The Field Guide, The Philosopher, and The Fiction Writer;

1

Peter Lehu

Professor Rosenthal

ENG 499: Honors Thesis

8 May 2002

The Field Guide, The Philosopher, and The Fiction Writer;

The Natural World in Selected Works by Herman Melville

The natural world is omnipresent. It is the backdrop to human life. Fiction writers take

advantage of this fact. Because nature is everywhere it can be used to set the mood to any

story or any scene. A frightening scene will feature dark, skeletal trees and black ravens.

A joy-filled scene will be accentuated with singing robins and rolling fields. But Herman

Melville does not employ this technique. He has other plans for the natural world in his

writing. A study of Melville’s novels Moby Dick, Typee, and Billy Budd, along with a

number of his short stories, journals, and poems reveals that the natural world is

consistently referenced by Melville. However, almost every one of his nature references

makes a comment on nature itself. None are incidental. Melville’s writing reveals the

author’s deep love for the natural world. It is also reveals the deep meaning that Melville

found in the natural world. Birds reminded him of angels. Whales and tortoises brought

to his mind mythologies and histories from around the world. Trees had him

contemplating nature’s part in humanity. This analysis of a selection of Melville’s works

will attempt to decipher some of the author’s primary utilizations of the natural world.

The Field Guide

How many high school students can honestly say that they fought their way

through Moby Dick without skipping a page, a chapter or even a series of chapters? The

reader will be pleasantly chugging along when the plot is interrupted by the unrelenting

detail of matters only vaguely relevant to the story. After writing Typee and Omoo,

Melville said he had an “incurable disgust” for factual truth (Mayoux 48). However, all

evidence refutes this statement which was most likely said by Melville in denial after he

wrote his first two novels that were based on true life and little more than embellished

fact. Melville’s subsequent writing is just as dependent on the exhibition of factual detail

despite becoming more and more focused on philosophical issues.

Although biology seems to be his favored tangent, Melville’s encyclopedic

descriptions are not limited to the natural world. In Billy Budd, the story barely opens

when Melville interrupts with three chapters of British naval history. Footnotes reveal

that these chapters were omitted from the book’s 1888 manuscript and reinserted in the

final publication. Melville was aware of their irrelevance to the story and was indecisive

about whether to retain them. There is a dispute among scholars about whether these

chapters, which focus largely on Admiral Horatio Nelson and his victory at Trafalgar,

were reinserted to contrast Vere, the captain of Budd’s ship, with Nelson, or merely

because “they were simply too good to throw away” (Billy Budd footnotes 404). Whether

Melville was aware of the comparability between the Captains or not, his penchant for

facts is allowed to flourish. He is aware of his potentially irritating tendency to interrupt

plot. He disclaims his tangent before beginning: “In this matter of writing, resolve as one

may to keep to the main road, some bypaths have an enticement not readily to be

withstood. I am going to err into such a bypath. If the reader will keep me company I

shall be glad. At the least, we can promise ourselves that pleasure which is wickedly said

to be sinning, for a literary sin this divergence will be” (291). For Melville,

documentation is a source of pleasure. Excessive documentation is a guilty pleasure. As I

will explore later, Melville’s tangents are often a product of his love for the natural

world. However, this non-natural example proves that plentiful detail is intrinsic to

Melville’s style and a byproduct of his reason for writing in the first place. Melville’s

tendency to write about the natural world is part of a greater tendency to document

information.

There are many examples of the natural world in the author’s works, but other non-

natural examples introduce other aspects of his detailing. In the chapter entitled “The

Gam” in Moby Dick, Melville demonstrates numerous methods of documentation.

Although the natural world is hardly mentioned, Melville’s descriptions of the social

behavior of seamen and seacrafts seem lifted out of a nature field guide. Melville writes

that “your Englishman” is “shy” and “reserved” while “the Nantucketeer” is “long” and

“lean.” He classifies people as one would animals. Following these observations,

Melville examines the behavior of various types of ships when they meet on the high

seas. Men-o-war ships are said to “go through a string of silly bowing and scrapings”

when they meet as if it were a mating ritual of some species of bird. The last section of

the chapter is dedicated to “the gam,” the ritual meeting of two whaling vessels. Ishmael

(if it is still Ishmael narrating in these plotless chapters of the novel) notices that the word

“gam” has never been officially recognized and so provides a definition in standard

dictionary lingo. Melville’s flair for documentation is never hidden or rushed; it has a

system. This system of lists and definitions extends to fields, such as social behavior in

Western civilization, that are not commonly explored in such a fashion. Melville

describes his own culture with the same curiosity and objectivity that he describes

aboriginal societies in Typee and whale behavior earlier in Moby Dick. He has additional

motives in treating humans as he treats animals that will be explored later. For now, this

is adequate example of Melville’s scientific method of documentation.

Melville’s systematic style is especially striking in a book such as Moby Dick

with its nebulous and far-reaching themes. He uses scientific methods to carry out his

romantic inquiries. Mayoux writes, “It is not merely the truth of actual facts which is

involved in the episodes where [Melville] appears as a historian, it is above all a matter of

romantic authenticity” (Mayoux 35). While the authenticity of Melville’s details is

sometimes questionable (as he will often favor myth over science), there is no doubt that

his impetus is romantic in nature. There is no practical reason to interrupt a plot with

superfluous facts. This practice only served to lose Melville readership as 19th century

readers of Moby Dick wondered what had become of the straightforward adventure

writer of Typee and Omoo fame.

Melville saves his most extensive classification of facts for the natural world. In Moby

Dick, the chapter “Cetology” is a quick lesson in the taxonomy of whales. The rest of the

book concerns itself primarily with the sperm whale (with a few mentions of other

species) but in “Cetology” Melville goes all out, providing a classification of most

aquatic mammals. Melville has obviously done his research; he is able to list all the

naturalists who have studied whales. Leon Howard, in his book Herman Melville; a

Biography, lists records of the books Melville ordered and borrowed from libraries

during the years he wrote Moby Dick. The most referenced source was Thomas Beale’s

The Natural History of the Sperm Whale (Howard 162). However, Melville debunks

most of the naturalists that he references because they have not directly dealt with whales

like Melville did during his time aboard a whaler. The function of the “Cetology” chapter

is to create a record of the various types of whales. Science is only one aspect of that

record. Melville recognizes that Carolus Linnaeus, widely regarded as the father of

taxonomy, declared that a whale is not a fish but Melville prefers the opinion of his

fellow whaler Charlie who calls Linneaus’ Latin-laced reasoning “humbug” (139).

Melville asks, “How should we define the whale, by his obvious externals?” (140). It is

curious that Melville, a writer concerned with specifics quite unspecifically defines a

whale as a “spouting fish with a horizontal tail” (140). Clearly, Melville takes himself

with a grain of salt. He mocks science but in its place provides an overly casual system of

classification. Melville enjoys playing the part of the scientist or the historian because he

is neither of these but a novelist. He does not have to justify his opinions to an academic

community and enjoys the luxury of hiding behind the voice of his narrator. Melville was

a sailor on a whaling vessel himself. Mumford writes, “[Melville] had jumped into the

boats and gone in pursuit of the whale; he had helped to dismember its carcass; he had

chopped up blubber and watched the fire in the try-works” (27). In Moby Dick, Melville

writes, “ A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.” The message at the core

of the “Cetology” chapter is that experience is equivalent in educational value to

scientific method. Mayoux writes, “If one can really have knowledge of the whale, one

will not find it on the shelves of a library but in a fatal encounter. Science imagines it can

master reality by classifying facts. This is a ridiculous pretension. Nonetheless facts are

fascinating and Melville has an insatiable curiosity” (Mayoux 72).

Melville leaves his taxonomy incomplete recognizing that his knowledge of cetology is

limited and that he is dragging on a little long, even by his standards. He uses the excuse

that works completed collectively are “grander” than “small erections finished by their

first architects” (149), leaving his classification system for future writers to complete.

However, the legitimacy of this excuse is thrown into serious question when Melville

exaggerates, “God keep me from ever completing anything” (149). The romantic in

Melville blows up even this unfounded declaration into a plea to God. But it half a joke

as is the entire “Cetology” chapter.

Melville, who has done his research, respects the scientists whose system he

replaces and knows that their work stemmed from their own romantic affections for the

natural world. Indeed, Linnaeus was a practitioner of natural theology- a religious school

of thought based on the idea that it is only possible to understand God’s wisdom by

studying his creations. Judging by his works, Melville would heartily endorse this

philosophy. Melville does not actually believe that his system will replace Linnaeus’

work or that a whale should be considered a fish because his friend Charlie thinks so.

Additional proof that Melville expresses humor in the subject of classification is evident

in a comment he made about a female acquaintance in his “Journal of His Visit to

London and the Continent.” He writes, “[Mrs. Lawerance] belongs to that category of the

female sex there are no words to express my abhorrence of. I hate her not- I only class

her among the persons made of reptiles and crawling things” (36). Melville employs

nature references in all the aspects of his writing, from the heavy and philosophical to the

lighthearted and humorous.

It is worthy to note that though Melville had experience on a whale ship and thus, had a

working familiarity with the internal anatomy of whales, he chooses to define the whale

by its “obvious externals.” His reasoning in Moby Dick is “to conspicuously label [the

whale] for all time to come.” It is a convenience for those unfamiliar with the details of

cetological anatomy. In Typee, the narrator, Tommo, admires the beauty of a scenic bay

and muses, “I have experienced a pang of regret that a scene so enchanting should be

hidden from the world in these remote seas, and seldom meet the eyes of devoted lovers

of nature” (16). Though the words of a younger, more sympathetic Melville, they again

show a desire for the nature world to be accessable to all. Melville has the reader in mind;

he writes educational passages like the “Cetology” chapter to inform his reader and he

purposely simplifies his writing for the sake of the uneducated layman. Therefore,

another reason Melville writes about the natural world is to open up inaccessible worlds

to his audience.

Information inaccessible to readers is information on the periphery of things. It is

information hidden away- never the focus of attention from Western civilization or even

mankind. It is these unheralded but vital details that Melville seeks to expose. He writes

about lost islands and civilizations in Typee and “The Encantadas.” He writes about

eccentric loners in The Confidence-Man and “Bartleby the Scrivner.” Melville admits his

flair for exoticism (Mayoux 20). He grew up in poverty and most of his life’s work went

unrecognized during his lifetime. Therefore, Melville had empathy for things deemed

unimportant. This is another reason why he focused on the minutia of the natural world.

In Moby Dick, the focus of Melville’s scrupulous eye is the ocean. Ishmael,

before setting off for the high seas, muses, “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for

things remote” (26). In the chapter entitled “Brit” (named after miniature aquatic

arthropods) he calls the sea “a vast terra incognita” and writes, “Columbus sailed over

numberless unknown worlds to discover his one superficial western one” (269). The

word “superficial” has two meanings. Melville points out the prejudice that man has for

the land while the sea is just as much, if not more for its size, a “terra.” Melville invokes

his forgotten subjects with the power that they deserve. The chapter entitled “Brit” is not

only named for the organisms referred to in the chapter. “Brit” stands for the small,

overlooked things in life that Melville makes sure to include in his writing: the rope used

to catch a whale; the tiny creatures of the sea; the forgotten crew members of a whaling

ship. Life’s minor details are essential to its grand philosophical truths.

In the chapter “The Line,” Melville explains the dangers of the whale-line and

then writes, “And if you be a philosopher, though seated in a whale-boat, you would not

at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a

poker, and not a harpoon, by your side” (276). Melville points out that philosophical

truths- the rules of life- are the same for the whaleman as they are for the reader sitting at

home by the fire. Lessons can be learned from the blue-collared and their tools just as

well as they can be from the academics and their walls of texts.

Mayoux points out that Melville was in his literary prime at the same time as

transcendentalism was the rage north of Melville’s Massachusetts farm near Boston.

Melville was introduced to this movement through his friendship with Nathaniel

Hawthorne. He respected the transcendentalists for the immensity of their aspirations.

They challenged Jewish and Christian dogma and set out to redefine spirituality. Melville

wrote of Emerson and his movement, in a typical nautical analogy, “Any fish can swim

near the surface; but it takes a great whale to go downstairs five miles or more; and if he

don’t attain the bottom, why, all the lead in Galena can’t fashion the plummet that will”

(Mumford 95). However, Melville did not agree with their methods of dividing reality

into a realm of spirit and a realm of matter. As shown in the ‘brit” sections of Melville’s

works, he subscribed to the theory that only by scrupulously examining the material

world can one get any closer to understanding spirituality. In the “Brit” chapter, Melville

writes how science is futile in uncovering the mysteries of the sea. He goes on to describe

the sea’s most awesome and mysterious inhabitant: the giant squid.

The chapter entitled “Squid” is only two pages long and judging by the lack of detail it is

safe to assume that Melville had no personal experience with this rare creature. The

chapter begins with the Pequod’s brief encounter with the animal. Then there is a short

passage on the signifigance of the squid to whaleman followed by a shorter passage about

the squid’s mythology. Only at the end of the chapter are there four lines pertaining to

scientific speculation. Unlike in the “Cetology” chapter where science is blatantly

debunked, this is an instance in which 19th century biology lacks the information to

explain such a creature. Melville writes, “by some naturalists…[the squid] is included

among the class of cuttlefish…in certain external respects it would seem to belong”

(273). He does not disagree with scientific observation, only recognizes its shortcomings.

Again, Melville’s primary objective is to classify the squid, using a combination of

individual observation, along with historical, mythological and scientific background. He

gives a truer definition of a squid than any scientific textbook would because he includes

multiple perspectives that result in a fuller account.

In comparing Typee, Moby Dick and “The Encantadas,” a real sense of one of Melville’s

purposes becomes apparent. Each work tackles its subject with the same unrelenting

diligence. In Typee, the reader learns everything about Melville’s aboriginal foster

community. In Moby Dick, every aspect of whaling is covered. In “The Encantadas,”

Melville dissects a geographical area. Unlike in the longer works, “The Encantadas” does

not unite the fields of its examination with a single narrative thread. “The Encantadas” is

the last of the three works to be written, and although one cannot label a trend out of an

analysis of three works, it is likely that as Melville became more experienced he

overcame hesistation and trusted the themes of his writing to withhold without a central

backbone. Also, embittered by the poor reception of Moby Dick, he probably ignored

public standards intentionally.

“The Encantadas” is the remains of a book Melville began but never completed

about tortoise hunting in the Galapagos. Melville divides his study of the archipelago into

ten “sketches.” Robert Milder writes, “The overall movement of the sketches seems to

run from the descriptively and symbolically geographical to the metaphysical to the

moral- that is, from a picture of the island world to a cosmic speculation upon it to a

history of how various human beings have shaped their lives within it” (pg. xx,

introduction to Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales). The stories among the sketches do

indeed have moral and philosophical purpose. For example, Hunilla the Widow’s loyalty

to her dogs is as admirable as Toby’s loyalty to Tommo or Quequeg’s loyalty to Ishmael.

It is common for an author to provide geographical and historical setting before

introducing the human characters of a story who unveil the story’s themes and purposes.

However, in the case of “The Encantadas” and the two adventure novels, the descriptions

of the land and setting do not introduce the human aspect; they are just as important.

Melville, spokesperson for the periphery, avoids anthrocentric leanings. The human

stories are encapsulated in “sketches” just as the opening descriptions are. The human

aspect is not trivialized but the birds of Rock Ronondo and the tortoises of the main

islands are treated with the same amount of detail, allegory, and rhetoric as the human

tales. The short story is not about the people of the islands, it is about an island from all

of its perspectives. In Typee., Melville examines aboriginal society. In Moby Dick, he

examines Western society in the same way, thus, putting it at the same level. In “The

Encantadas,” he puts man and his surroundings at the same level. Another reason

Melville bothers with intricate detail is because he sees detail as equally important to the

traditionally main ingredients of storytelling such as characters and plot. I will explore

the specific importance of natural detail in subsequent sections.

Lewis Mumford nicely evaluates Melville’s love affair with detail when he writes of

“Melville’s way of assimilating and revaluating knowledge, so that what was extraneous

becomes intrinsic, and what was a fact…becomes an element in the myth that he is

weaving” (110). I would argue that Melville does not believe he is weaving myths, but

documenting realities of life. The facts are not turned to myth but rather connect

Melville’s fictional narratives to reality. For example, if a reader is familiar with the

trivialities of whaling then a character like Captian Ahab appears much more likely to

exist. Mumford continues, “these passages about the whale and the methods of whaling-

these comments upon the science of cetology- are not uncouth interruptions in the

narrative; the stream widens here without losing its flow or purpose. From now on the

universal, symbolic aspect of the story, and its direct, scientific, practical aspect move in

and out like the threads of a complicated pattern: one modifies the other, and is by turns

figure and background” (111). The details create a medium for the philosophical and

moral messages of Melville’s writing while, at the same time, they stand on their own as

important factual information. A single nature passage in Melville’s writing serves

multiple and unrelated functions. The field guide passages in Moby Dick and Melville’s

other works serve these purposes: they educate the reader, they support the work’s deeper

themes, they demonstrate the value of peripheral subjects, and they share Meville’s love

for the natural world.

The Philosopher

It has been said that Moby Dick is a book about everything and the philosophical truths

that it tackles are certainly broad. However, I believe that the purpose of the book can be

summed up as being about the condition of being human. This is not a new theory; it has

been repeated in classrooms worldwide how the Pequod’s journey represents life and

how the white whale represents the meaning of life. But if Captain Ahab and his ship

represent man and his life then everything that is not the ship or is not related to the ship

must represent what is not man’s life. This is where the natural world comes in.

Throughout the novel, Melville presents the natural world along with the ship and its

crew in order to compare humankind, along with its societies, its religions, and its drives,

to what is not human. In doing so, he outlines the condition of being human. In the

beginning of Moby Dick, Melville writes “There is no quality in the world that is not

what it is merely by contrast” (68). This is another reason Melville writes about the

natural world- to define what is not the natural world.

In Moby Dick, Melville associates humanity to the natural world just as much as he sets

it apart. Melville writes, “the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and gored

the dark waves in her madness” (232). When Ishmael first describes the ship he records,

“her unpannelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long

sharp teeth of the sperm whale” (83). The Pequod is animalistic in its ferocity through it

is directed by the desires of a man. Melville writes of “the preternaturalness which in

many things invested the Pequod” (231). Man’s quest, that which defines him as human,

is paradoxically fueled by a primal drive. Animals fight for survival with the same fervor

as humans. But humans fight for something else as well. Ahab, who prioritizes his quest

for the whale over his survival and the survival of his crew, represents humanity’s

distinction from the remainder of the natural world. The drive is the same but the motive

is different. Ahab assembles his crew to introduce his hunt for Moby Dick: “Those wild

eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere

he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison, but alas! Only to fall into the hidden

snare of the Indian” (168). This analogy is accurate except that the wolves hunt for food-

there goal is concrete- while the crew, in need of a goal, follows Ahab blindly. It is the

Indian in the soul of every crewmember that sabotages their animalistic quest for

survival.

In the chapter “The Spirit-Spout,” The Pequod follows a reoccurring plume of

water around the Cape of God Hope because it might be the spout of Moby Dick. Around

the focused ship fish and fowl flock and resemble lost souls “condemned to swim on

everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat the black air without any horizon” (232).

Again, animals are portrayed as those without souls and, thus, without a purpose. Ravens

perch on the Pequod’s masts. These birds are omens of death but as animals and lost

souls they, like the crew, are attracted to Ahab’s mission. In the desolate Cape, the

Pequod’s perches are a better haven than the abyss-like skies.

After the Pequod’s journey around the Cape of Good Hope it passes another whaling

ship, the Albatross. Ahab calls to the ship to ask if it has spotted the white whale. While

trying to respond, the Albatross’s captain drops his trumpet into the sea. The Albatross is

like the lost souls trapped near the Cape. It is unable to respond to anything besides its

desire to move forward. Melville describes the craft as “the skeleton of a stranded

walrus” (234). Its riggings are like “the thick branches of trees furred over with hoar-

frost” (234). Its lookout men are “clad in the skin of beasts” (234). The nature imagery is

not accidental. The Albatross represents life without a purpose and without a soul. The

ship sails the opposite way as the Pequod. It is also a replication of the ghost ship in

Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” that punishes the Mariner for killing an

albatross and snuffing out natural life. Ishmael observes, “Shoals of small harmless fish,

that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, darted away and

ranged themselves fore and aft with the stranger’s flanks” (234). The fish would rather

follow the ship concerned with survival than the one bound for doom. The birds and the

fish remain with the Pequod when there is no other option but given the opportunity

choose other paths. This puts in to question the allegiance of the Pequod’s crew to Ahab’s

quest. Ahab does not announce his plans until the Pequod is at sea. Had he shown himself

on land, he might have had fewer followers. Melville is using the natural world to show

that humanity needs leadership to the point that it will choose a doomed leader over none.

History provides innumerable examples of this.

Melville’s poem, “The Aeolian Harp at the Surf Inn,” repeats the image of the Albatross.

A crewless ship with a “grass-green deck” and “beclogged by trailing weeds” floats

“pilotless on pathless ways.” It is described as being “deadlier than the sunken reef.”

Again, Melville is playing with the idea of a body without a purpose or a soul and again

he uses a ship laden with nature imagery as representation. A live object without a

purpose is worse off than something that has died and lies at the bottom of a reef. Death

is preferable to a meaningless existence.

On Moby Dick’s last page, the ship sinks dragging one of its avian followers with it.

Melville compares the sea-hawk impaled by the harpooner, Tashtego, to a piece of

heaven being dragged down to hell by Satan (535). In Moby Dick, Melville’s love for

nature is linked to his tragic view of humanity. The Pequod takes a piece of the natural

world down with it because nature is an intrinsic part of the human condition. Nature is

so crucial to humanity that it is the basis of civilization. Melville makes this apparent

during Ahab’s famous “pasteboard mask” speech to Starbuck. Ahab is both a

misanthrope and, through his indifference toward survival, the most human character in

the book. Ahab’s crew are cogged wheels in a machine (170). Ahab’s affection for the

crew is fake and he shares comraderie with no one. He tells Starbuck, “If man must

strike, strike through the mask.” (167). Civilization is a means of survival. It is natural for

living organisms of the same species to congregate. There is safety in numbers. Ahab

strikes through the mask of civilization by isolating himself and forfeiting his survival.

Starbuck is the epitome of rationality and civility. After Ahab’s speech he murmurs,

“God keep me, keep us all!” (168). He is concerned with his survival and the survival of

his civilization- the crew. Therefore, Starbuck is the most natural character- the character

most associated with the natural world.

It is curious that Melville uses no nature imagery when describing Starbuck while Ahab’s

descriptions are filled with botanical and zoological references. Is Melville revealing that

the wildness that we associate with the natural world is actually a symbol of humanity

while tame, rational thinkers are actually the more animalistic? Although the science of

genetics was still in its infancy, Melville, a lover of science and a reader of biological

texts, must have known of nature’s unparalleled order and practicality. He challenges his

readers’ notions of wildness and civility. It is man’s animalistic side that grounds him in

rationality and order while his human side sends him on wild quests for knowledge and

experience. This statement is not immediately apparent in Melville’s works. He uses

nature references so liberally that it is difficult to discern a pattern. However, this is an

instance in which Melville discovers a philosophical truth about the natural world and

uses nature references to prove that truth within the structure of a story.

Melville does not have a definite stance on religion. His writings suggest a strong

spirituality, but like any good romantic, Melville would rather explore his beliefs than

settle on a concrete creed. He was brought up in a Calvinist household and predestination

remains a major theme in his writing, whether his characters’ fates are determined by a

higher power or their own inescapable needs and desires. Melville tends to connect

religion with civilization. He often treats organized religion as a man-made, or at least

man-conducted creation. This in no way diminishes the significance of religion since to

Melville, all attempts at understanding, from science to history to mythology to religion,

are important. Proof of the tie between religion and civilization are Melville’s allusions to

the natural world when writing about religion. In Father Mapple’s sermon, God’s

instrument is a whale that swallows Jonah. The most religious character in Moby Dick is

the animalistic islander Quequeg who prays to his idol and sits motionless for days to

serve Ramadan. Ahab rejects all religion and is described as an “ungodly, god-like man”

(92). His monomanical quest has replaced his need for anything civilized including

religion. He is his own god. Starbuck, meanwhile, calls upon God multiple times

throughout the book. “My God, stand by me now,” he exclaims in the final battle with the

great whale (533). Fr. Mapple sums it up nicely: “To obey God , we must disobey

ourselves” (58). Faith makes man like the fishes and the birds. Someone with true faith

(if that is possible in Melville’s world) only has one purpose- obedience in God. That

person can go through life unquestioning like an animal. It is our humanity- our natural

instinct to question- that we must disobey to give ourselves to God. Melville might argue

that someone with total faith has abandoned his or her humanity. The character Elijah,

Ahab’s personal prophet, claims to know some of these people: “I know many chaps who

haven’t gotten [a soul]- good luck to them; and they are all the better for it. A soul’s a

sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon” (103). These are the same people who follow Ahab like

a pack of prairie wolves. A soul is superfluous to survival but humans do more than just

survive. Civilization and religion are means to sooth the human desire to question.

Melville maintains an ambiguous stance on religion because he views it as a necessary

crutch. There are those who are not strong enough to wield a soul. They need something

to follow and without religion they would follow monomaniacs like Ahab under the

waves.

(Side Note: A recent New York Times article reports of a scientific study that links

longer life with spiritual faith. Melville’s presumption that religion facilitates survival

may soon be scientific fact.)

The natural world and religion intersect in other works by Melville as well to strengthen

the previous argument. The Marquesas, the islands that were young Melville’s home for a

couple of months, are described with heavenly qualities in Typee. Tommo, the narrator,

says, “Had a glimpse of the gardens of paradise been revealed to me, I could scarcely

have been more ravished by the sight” (35). Christian missionaries abandon the islands

because the salvation they have to offer cannot compete with its natural beauty (5). The

inhabitants of this paradise, the Typees, live lazy and carefree lives. They are already in

heaven so they have nothing to search for. The Typee’s notion of heaven is a place

“where there was no end to the cocoanuts and bananas; there they reposed through the

live-long eternity upon mats much finer than those of Typee” (140). It is a place where all

needs are fulfilled. Kory-Kory, a native warrior, concedes that the Marquesas are not

much different than heaven. As much as he enjoys the Marquesas, Tommo knows that a

life without needs is a missionless existence. It is not the life for an adventurer and he

spends half the novel trying to escape heaven. Mayoux makes a similar observation when

he writes, “Collectively [the cannibals] constitute a kind of dark, gaping mouth ready to

swallow [Melville] up. The cannibals are his first Leviathan and Typee is ultimately a

symbolic allegory” (Mayoux 42).

Religion is a quest for meaning, however, when that quest in completed the reason for

human life no longer exists. This is why Ahab and his crew must die when they find the

whale and why the Typees lounge about like lizards on their islands. Melville represents

religion’s goal, whether that be God or paradise, with the natural world. A whale is the

subject of Ahab’s monomania. A lush jungle is the Typee’s heaven. Another example is

the rooster in Melville’s short story, “Cock-a-Doodle-Doo.” A melancholy narrator goes

in search for the source of an extraordinary cockcrow that sounds like Scripture (“Glory

to God in the highest” (45)) and “the great bell of St. Paul’s rung at a coronation” (46).

The source is a rooster named Trumpet that belongs to a dying family whose only solace

is hearing it crow. As Trumpet crows it kills the family and itself, and saves the

despondent narrator who spends the rest of his life crowing with pleasure. The cock’s

crow is the characters’ white whale. Once they attain their goal they die happily but die

nonetheless. Trumpet is a Christ figure but the representation is not entirely

complimentary. Both Christ and the rooster die to offer salvation but the end of the story

is critical of salvation’s desirability. Melville uses religion against itself when he quotes

the Book of Corinthians on the family’s epitaph: “Oh! Death where is thy sting? Oh!

Grave, where is thy victory?” (66). He says of the dead family, “I saw angels where they

lay” (65). Angels cannot write philosophical novels. They cannot question because they

already know all the answers. They can only praise God continuously like a rooster

continuously crows. Salvation is not a victory but a resignation of humanity.

Billy Budd is another Melvillian character who benefits from nature imagery. He is not

strong like Ahab- his natural qualities do not stem from his ferocity but from his inherent

naturalness. Billy Budd is aesthetically perfect. Melville writes, “Our handsome sailor

had as much of masculine beauty as one can expect anywhere to see” (289). He is the

equivalent to the forests of the Typee and the rooster of “Cock-A-Doodle-Doo.” Like

Moby Dick, he is pursued by a character who dies in the act of capturing him. John

Claggart, his pursuer, is even said to suffer from “monomania” like Ahab (323). Billy

Budd may be human but his role in the story is more of a goal that other humans attempt

to attain. He is a Christ figure who forgives his sentencer from the cross. Therefore, he

represents a religious goal as well. The nature imagery clinches the connection between

Billy Budd and Melville’s other ideals- the whale, the jungle, and the rooster. Budd does

not possess the wisdom of the serpent or the dove, animals representing human good and

evil, but “he could sing and like the illiterate nightengale was sometimes the composer of

his own song” (288). He is compared to Adam, God’s first human creation who starts life

in paradise. In Chapter 15, Budd is “a young horse fresh from the pasture” (317). Budd is

called “a fine specimen of the genus homo” (327). Not only is this another example of

Melville’s penchant for classification and taxonomy but it shows how Billy Budd, though

a human, is treated like a type of organism- a piece of the natural world instead of

someone with a name and a personality. “God bless Captain Vere” are Budd’s last words

and not only do they complete the Christ analogy and demonstrate his religious faith but

the words are “delivered in the clear melody of a singing bird on the point of launching

from the twig” (354). Trumpet’s crow comes to mind instantly. The avian connection is

furthered as seafowl swoop in respect over Billy Budd’s sinking coffin (357). Budd

ascends when he dies as if going to heaven and there seems to be a connection between

birds and angels that is further evidenced in Melville’s poetry.

Melville includes a curious line in the beginning of Billy Budd: “Like the animals,

though no philosopher, [Billy Budd] was, without knowing it, practically a fatalist” (285).

This is consistent in relating Billy Budd with animals but it is peculiar that Melville

would label an animal, whose goal is survival, for both the species and the individual, as

a fatalist. This might just be an inconsistency but two other possibilities come to mind.

Perhaps since Melville is proficient in natural science he knows that animals will

sacrifice their lives if it furthers their genetic propagation either through their own

reproduction or the reproduction of another member of their species. Or perhaps Melville

means that while animals fight death they do accept it eventually. Horses and other large

mammals will leave their herd when they are soon to expire. Melville explains that Billy

Budd suffers not from his own imminent execution but from experiencing the malice that

one man can have for another. His life is not as important as the unity of the ship much

like a social animal is more important as part of a community than as an individual.

Indeed, Billy Budd’s last act is to foster the unity of the crew by praising their captain.

Birds circle over Billy Budd’s coffin. “Cock-A-Doodle-Doo” is an entire story about a

rooster. Birds are one of Melville’s most common uses of nature imagery. Maybe

Melville the romantic always had his head tilted toward the heavens because he is

especially observant of creatures of the air. It is true that on a ship in the ocean there is

not much else to look at. In Melville’s “Journal of His Visit to London and the

Continent,” he often comments on the seafowl that fly around his ship as he crosses the

Atlantic Ocean. (In the journal, he also makes special mention of the giraffes at the

Regents Park Zoo.) Bird references are as prevalent in Typee as they are in Moby Dick

and Billy Budd. Melville’s first novel begins with another rooster, this one named Pedro,

who Tommo playfully attributes a personality to but who is destined to be eaten and so

foreshadows the cannibalism later in the book. Tommo is affectionate toward this bird as

he is towards the minute flies he accidentally swallows while living on The Marquesas.

Melville’s youthful innocence is apparent throughout his first novel. Tommo devotes a

paragraph to the birds of the Marquesas in his biological survey of the islands. He writes,

“Birds- bright and beautiful birds- fly over the valley of Typee….passing like spirits on

the wing through the shadows of the groves” (169). This is a book supposedly devoid of

metaphorical content and yet Melville still invokes birds with a spirituality. Birds have

reminded Melville of heaven since his first years as a writer and it is no wonder he uses

them to represent angels or Christ in his later works. Melville similarly gives an account

of the avian life on the Galapagos archipelago in “The Encantadas.” After a lengthy

survey of the birds that nest on Rock Ronondo, he hears “silver bugle-like notes” and

looks up to “behold a snow-white angelic thing”- a bird Melville calls the “Boatswain’s

Mate” (119). Trumpets and bugles are the instruments of choice of seraphim and cherubs.

Even greater instances of Melville using bird life to represent spirituality are in his

poetry. Melville’s poetry, which he wrote throughout his life but focused on more after

his fall from public appeal, provides examples of many previously mentioned trends

concerning the natural world. Melville wrote multiple poems lamenting the horrors of the

Civil War. In “Shiloh; A Requiem,” swallows “skim and wheel” over a battlefield and a

church that served as a death bed for many mortally wounded soldiers. Melville makes a

connection between the birds and the dead soldiers in the symmetry of the lines “The

swallows fly low” (ln. 2) and “But now [the soldiers] lie low” (ln. 17). Melville writes:

“The church so lone, the log-built one,That echoed to many a parting groanAnd natural prayerOf dying foemen mingled there-“ (lns. 10-13)

The church is only an object. It is built by logs and can only echo the agony of the

wounded. It itself does not have a spirituality unlike the swallows that actively fly low in

respect to the dead and as a representation of the soldiers’ ascension to heaven. Melville

finds spirituality in the natural world rather than in religion. In “Monody,” Melville

laments the death of a friend. At the friend’s empty home:

“Houseless there the snow-bird flitsBeneath the fir-trees’ crape.” (9-10)

Again, death is marked by the image of a bird. The snow-bird’s “houseless”-ness is

compared to the home of the narrator’s friend. The point here, as well as in “Shiloh,” is to

separate animals, which do not build houses or churches, with humans, who do but die

nonetheless. Animal life persists as human life perishes. In “Malvern Hill,” the poet

addresses elm trees on a battlefield. The elms witness the carnage of the battle but there

only response is to fill their twigs with sap and grow green leaves. Like the birds

wheeling overhead and angels watching from heaven, the elms are a silent witness. Life

must go on despite the horrors that men afflict on each other. This message is repeated

once more in Melville’s “The Berg; A Dream.” A ship strikes an iceberg and sinks as

gulls “wheel” above. Afterwards, the deadly iceberg melts and meets its own demise.

None of this:

“Stirs the slimy slug that sprawlsAlong the dead indifference of walls” (29-30)

After every human catastrophy, the natural world remains. Melville questions the

superiority of mankind over the natural world and yet it is his humanity- his ability to

question- that allows him to do so.

A less known work of Herman Melville is a tiny poem entitled “The Tuft of Kelp.” It

reads,

“All dripping in tangles greenCast up by a lonely seaIf purer for that, o Weed,Bitterer, too, are ye?” (1-4)

Here is another example of “brit.” Melville, in typical fashion, writes a poem that

addresses a piece of seaweed. The kelp is purer and bitterer because it is from the sea.

The sea is both a bastion of the natural world and an area associated with the periphery.

The kelp is bitter because it is a product of the natural world and because it has been

ignored as something unimportant. This suggests that Melville felt his work was being

ignored because it dealt with purer, more seminal topics. Another Melvillian trend is to

treat the natural world as either something virtuous (i.e. birds compared to angels) or, in

this case, something sinister. In this poem a dark side to the natural world is revealed.

The kelp, in being natural and pure, is bitter. Melville, more in the vein of the miserable

creatures that inhabit the waters off of The Cape of Good Hope and less like the placid

fauna of the Marquesas, suggests that there is an intrinsically dark side to the natural

world as well as a heavenly one. His poem “Misgivings” provides further example. It

reads in full:

“When ocean-clouds over inland hillsSweep storming in late autumn brown,And horror the sodden valley fillsAnd the spire falls crashing in the townI muse upon my country’s ills-

The tempest burning from the waste of timeOn the world’s fairest hope linked with man’s foulest crime.

Nature’s dark side is heeded now(Ah! Optimist-cheer disheartened flown)A child may read the moody brownOn yon black mountain lone.With shouts the torrents down the gorges go,And storms are formed behind the storm we feelThe hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.” (1-15)

The poem’s title, “Misgivings,” suggests that Melville who so often rejoices in the beauty

of the natural world finally recognizes the deception. Like the bitter kelp, the storm

comes from the ocean. It knocks down the church spire in the town. The natural world

proves too powerful for either civilization or religion to withstand. The storm embodies

the double-edged quality of the natural world, being both man’s “fairest hope” and his

“foulest crime.” Nature provides bondless opportunity for life but also fosters a ruthless

and selfish struggle for survival. The natural world is the source of the Garden of Eden as

well as the serpent, the apple, and the Tree of Knowledge. Knowledge is useless against

the frightening storm since even a child can “heed nature’s dark side now.” The

meteorological storm reminds us of the storms within our souls- the dark side of nature

that is intrinsic to our being. Just as the rafter and the keel are crafted by man but are

made up of hemlock and oak, the human form is crafted from the natural world and is

shaken by the same turmoil that produces the ocean storms. Although an Ahab-like

humanity is a rather miserable existence, the natural world is not all fun and games either.

Man has a hard lot in life; he must wrestle with his natural urges to dominate and destroy

as well as his human urge to find answers.

Melville often uses extremes when describing a natural scene. In “The

Encantadas” nature is as two-sided as it is in “Misgivings.” The Galapagos are at first

described as a miserable, desolate place. Melville writes about what “exalts them in

desolation” above all other places. He writes, “Like split Syrian gourds left withering in

the sun, they are cracked by an everlasting drought beneath a torrid sky” (108). He

surveys the animal life on the island and they get the same treatment: “The Encantadas

refuse to harbor even the outcasts of the beasts” (108). It is a “fallen land” with

“oppressive” skies and “unearthly” inhabitants. There is a sense that these descriptions

are exaggerations from an author who described a similar archipelago, the Marquesas, as

a paradise. The second “sketch” in “The Encantadas” is entitled “Two Sides to a

Tortoise.” He first describes the islands’ signature reptiles as “grotesque” creatures whose

image haunts the narrator for the rest of his days. A few pages later he is awe-inspired by

them as he compares the tortoises to “Roman Coliseums” and marvels at their ability to

“resist the assault of Time.” His earlier, horrid descriptions of the reptiles seem almost

comical when he mentions how he and his shipmates “sat down for a merry repast from

tortoise steaks and tortoise stews” (115).

In Typee, the exaggerations continue. Tommo is awed by the tameness of the wildlife on

the islands. A bird alights on his arm and it imparts to him “the most exquisite thrill of

delight I have ever experienced” (166). The entire archipelago is described with a

calmness and friendliness that is hard to take seriously. There seem to be other sources

for the tones of Melville’s nature scenes. The Galapagos are widely known as a place of

remarkable and unique life, not a place of desolation. They inspired Darwin and are the

home of numerous species exclusive to the islands. Melville acknowledges the abundance

of life but warps his observations of life to remind him of death. The timeless tortoises

are not wise, they are “evil.” The birds are “demoniac.” The islands do invoke solitude.

Perhaps the narrator, living the life of a lonely sailor, suffers from solitude as well and so

the islands remind him of his own discomfort. It would explain why the islands haunt him

later in life, perhaps when his solitude returns.

The Fiction Writer

Before Herman Melville is anything else, he is a writer of fiction. All of his purposes are

presented in the medium of fictional text. As stated in the introduction to this essay,

Melville rarely ever uses the natural world to set a mood. If the natural world or

something related to the natural world is not a subject of one his works then the natural

world is absent from the text. Two examples of works without a single natural reference

are Melville’s short stories, “Bartleby the Scrivner” and “The Fiddler.” As a fiction

writer, Melville uses the natural world as a subject, not as a tool. As previously

mentioned, Melville’s natural descriptions are sometimes tainted by other emotions but in

these cases, like in “The Encantadas,” the moods that the natural references portray do

not match with the mood of the rest of the text. It would seem that these instances are

accidental exaggerations on Melville’s part. There is only one way, in the studied texts,

the Melville uses the natural world as a fiction-writing function. He uses natural

references metaphorically to describe the physical attributes of objects and characters. In

Moby Dick, the spreading of rumors is described as “a smitten tree giving birth to its

fungi” (181). Human madness, in its ability to hide and transform, is described as a

“feline thing” (186). In Billy Budd, the title character’s hand is described as “dyed to the

orange-tawny of a toucan’s bill” (287). In Typee, villagers carrying a stone are compared

to “an infinity of black ants clustering about and dragging away to some hole the leg of a

deceased fly” (131). Melville will even use one nature reference to describe another

nature reference. In Moby Dick, he writes, “Like a savage tigress that tossing in the

jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the

rocks” (270). Two pages later a squid is described as “curling and twisting like a nest of

anacondas” (272). Where Melville had any experience with tigers or anacondas is a

mystery but probably his affinity for the natural world is so strong that he cannot help but

make allusions even to animals he has only read about in books.

Herman Melville is a writer, a field guide, and a philosopher. The natural world plays an

essential part in his three roles. As a field guide, Melville shares his love for the diversity

and complexity of nature. As a philosopher, he explores the natural world’s connection to

humanity and its importance in understanding life’s grand truths. As a writer, Melville

uses the natural world as a metaphor, but more importantly, as a main character who

remains a crucial constant throughout Moby Dick, Typee, Billy Budd, and the rest of the

texts examined in this analysis.

Works Cited

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick; Penguin Popular Classics, 1994

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick; W.W. Norton and Company, 1967

Melville, Herman. Typee; Wordsworth Classics, 1994

Melville, Herman. Billy Budd; Sailor and Selected Tales, Oxford World’s Classics1998

Melville, Herman. Tales, Poems, and Other Writings; The Modern Library 2001

Melville, Herman. Visit to London and the Continent; Harvard University Press 1949

Various Authors. The Penguin Book of American Verse; Penguin Books 1989,

pgs. 115-116

Various Authors. The Norton Anthology of Poetry; W.W. Norton and Company 1996,

pgs 953-957

Mayoux, Jean-Jacques. Melville; Evergreen Books 1960

Mumford, Lewis. Herman Melville; A Study of His Life and Times; Secker & Warburg

1962