Ahab's Appearance

Andy asked what else we may discern about Ahab's character based upon his appearance. I think that Melville gave us a lot to think about concerning Ahab, and there is much to interpret for our understanding of the character. The description of Ahab's body as being crafted from solid bronze is meant, I believe, to convey a sense of his toughness as well as the ancient respect afforded to a classical character such as a Perseus which Melville suggests. Also, the description of Ahab as a man cut away from the stake, which the fire has wasted the limbs of without reducing any of their robustness, seems to indicate that this is a man who has suffered much and weathered a great deal, but who has survived and is stronger for it.

Sermonic Possession

In Jacob's post titled "Chapter 9," he analyzed aspects of the sermon in relation to what role the sermon played in the novel. I am inclined to think that the Sermon, while serving a number of purposes in the arc of the story and the depths of its meaning, is at least in part an instance of allegorical foreshadowing. The story of Jonah and the whale as told by the preacher is strongly related to the fate of Ahab and Moby Dick, in the sense that both men were sinful and decided to shirk the commands of God, which seemingly resulted in their related interactions with their respective leviathans. I find it more interesting, however, that some of the allegorical interpretations of Moby Dick (as nature incarnate, or God) seem to echo the lesson of Jonah; that resistance to God or nature based in the will of man is futile. The allegorical meaning is further strengthened in the comparison of the two characters, Jonah and Ahab, in the sense that Jonah was delievered from the whale (and his demise) after his sincere repentence to God, whereas Ahab never repents from his megalomaniac actions and proudly dies in pursuit of his whale instead.

Intention vs. Interpretation

In Corey's post titled "That's not what I meant," he questioned the necessity of authorial intent for a metaphor. He also discussed the virtue of interpreting an author's work in other ways from their intention.

I do not think that Corey's views on interpretation of metaphors are incompatible with my claim that metaphors are intentional. Just as an author may capture certain concepts in his work which were not intended, a metaphor may expand beyond the intended purpose of the author to include other concepts as well. This is a matter of interpretation. Interpretation allows the audience to read a story or a metaphor and speculate as to what different aspects of either mean. I think that interpretation is a valuable exercise and there are many aspects of literature that may be more fulfilling with interpretations of concepts outside of the author's intention. However, I do believe that a diligent reader will use the context of the story or metaphor in order to make a reasonable assessment of their interpretations. Also, while I noted that interpretation could, and perhaps should, go beyond the intention of the author, I firmly hold that the author's intention is an inherent part of all of their work, including their metaphors. Also, while metaphors can be interpreted in a multitude of reasonable ways, there is an intended purpose or message inherent to each metaphor.

Civilized Cannibals

In the discussion of the Sarah Ott essay, we touched upon the issue of cannibalism while discussing the opposing tensions (paradoxes) within Queequeg. While we agreed that given the context of the time in which the story was written and the general western views of both cannibals (non-Caucasian islanders, typically) and civilization, that this was sufficient to illustrate an opposing tension within the character, Professor Johnson claimed that the idea of cannibalism should, of its inherent qualities, be considered contradictory towards the idea of being civilized.

There are a couple issues at work here. First, without a clearer definition of civilized, beyond the context of the book and Melville's time period, it becomes difficult to determine if cannibalism is contradictory or not. If civilized means having qualities indicative of an organized society, than cannibalism is not a contradiction; there are many societies throughout history which have engaged in cannibalism. If civilized means polite or humane, then it may be contradictory, but there are difficulties with this assessment as well. This leads to the second issue, which is that while some people may conclude that cannibalism is impolite or inhumane, others may disagree with good reasons as well. What of a society that believes in consuming it's dead as opposed to burying them? What if the family of the deceased adheres to this practice as well, and no one connected to the deceased had strong objections in the matter? Would that be an impolite or inhumane act? I think it would be neither. What of a society like Queequeg's, which ate their fallen foes after a battle? Is that inhumane? While a good argument many be formed for the inhumaneness of fighting other humans in the first place, it may be altogether more sensible to consume the dead as opposed to wasting them or defaming them in another fashion. I think that a lot of our trouble with cannibalism is an extension of our pre-conceived cultural notions of taboos and qualms regarding the consumption of human flesh.

The Whale as a Whale

The central premise of the Armstrong essay on Moby Dick was the extent to which Melville portrayed whales in either a anthropomorphic or anthropocentric fashion. We decided that Melville used both positions within his story in order to create a juxtaposition between the two conflicting concepts.

While I agree that Melville most likely implemented both viewpoints of the whale and whaling in general throughout his story, there are a couple things that we should keep in mind with our reading. It is possible that some of the anthropomorphic qualities attributed to whales, especially Moby Dick, may be serving a metaphorical or allegorical purpose beyond the mere analysis of the creatures themselves. Also, some the the passages that are anthropocentric in nature may be intended to portray specific characters in a particular manner. Or perhaps Melville was doing all of these things intentionally at the same time for all of these purposes. I simply think it's important to note that the intent of the author is notoriously hard to assess, and usually impossible to know, and therefore due consideration should be given before we claim the seemingly prevalent themes of anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism throughout the novel.

Caring Objectively

In class I brought up the issue of whether we can care for an object. I claimed that one can care for an object, extending from the fact that one can attribute emotional value to an object (which most everyone in the class agreed with.) The primary objection to to this claim is that people cannot care about objects that do not have intrinsic value i.e. inanimate objects.

Professor Johnson accurately described the difference (at least in regard to this particular discussion) between care and respect. Essentially, in order to respect something is to recognize it for its potential and treat it with due consideration. To care for something is to value it emotionally. I think that if we understand these premises, than the argument becomes easily resolved. We can discuss how the object itself is not the "true" focus of our emotional attachment or value, but the memories or other abstract extrinsic qualities which we associate with the object is what we actually care about. This may be true, but even then those extrinsic qualities are themselves objects, if only in an abtract sense, and at the very least they are not qualities inherent to any other being other than ourselves. . As Tom said in class, objects can serve as the embodiment of our emotional attachment, and that is all we need to value them emotionally.

Conscious Conundrum

In class we defined a person as the conscious subject of a life (SOAL). We listed the necessary and sufficient conditions for a person as cognitive, affective, conscious and purposeful. Although cognitive and affective seem to be reasonable distinctions (I have my reservations about the use of purposeful, but that seems to be a matter of vagueness to be settled at a later date) the issue of consciousness I find to be a contentious one.

There are several aspects of the consciousness problem we need to consider. First, that all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for life are to be considered as active states, not capacities, for an organism to be a person. Thus, a human being in a coma would no longer be considered a person, given that they do not possess, at the moment the power of consciousness. What then of a human being who is asleep? Unless we redefine consciousness in some way as to claim that human beings are conscious while they sleep, which we typically consider to be an unconscious state, then sleeping humans should not be considered persons either. This conclusion has what I consider to be disturbing implications. If the primary purpose of the designation of "person" status to certain organisms is to garner the respect and consideration such a designation deserves, then a sleeping human being would, in that sense, not be worthy of such consideration.

Speculative Spectrum

Earlier this week in class, we discussed the "personhood" of animals. We discussed how, according to some philosophers, a person is defined as the conscious subject of a life. We also talked about how not all animals would fit under the category of a person, and as such they should not receive the same consideration.

I find it interesting that, according to this understanding of personhood, we can attribute the qualities and due consideration of a person to some animals and not to others. To the extent that we can accurately determine and measure the sentience and cognition of an animal, it seems as though there would be a spectrum of creatures endowed with characteristics both necessary and sufficient for designation as a person. While in many cases it may be easy enough to distinguish between person and non-person type animals, such as a chimpanzee and an ant, other cases might arise in which the distinction is more difficult. Is a chicken a person? What about a mouse, or a snake? Many pescatarians claim that fish should not be given the same consideration as other animals they consider persons, but is that distinction fair? And does it depend on the species of fish? When we begin to distinguish animals as persons and non-persons, where the line is drawn becomes an important issue, and thus far it seems as though the analytic consideration of these species is arbitrary and speculative at best.