You've Got Ishmael

Welcome to ENGL 302: Special Topics in American Novel

[savvyfairy777]

So I was makin this all semester. Planned on it being an art project but I never made it in time. But this is my Moby Dick teapot!

[youvegotishmael]

[youvegotishmael]

Excellent essay on Moby-Dick and Mad Men.

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/31/call_me_don_draper_madman_begets_mad_men/

[poeticbane]

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

[tidalgreen-blog]

Inspired by Chapter 116 The Dying Whale

In this chapter, Ahab sits alone in a boat and disrespects the hell of a whale   speaks to a dying whale. I got hung up on this passage and Ahab’s seemingly rude tone for a while, so much so that I had a bit of a waking dream about it. I imagined myself forcing my way into the fiction of Moby Dick and this specific chapter, and confronting Ahab himself about this. This is the product:

“I ask that solemn sailor if he has forgone common courtesy; if he has taken to speaking ill of the dead as he does. I imagine, sitting with this offending prosecutor in his wooden vessel, and the aftermath of these spearings upon this sunset sea-sky, his creator answers: To waste words on those who cannot hear? No. Never. These words occur in present tense. The whale dies in present tense. It can bare to know its futility and so it shall. The sailor is unaware of the voice speaking through him and is unaware when he recedes.”

“Never argue the light is in the way of dying, I beg. Never mind the light will never know this language. Yes, the ouroboros has not yet devoured its neck, but why have you the heart to tell him that his hunger results in his own destruction? Fine, I resign. Do not speak ill of the dying. These words occur in present tense. My heart breaks in present tense. I know of a futility too.”

“That sailor told the light it dies in vain. That sailor, too, will die in vain. Attempts to break a wall of reality are in vain. Calls to an unjust God are in vain. Throwing oneself upon a sword is an act in vain. Sailing away from these damp, drizzly Novembers is too in vain.”

[ladykate100]

Leg (Ghost)

I was inspired this week by the Dan Beachy Quick passage the in which Ahab describes the feeling in his leg that is now called a Phantom Limb when one feels like their appendage is still there thought it has been lost

[mobydickvevo]

ENG 302  —  Moby Dick, week twelve.

안녕 오랜만이야 물음표 없이 참 너다운 목소리 정해진 규칙처럼 추운 문가에 늘 똑같은 네 자리

제대로 잘 먹어 다 지나가니까 예전처럼 잠도 잘 자게 될 거야 진심으로 빌게 너는 더 행복할 자격이 있어

그런 말은 하지 마 제발 그 말이 더 아픈 거 알잖아 사랑해줄 거라며 다 뭐야 어떤 맘을 준 건지 너는 모를 거야

Inspired by my project from last week, also from the fact that I have now had 아이유’s (IU) newest album on repeat since its release, there was another strong, and fitting connection to my favorite song on her new album: “이런 엔딩 (Ending Scene).” It paints the recollection of an ended relationship between two lovers who meet once again, presumably on a subway. They speak briefly, but she ultimately asks him to move on from her, saying he will be happier that way. 

What struck me about this song in regards to the chapters we read was specifically the scene in which Queequeg prepared his own ritualistic death. In general, though, watching Ahab’s own madness push them towards Moby Dick is what this song’s sadness makes me think of. There is no happy ending for the crew of the Pequod who I have grown so attached to throughout the book. From Starbuck to Ishmael to Queequeg to Pip, they are a litany of stories, experiences which make them feel more than simply ink pressed onto pages. 

As she says to her lover, IU warns that there is no happy ending despite whatever he says: their relationship is over. In a sense, Ahab’s own indifference towards his crew, their needs, their safety as he blew out the flame upon the blood-blessed harpoon, it feels just as cruel and cold as her goodbye does. As a reader who knows the ending to their story, I only grow more anxious as Ahab rushes them forth to their destruction, the end to their tale. It seems appropriate that for my final creative project, this ending scene painted in both words and sounds, lulls my blog to a placid slumber. 

Struck moonlight, gleaming Crests gather in schools, fortune Red finale, fate

[raeasunshine17-blog]

"Was it that this old carpenter had been a life-long wanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered no moss; but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings might have originally pertained to him? He was a strict abstract; an unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living without premeditated reference to this world or the next." (Melville, 357)

Delayed Company

I

The door always hesitates to close. The window is open. My skin is riddled with bumps and the arms around me are my own. And there you are, eyes on a screen.

II

Covers to my chin, my back to you, your back to everyone. The bed slumps from the weight of your company.

III

The warmth of your bare skin fills the space between our backs. Without a word, I pull the covers close.

“Do you feel safe?”  

[oh-blubber]

[presbyteriansandpagansalike]

For my last creative project, I decided to create an illustration in the back of my own copy of Moby-Dick. I chose one of my favorite quotes, which reads, “I am immortal then, on land and on sea” (ch 117, ‘The Whale Watch’). I took a crash course in fake calligraphy and doodled a little white whale + Pequod combination (I even searched what the Pequod would have actually looked like). It’s a little lopsided and I want to eventually go over it in pen so it’ll stay forever, but I’m really pleased with how it looks now.

I chose this particular quote because of the context that surrounds it. The Pequod squad have just killed four whales, and the last one slain was found near Ahab’s boat. They all seem to be awake, but when the rest of the crew comes upon them, Ahab awakens and says, simply, “I have dreamed it again.” It is quite obvious that what he has dreamed again is that he himself will be slain at the hands (or fins, I suppose) of the white whale. He has dreamt of hearses and coffins. Fedallah tells him, calmly, that there is no way he will die on this voyage, unless there is a floating coffin in sight upon the sea - which could be the Pequod, could it not? Given that all of the members of the crew inevitably die, except Ishmael. Fedallah tells Ahab that only hemp can kill him - the gallows, he means - and so Ahab believes himself to be immortal both on land and on sea, because who would have him hanged?

[thewearyluddite-blog]

Mercurial Seas

Mercurial Seas   Words pulled from Moby Dick Chapters 107-118   Uncivilized and far-distant seas, an air-freighted demijohn. dead black in [its] rolling Rings of Eternity, gently rocking invisible flood-tide beyond all visible horizons, their own mild, uncontinented [it], interflow with blue heavens… so form the white breakers of the milky way. Gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams… tossing like slumberers in their beds, ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness. Inhale [its] new found salt breath, immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored, all-receptive… alluringly spread forth… the hearts of infinite Pacifics, like hearth-stone cats they purr. Tranquil beauty and brilliance of [it’s] skin, conceals a remorseless fang, mild blue hill-sides, a storm for every calm, golden, loveliness unfathomable, lovely sunset [it]. Candid and impartial, [its] heart unverdured, eternal tossings the wild fowl finds his only rest. [Its] waves for pall-bearers, immeasurable burning-glass, the hand that holds thee no longer will guide my earthly way by thee… by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea.  

[everythingwhalebeokay-blog]

“No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; toil were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it was. - Most miserable!” Chapter 112 The Blacksmith

I really want to illustrate the Blacksmith’s backstory. This is a new style I tried for the first page but I don’t think I’ll continue with it for the entire story. The rest will be very colorful, slowly descending into this black and white sort of thing. Anyway, I love backstories and find it interesting which characters get one, or in depth ones. Why does the blacksmith get his own chapter? Is Ishmael trying to document the lives and deaths of everyone on the ship with him? 

[mely918-blog]

The flesh is machine

A frame that harbors the soul

Soul wants to be free…

This haiku was inspired by chapter 107 in which the carpenter ponders over how everything, including the human body is essentially a machine. It got me thinking of some of my own beliefs. The poem, while inspired the chapter, is also a reflection of my own thoughts on the human flesh and how I believe that its main function is to give us a way to physically exist on this earth.Yet, at the same time, I believe our soul struggles with wanting to physically exist and wanting to be rid of a fallible machine, which is our body. Perhaps this was not necessarily what the carpenter meant when he said the body is a machine, but I also wanted to put my own thoughts about the topic into this haiku.

[itwasaverygoodbeer]

Down the Road Queequeg’s Revenge New England IPA ~ 6.5% ABV

[specialtopicsinamericannovel]

For this week’s creative project I decided to make my own miniature version of Queequeg’s coffin found in the chapter “Queequeg in His Coffin.” I decided to do this because I found this chapter the most interesting as to the revelation that the tattoos that Queequeg has painted his body with are things that he himself does not know the true meaning of. I also enjoyed the symbolism of Queequeg turning what was meant to hold his deceased body into something that was meant to hold the belongings that he would use in life.

[youvegotishmael]

[youvegotishmael]

Then turning - the last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot upon the Parsee; and with fixed upward eye, and high- flung right arm, he stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames.

‘Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee.’” -- Ahab in “The Candles”