Everyone has flaws, and Ishmael is no exception (and I don’t consider being too meditative a flaw). And as immoderation in positive qualities can become negative, Ishmael can suffer from a surfeit of his infectious enthusiasm.
For me, “The Whiteness of the Whale” shows this quality most clearly. This is where Ishmael’s task is quite difficult to begin with: he must impart to the reader the horror that lies in the whiteness of Moby-Dick. Readers have been asking themselves what the whale’s whiteness means for over 150 years, and this is where Ishmael most explicitly attempts to tell us.
He must go through all the “accumulated associations” of whiteness, “with whatever is sweet, and honourable, and sublime,” and explain that “there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.”
Ishmael makes a number of claims about the horror of whiteness in general. Discussing the polar bear and the great white shark, he maintains that their whiteness makes them more horrifying than tigers. Further, he argues in a footnote that it is not the simple fact of the polar bear’s whiteness that so terrifies, but “that heightened hideousness, it might be said, [that] only arises from the circumstance, that the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love.”
He also notes that albino men “so peculiarly repel,” and that “the one visible quality in the aspect of the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering there; as if indeed that pallor were much like the badge of consternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here.” I would simply disagree with Ishmael on his distaste for albinos beyond his revulsion at even “the ugliest abortion.” And while I haven’t seen many corpses, and none prior to their adventures with undertakers, such a strong claim about anything most appalling the gazer at the dead strikes me as a tough one to back up.
As Ishmael notes in this chapter, “without imagination no man can follow another into these halls.” Is this simply a place my imagination cannot take me, a place my affinity with Ishmael ends? It is not the only example of his enthusiasm carrying him away to making poorly argued points. But how much of argument and logic rests not on some Platonic ideal but on the shared assumptions between men? Is it not the fact of my affinity for Ishmael elsewhere that makes me believe him on other subjects, rather than better, more effective logic? Even here, in “The Whiteness of the Whale,” it’s no trouble at all to go along to get along—to read along with Ishmael and nod, and say “yes, polar bears are awfully frightening, continue to opine on this horrific whiteness!”
Yes, I think yet again, affinity is everything. My affinity for this novel could take me through a lifetime of posts on it, but I hope you’ve enjoyed this one short week. Tomorrow look out for some other perspectives.
I always assumed that I disagree with Ishmael here because I’m less invested in how great/angelic/wonderful the color white is to begin with, especially with how racially problematic the equation of white = good has come to be. I understand what he’s saying, though, about how when the thing you idolize goes wrong, it seems more menacing than something equally dangerous that doesn’t have that quality to begin with. Isn’t that why all the horror films about evil children are so creepy, because our culture idealizes childhood?