening to an attorney arguing the case that the whaleship is a microcosm of an industrializing America? I'm not sure that we're meant to whole-heartedly admire him; or, at least, I think we're supposed to be aware that he's a bit of a huckster, and we're being sold a bag of goods.

[(Anonymous)]

Ishmael is an unreliable narrator, and a snarky asshole! I haven't heard that idea about the attorney. Deets?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, first of all: I certainly don't mean to imply that a lawyer suddenly appears! and you're right, this chapter is presented as Ishmael's voice. But throughout the novel Melville's playing with genre, right from Etymology & Extracts, through sermon and adventure story and naturalist's taxomony; to me, at least, The Advocate sounds like a piece of political or legal argument: its position will inevitably be overblown, because it's meant to be a kind of rhetoric that convinces by overwhelming.

There's the chapter title itself, of course. I took a look at the 1844 Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, and the first definition is still, "Advocate, in its primary sense, signifies, one who pleads the cause of another in a court of civil law."

(And speaking of unreliable narrators, that opens the question of how much Ishmael would stand by his own argument; unlike an American dictionary today, espousing what you're saying doesn't show up until the 3rd definition. I realize going back to dictionary definitions is a bit comical - but I also think that it's a noticeable difference from 21st century usage, and a degree of nuance Melville might have employed.)

All of which is to say that I wouldn't be too surprised if those brainy white whalemen and their exploits were revealed to be less noble than our advocate would have them be. I wonder, too, how much of this rhetoric is a reaction to (against?) American expansionism and Manifest Destiny.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, gosh, that got really long, and also wandered away from the 19th-century racism point, didn't it? Sorry!

[(Anonymous)]

Manifest Destiny is thoroughly entangled with 19th-century racism! I don't have time to reread with this in mind, but I'll be paying much better attention to genre from now on.