Читать книгу Fictions of Home - Martin Mühlheim - Страница 19

Rather than accept Ishmael’s own theories, we should therefore look for alternative explanations for his decision to go to sea, and one productive option is to regard it as resulting from a lack of what Ralph Waldo EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo calls “Self-Reliance.” Comparing EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s 1841 essay with MelvilleMelville, Herman’s novel, we find that there are many surprisingly literal links between the two texts.64 For instance, in “Self-Reliance,” EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo explicitly mentions whaling (191), and he later writes of his preference for “the silent church before the service begins” (192) – a scene that Ishmael describes in great detail early on in Moby-Dick (ch. 7–8). Similarly, Ishmael’s depiction of the Pacific Islander Queequeg’s quick recovery from illnessillness towards the end of the novel (366; ch. 110) echoes very closely EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s claim that the white man has lost the “aboriginal strength” that “the savage” still possesses (200). Given these strikingly direct parallels, it seems reasonable to bring the two texts into a more sustained dialogue.

For a start, we must note just how far Ishmael is from embodying EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s ideal of a selfself-reliant man. Ishmael’s idea of a “joint-stock world” (64; ch. 13), for instance, closely parallels EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s notion that society “is a joint-stock company” (“Self-Reliance” 178) – yet MelvilleMelville, Herman’s narrator uses the expression in an emphatically positive sense (i.e. to explain why Queequeg risked his own life to save someone else’s), whereas for EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo the phrase designates a market-place mentality that leads to conformityconformism and conformity and slavish dependencedependence.65 Given these diametrically opposed points of view, it is perhaps not surprising that Ishmael fails to heed one of EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s central admonitions: not to mistake “mechanicalmechanical and mechanization” (i.e. physical) isolationisolation from society for “spiritual” isolation, which alone can lead to “elevation” (192). EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo insists that “the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (181), and that a person “who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat he does not carry, travels away from himself” (198). For EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo, the self-reliantself-reliance man should thus “be admonished to stay at home,” and to put his genius “in communicationcommunication with the internal ocean” (191–192; emphasis added).66 Ishmael, by contrast, cannot stay “with perfect sweetness” amongst the crowd, but is tempted to knock people’s hats off; he does not aim at spiritual elevation, but opts for mechanicalmechanical and mechanization isolation instead: for leaving home and traveling on the world’s external seas.

Seeing that Ishmael fails to meet EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s standards of selfself-reliance, one might suppose that Ahab, the non-conforming and awe-inspiring commander of the Pequod, must figure as his polar opposite: a kind of Nietzschean ÜbermenschÜbermensch who, instead of subscribing to a humble “slave moralitymorality,” manages to subordinate others to his will. According to EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo, the self-reliantself-reliance man does not obey the customs of society, but lives “wholly from within”; no law is sacredsacred to him but that of his own nature: “[I]f I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil” (“Self-Reliance” 179). It is a small step from this Emersonian beliefbelief that “the only right is what is after my constitution” (179) to NietzscheNietzsche, Friedrich’s notion of the great individual who, rather than following external laws, creates his own values and laws (Beyond Good and Evil 208; § 262).67 NietzscheNietzsche, Friedrich insists that mediocre people fear everything that lifts the individual up over the herd, and that therefore they decry such a person as evilevil (113; § 201).68 By contrast, NietzscheNietzsche, Friedrich himself holds that truly “noble” men not only live beyond good and evil, but are also humanity’s only hopehope for salvation:

[W]here do we have to fix our hopes? In new philosophers – there is no alternative […]. To teach man the future of humanity as his will, as depending on human will, and to make preparation for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in rearing and educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful rule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of “history” […] – for that purpose a new type of philosophers and commanders will some time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed in the way of the occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might look pale and dwarfed. (117; § 203; original emphasis).69

Such a new philosopher or commander, for NietzscheNietzsche, Friedrich, has an “unalterable beliefbelief that to a being such as ‘we,’ other beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrificesacrifice themselves” (212; § 265).70 NietzscheNietzsche, Friedrich thus agrees with EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo, who maintains that “the strong spirits will overpower those around them without effort” (“The Transcendentalisttranscendentalism” 256). Indeed, George J. StackStack, George J. has suggested that “the parallels between NietzscheNietzsche, Friedrich’s depiction of the ÜbermenschÜbermensch and EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s scattered descriptions of sovereign individuals could be multiplied beyond necessity” (333), and accordingly StackStack, George J. speaks of an elective affinity between the two philosophers.71 Though EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo is generally more optimistic than NietzscheNietzsche, Friedrich, retaining a belief in an “eternal trinity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty” (“The Transcendentalist” 255; see Mikics 230), both philosophers share a sense that contemporary society weakens its members, and that there is a need for exceptional individuals (such as Ahab) who dare to fly in the face of custom.

If we now examine the episodes in which Ahab, the sovereign individual, overpowers the weaker humans around him, we once again find striking parallels between Moby-Dick’s plot and EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s philosophical imagery. Ahab’s charismatic personality is first presented fully in a scene where he announces his quest for revengerevenge against Moby Dick to the sailors under his command. The crew soon find themselves carried away by their captain’s rhetoric, gazing “curiously at each other, as if marveling how it was that they themselves became so excited” (138; ch. 36). Within a few moments, the sailors grow “frantic” (142; ch. 36), and Ishmael admits both to a dread in his soul – what NietzscheNietzsche, Friedrich would arguably interpret as the mediocre person’s fear of the exceptional – and to a “wild, sympathetical feeling” that made Ahab’s feud seem Ishmael’s own (152; ch. 41). Moreover, a later episode that illustrates Ahab’s power to dominate weaker spirits literalizes effectively a series of metaphors from EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s essay “The Transcendentalist.” After Ahab, in a burst of rage, has destroyed his quadrant (378; ch. 118), we find the Pequod trapped in a thunderstorm and enveloped by glowing “corpusants” (i.e. St. Elmo’s fire). The sailors cower in superstitious fear and even utter “a half mutinous cry,” but Ahab snatches his harpoon – from the steel barb of which comes “a levelled flame of pale, forked fire” – and threatens to kill anyone who defies him (383; ch. 119). Let us now compare this to a passage from EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo:

[I]n society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who betray the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander. Perhaps too there might be room for the exciters and monitors; collectors of the heavenly spark with power to convey the electricity to others. Or, as the storm-tossed vessel at sea speaks the frigate or ‘line packet’ to learn its longitude, so it may not be without its advantage that we should now and then encounter rare and gifted men, to compare the points of our spiritual compass, and verify our bearings from superior chronometers. (“The Transcendentalist” 257; emphasis added)

EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo mentions “exciters,” “sailors” and a “storm-tossed vessel”; we read of a “spiritual compass” and a “collector of heavenly sparks,” who can “convey the electricity to others.” In short, the episode in Moby-Dick incorporates EmersonEmerson, Ralph Waldo’s imagery almost verbatim, which underlines Ahab’s position as a selfself-reliant, Emersonian individual (and simultaneously as a Nietzschean ÜbermenschÜbermensch). However, the catastrophic outcome of Ahab’s quest to kill Moby Dick ought to make us wary of reading Ahab’s self-relianceself-reliance in an overly positive light – a point to which we will return.