Marc Schuster

Defining the Novel:

Melville's Trimurti

 

Throughout Moby Dick, Herman Melville offers his reader a mélange of foreign curiosities and exotic points of interest that add both depth and texture to the narrative. The abundance of such exotica, however, can prove overwhelming, and many of the novel's briefly noted yet remarkably important cultural signposts get lost in the mix. Often overlooked, Melville's use of Hindu imagery not only lends a sense of mysticism to the novel, but also helps to define the dynamic that operates between Ishmael, Ahab, and Moby Dick. Understanding this dynamic offers insight into Melville's efforts at defining the novel as an art form as well as his attempts at casting the roles of author, reader, and novel in relationship to each other.i

     The reader's initiation into Hindu culture begins sublimely, and in the most Christian of settings, in a chapel. Deeply moved by the cold, stone tablets commemorating those who have died at sea, Ishmael goes on to invoke the foreign religion:

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flowers can say--here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here. (64)

     As well might those tablets stand in the cave? As well might we! Here, the power of the written word is such that Ishmael can transport the reader from the domestic tranquillity of a humble Boston chapel to the mystic shores of exotic India simply by calling on the name of one of that country's temples: Elephanta. The significance of this name is noteworthy.

     Elephanta, a small island between Bombay and mainland India, is the home of an eighth-century temple cave that contains a statue of the Trimurti or the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (Sharma 7). By planting this eastern landmark so early in the novel, Melville subtly alludes to these gods, and a close reading of the text reveals that the author identifies Ishmael, the whale, and Ahab with Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva respectively. While an understanding of these characters in terms of their divine counterparts will shed light on many issues, some background information on Melville's knowledge of Hindu mythology is warranted before we proceed.

     That Melville was well-versed in the mythologies of many cultures is evident. In his memoirs, Maunsell Field recounts a conversation between Melville and Oliver Wendell Holmes, in which both parties discuss the mythologies of India "with the most amazing skill and brilliancy," and Melville himself mentions Sir William Jones, the first president of the Royal Society of Bengal and Calcutta and a major promoter of research into Eastern mythology, in Moby Dick, reflecting a familiarity with the researcher's work (Kulkarni 1). An additional familiarity with Pierre Bayle's Dictionaire and Thomas Maurice's Indian Antiquities and History of Hindostan not only broadened Melville's iconography, but also gave the author a medium in which to "explore the relationship between man and his gods" (Franklin 8).

     A major element in Melville's Hindu iconography is the Trimurti, the trinity composed of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Together, these deities represent "the three first and great attributes of God, his power to create, his power to preserve, and his power to change or destroy" (Marshall 55). Brahma created the universe, Vishnu will destroy it, and Shiva mediates between the two.

     According to legend, Brahma created the universe by opening his eyes. At the dawn of time, Brahma "forthwith perceived the idea of things, as if floating before his eyes. He said, Let them be, and all that he saw became real before him" (Marshall 125). Other legends hold that Brahma developed the world from a golden egg and that the universe will exist for the duration of his life. The identity of Brahma as creator remains constant:

     

Different authors stile him, Bruma, Brama, Burma, Brumma, Birmah, Brahma; and although they write him thus variously, they are unanimous in thinking him all the same person, and give him the same attributes… In the figurative sense, the word Birmah means creation, created, and sometimes creator, and represents what the Bramins call, the first great attribute of God, his power of creation. (Marshall 55)

     Brahma is easily recognized as he is the only member of the Trimurti with four heads, and it is his meditative power--the power of thought as well as the power of the word--that allows creation to take place. When Brahma ceases his meditation, the universe ceases to exist and is replaced by a watery chaos from which a new universe can emerge (O'Flaherty 65). In some instances, this cycle of universal renovation through creation and destruction is depicted in images of Brahma as an infant resting on a leaf that floats over the waters of the deluge (Marshall 138).

     Upon creating the universe, Brahma grew fearful of its destruction and called upon Vishnu to act as a preserver:

Then fear struck the immortal Brimha, lest those things [he created] should be annihilated. O immortal Brimh! he cried, who shall preserve those things which I behold? In the instant a spirit of blue color issued from Brimha's mouth, and said aloud, I will. Then shall thy name be Bishen [or Vishnu] because thou hast undertaken to preserve all things. (Marshall 125)

     As preserver, Vishnu also acts as a mediator between good and evil, the creative force of Brahma and the destructive force of Shiva. When the evil in the universe begins to outweigh the good, Vishnu realizes himself in the form of an avatar or secular body and restores the balance of power. For example, when the demon Hayagriva stole the Vedas, or sacred texts, from Brahma, Vishnu descended in the form of a great fish and warned the noble Satyavrata, prince of Dravira, of the imminent deluge that was to destroy all of humanity, which had become corrupt. When the deluge ended, Vishnu slew the demon and recovered the Vedas, restoring balance to the world (Marshall 267).

     Closely linked to Vishnu's preservative nature is the ubiquity associated with that god. Because the power of preserving the universe "belongs eminently to the Godhead" that created all things, Vishnu's followers "hold that power to exist transcendently in the preserving member of the Triad, whom they suppose to be Every Where, Always, not in substance, but in spirit and energy" (Marshall 218).

     Completing this divine trinity is Shiva, who symbolizes both the destructive and the procreative forces of nature. As destroyer, Shiva is seen as an avenger, a mutilator, and a punisher and is quick to works of terror, severity and destruction. He is frequently depicted as having three eyes and holding a lingam, or phallic symbol, and he is often surrounded by demons. Shiva is also depicted as a pillar of flame, in the center of which is "a lingam of great lustre, measuring just a handsbreadth, unmanifest and full of supreme light. In the middle it [is] neither gold nor silver; it [is] indescribable, unimaginable, visible and invisible again and again" (O'Flaherty 85).

     According to legend, Shiva was born out of Brahma's angry brow:

Brimha… became angry, and lo! a brown spirit started from between his eyes. He sat down before Brimha, and began to weep: then lifting up his eyes, he asked him, "Who am I, and where shall be the place of my abode?" Thy name shall be Rudder [The weeper, because he was produced in tears. One of Shiva's many names.], said Brimha, and all nature shall be the place of thine abode. But rise up, O Rudder! and form man to govern the world.

      Rudder immediately obeyed the orders of Brimha. He began to work, but the men he made were fiercer than tigers, having nothing but the destructive quality in their compositions. They, however, soon destroyed one another, for anger was their only passion. (Marshall 126)

     Legend also explains that Shiva will have a hand in the destruction of the universe. At the end of time, Shiva, with the ten spirits of dissolution, shall "roll a comet under the moon, that shall involve all things in fire and reduce the world into ashes. God shall then exist alone, for matter will be totally annihilated" (Marshall 124). Once destroyed, however, the universe gives way to the aforementioned waters of chaos, from which a new universe can emerge. Here lies Shiva's procreative quality: creation emerges from destruction.

     As destruction gives way to creation, the cyclic nature of the Trimurti becomes clear. Creation begets a need for preservation, which inevitably gives way to entropy and eventually destruction. However, destruction allows for further creation. Just as creation, preservation and destruction are inextricably linked, so too are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. But how do these foreign gods relate to Moby Dick?

     Ignoring the presence of Hindu imagery in Moby Dick is not difficult. In many instances, Melville's Hindu images are subliminal at best. However, textual evidence clearly demonstrates Melville's familiarity with the Trimurti. Over the course of the novel, Melville makes two references to the island of Elephanta, home of the Trimurti, and he invokes the names of members of that divine trinity on two separate occasions, disclosing details that a merely cursory understanding of Hindu legends might not reveal. Furthermore, closer scrutiny reveals that each member of the Trimurti finds a counterpart in each of the major characters in the novel--Ishmael, Moby Dick, and Ahab.

     As narrator, Ishmael serves as a kind of creator. His words bring characters and situations to life, and his will more or less shapes the course of the unfolding dramaii. However, Ishmael's similarity to Brahma is not limited to a merely superficial similarity in duties; both share specific traits that imply an identification of Ishmael with Brahma.

     First, Brahma's birth parallels an early episode in Ishmael's development. Marshall explains that "Brimha gazing round, and seeing nothing but the immense image, out of which he had proceeded, he traveled a thousand years, to endeavor to comprehend its dimensions. But after all his toil, he found himself as much at a loss as before" (Marshall 125). Here, Brahma's birth finds the young god face to face with a seemingly incomprehensible universe. Similarly, Ishmael recalls a childhood memory in which he finds himself trapped in an incomprehensible darkness of his own:

I opened my eyes, and the before sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself with it. (54)

     The parallel is clear. Where Brahma sees nothing but the vast image from which he came, Ishmael comprehends only darkness. Where Brahma travels a thousand years to comprehend its dimensions, Ishmael lies frozen for ages upon ages, unable to comprehend his phantom for days, weeks and months. While neither Brahma nor Ishmael can fully comprehend the immense mysteries of the eternal, they both respond to their failure by defining the universe in their own terms. Ishmael's narrative, then, may be seen as an attempt at defining the incomprehensible in comprehensible terms, and Melville's definition of the novel as a medium may be viewed similarly.

     As noted, Brahma created the universe by opening his eyes. Ishmael closely parallels Brahma's role as creator by opening his own eyes to the world around him. In describing objects, people, and situations, Ishmael often explains to the reader that he "eyes" them before launching into descriptions. For example: "I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature" (55). This act of voyeurism gives Ishmael the opportunity to "invent" the resting Queequeg for the reader. In examining the savage, Ishmael brings dimension and texture to his character. In short, Ishmael gives Queequeg life.

     In addition to bringing characters and situations to life, Ishmael hints that his eyes have the power to bring an entire universe to life:

Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. (34)

     The ambiguity in this passage rests on they. If these eyes is its referent, then Ishmael turns his eyes inward to create himself before turning his eyes outward to create the universe. The end result of this action is clear. Ishmael, in a poetic sense at least, holds his own eyes responsible for the creation of the universe, and in so doing equates himself with Brahma.

     Ishmael also mirrors Brahma in his possession, for a moment at least, of four heads: "Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us join them, and lay together our own," he declares, calling the reader to bear witness to a pair of whales lashed to the Pequod (Melville, Moby Dick 427). The addition is simple. By laying his own head with the reader's, and by joining both of these heads to the heads of two whales, Ishmael gives himself four heads, and Melville offers a subtle commentary on the relationship between the reader and storyteller. Because both the reader and the narrator participate in the godhead, both share in the power and responsibility of creating the fictitious universe. Without the active participation of the reader, the novel is just a collection of lifeless words. However, by joining in the creative process, by bringing one's own knowledge and experience to the proverbial table, the reader allows for a synergistic connection with the novel that begets a kind of synthesis, and a unique and interactive relationship with the work is born. Nonetheless, even the best of relationships must come to an end, and Ishmael's tale cannot go on forever.

     Or can it?

     Concluding his tale with the sinking of the Pequod, Ishmael recalls the legend of Brahma once again: "Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago" (723). Here ends the narrative of the Pequod's tale, and one universe is engulfed by the waters of chaos. Before severing his relationship with the reader, Ishmael offers an epilogue that recalls images of the infant Brahma floating over the waters of the deluge:

     

Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main… On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. (724)

     As the orphan lost at sea who finds life in death by using a coffin as a floatation device, Ishmael immerses himself in the complexity of Brahma's character. By ending his narrative not with the destruction of the Pequod but with the potential for a new beginning, Ishmael mirrors Brahma's cyclic nature. Destruction gives way to creation, challenging the reader, in a sense, to continually return to the text with fresh eyes and new perspectives. This challenge allows the relationship between the reader and the novel to progress ad infinitum, yielding limitless wisdom. Thus, Ishmael's tale can go on forever, or as long as the reader continues to read and re-read.

     A continued reading reveals that the whale finds a counterpart in Vishnu, the preserver. In the passage most overtly and consistently alluding to Hindu legend, Melville plants a red herring that nearly demands an identification of Moby Dick with Vishnu:

That wondrous oriental story is now to be rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine Vishnoo himself for our Lord;--Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified the whale. When Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo before beginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained something in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnoo became incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost depths, rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even as a man who rides a horse is called a horseman? (468)

     Again, Melville is calling for the reader's active participation, and the alert reader can only respond to Ishmael's question with a resounding "No!" The logic is flawed. A horseman may be a man who rides a horse, but a whaleman is not a man who rides a whale. A whaleman is a man who kills a whale. As such, Vishnu cannot be considered a whaleman. Vishnu, then, cannot be identified with anyone aboard the Pequod, as the entire crew consists of whalemen. However, the presence of this passage indicates that Melville intends to draw attention to Vishnu. In doing so, he opens the door for speculation: If Vishnu is not a whaleman, then might he be a whale? Might he be The Whale?

     The connection between Moby Dick and Vishnu in this passage is not limited to semantics. In destroying the Pequod, Moby Dick allows Queequeg's coffin to float to the surface of the ocean. Carved with the grotesque features of Queequeg's "twisted tatooing," the coffin offers "a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth" (612). In freeing this coffin, then, Moby Dick echoes Vishnu's rescue of the sacred texts of Hinduism.

     Furthering the argument for Moby Dick's identification with Vishnu is the whale's ubiquity as reflected in reports "that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same instant of time" (243). Adding to his ubiquity is the whale's immortality:

Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen. (244)

     These qualities allow Vishnu's followers to associate that deity with the incomprehensible eternity of the universe. Therefore, the elusive Moby Dick can never be apprehended, can never be contained, can never be defined. Only hints of his immensity and significance can be glimpsed, and even then only at great risk to the witness.

     Moby Dick's ubiquity is also evident--and consequential--in other ways. Because the whale shares its name with the title of the work, Moby Dick, or Moby Dick, is present in every word of the novel, and every word of the novel is part of Moby Dick. That is, Moby Dick envelops the entirety of Ishmael's universe.

     Like Brahma before him, Ishmael seeks to preserve all that he has seen. Where Brahma gives birth to Vishnu, Ishmael, through the written word, his medium of preservation, gives birth to Moby Dick, and the novel becomes the eternal and incomprehensible "all," a riddle to be pondered forever, but never fully understood. Again, the reader is challenged to read and reread the text, to bring the light of individual experience and knowledge to it, to define the text personally just as Brahma defines the universe.

     The challenge to continually read and reread the text is made all the more challenging by the sense of danger associated with the endeavor. This sense is reflected in Ishmael's description of Starbuck:

And brave as he might be, it was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man. (159)

     As the terrors of the sea give way to the terrors of the spirit, the reader is given fair warning. The danger of the tale is not necessarily a corporal one, but the reader runs a definite spiritual risk in pursuing the truth that is Moby Dick.

     In the preceding passage, the spiritual terrors proceed from "the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man." Superficially, this enraged and mighty man appears to be Ahab. However, an examination of the text in terms of the Trimurti reveals a different possibility. The mightiest of men in Moby Dick may not Ahab, but Ishmael, who not only survives the wreck of the Pequod, but also serves as the Brahma-like creator of the novel's universe. Though the degree to which he is enraged is questionable, an element of profound emotion must be present to inspire him to invent this tale; out of his brow comes a spiritual terror called Ahab. The parallel to Shiva's birth is clear, but the significance of this relationship only yields more complexities.

     Proceeding from Ishmael's brow, Ahab becomes an extension of the narrator. As such, Ahab's qualities are Ishmael's qualities, and Ahab can be seen as Ishmael's darker half, the manifestation of the blight that plagues Ishmael's soul. This blight is reflected in a grimness about the mouth and a drizzly November of the soul that ultimately culminates in a need to leave the comforts of civilization in pursuit of whales. When projected onto Ahab, the blight is intensified, producing a veritable frothing at the mouth and a raging December of the soul that culminates in a need to completely abandon society in pursuit of one specific, all-encompassing whale, Moby Dick. As Ishmael's dark half, Ahab is that element of the narrator's psyche most in need of purgation, and it is his self-destructive rage that frees Ishmael from the pathos that haunt him.

     Along with their similar origins, Ahab and Shiva also bear a degree of physical similarity. Where Shiva is often depicted as having three eyes, Ahab calls upon the sun to act as a third eye for him: "Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou must be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is even now beholding him" (633). Also, his peg leg can be seen as a phallic symbol mirroring Shiva's lingam. The most striking similarity, however, lies in the following passage: "Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to color, and therefore a blankness in itself" (272). As a ray of living light, Ahab is nearly identical to Shiva's incarnation as "a lingam of great lustre, measuring just a handsbreadth, unmanifest and full of supreme light," and this passage recalls Ishmael's first vision of Ahab in which "Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck" (Melville, Moby Dick 168). In both instances, Ahab's "eternal, living principal or soul" seems to presage the arrival of his body, and his divine alter ego dances on the fringes of perception.

     Beyond his physical appearance, Ahab also parallels Shiva in his choice of companions:

Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;--a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere. (291)

     These tiger-yellow companions recall Shiva's minions, who are described as being "fiercer than tigers." Their fierceness is seen in a subsequent passage in which they are likened to five trip-hammers, starting Ahab's boat along the water "like a horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer" (Melville, Moby Dick 294). Later, other members of Ahab's crew are also likened to tigers: "But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all three tigers--Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo--instinctively sprang to their feet" (458). The self-destructive qualities of these tiger-men are reflected in their acceptance of Ahab's monomania, which eventually leads to their doom. Ahab's presence is such that it allows a base, animalistic spirit to rise in the souls of all those around him. This presence initiates a catharsis that is brought to fruition in the destruction of the Pequod and its crew.

     Presaging the destruction of the Pequod is the death of Fedallah, whose turban of hair is reminiscent of the hairstyle worn by Shiva's devotees (Kulkarni 29). By dying in pursuit of the whale, Fedallah becomes a martyr in Ahab's monomaniacal church of destruction. The man who takes the form of a worshiper of Shiva makes the ultimate sacrifice to his god, Ahab, thus correlating the seemingly secular captain with the divine destroyer.

     That Ahab exhibits the destructive traits of Shiva is clear. However, the dual nature of destruction as reflected in Shiva's procreative qualities reveals the significance of Ahab's wrath. It is at once destructive and creative. Again, in destroying himself, his crew and his ship, Ahab, willingly or not, purges the universe of the tempestuous malignity that plagues his spirit and infects the spirits of those around him. This act of purgation yields one survivor, Ishmael, who--buoyed by Queequeg's coffin and rescued by the Rachel--can begin his life anew, can invent a fresh self, can open his eyes to a new universe that is free, for the moment at least, from the evils that once plagued his soul.

     This sense of purgation also comments on the cathartic effect of the novel on the reader. As noted, the reader enjoys a kind of symbiosis with the narratoriii. Both share in the creative process, and both experience Ahab's destructive nature together. This relationship brings the reader into such close proximity with Ahab that the base, animalistic spirit that comes to life in the crew can also come to life in the reader. However, sharing in Ishmael's survival, the reader's soul is purged of this spirit, and the reader may begin a new life. Moby Dick, then, may be Melville's cure for ailments of the soul.

     As destroyer, Ahab also allows for subsequent creations of Ishmael's universe and contributes to the cyclic nature of Moby Dick's Trimurti. By destroying the Pequod, he forces Ishmael's narrative to come to an end. His failure to capture the whale, however, nearly demands a kind of rematch, and the reader can only oblige with subsequent readings. Although a continued reading of Moby Dick brings Ahab no closer to achieving his goal, it is the never-ending quest that yields the fruit of ever-deepening wisdom and spiritual growth.

     The geography of Moby Dick reinforces the novel's cyclic nature. As Mohamed Elias suggests,

a fact worth noting is that aboriginal islands in the Indian Ocean and insular cities on the American mainland have one thing in common when seen through Ishmael's eyes: the circularity of the surrounding coral reefs and commercial wharves. This circularity is symbolic of the cyclic nature of all existence, as repeatedly emphasized by various statements in the novel. (139)

     By including such imagery, Melville casts his novel as a Zen puzzle of sorts, a never-ending quest for wisdom. However, one must at least occasionally doubt the practicality of such a quest.

     In a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville expresses his own doubts in the pragmatic value of transcendence:

In reading some of Goethe's sayings, so worshipped by his votaries, I came across this "Live in the all." That is to say, your separate identity is but a wretched one, --good; but get out of yourself, spread and expand yourself, and bring to yourself the tinglings of life that are felt in the flowers and the woods, that are felt in the planets Saturn and Venus, and the Fixed Stars. What nonsense! Here is a fellow with a raging toothache. "My dear boy," Goethe says to him, "you are sorely afflicted with that tooth; but you must live in the all, and then you will be happy!" (Correspondence 193).

     This doubt is echoed in Moby Dick as Ishmael recalls the wisdom of Solomon. "'All is vanity.' ALL" (Correspondence 543). As Starbuck would surely agree, the secular world holds more pressing matters than the pursuit of some ephemeral "all." Similarly, an intrinsic impracticality lies in expecting the reader to constantly return to the text. However, these practical concerns are offset by Ahab's eternal quest for the whale, the unattainable "all" that is Vishnu, and an understanding of the novel in terms of the Trimurti sheds some light on this apparent paradox.

     That Moby Dick reflects Melville's familiarity with Hindu scripture is evident. Furthermore, close scrutiny reveals that this familiarity plays a vital role in defining the characteristics of Ishmael, Moby Dick, and Ahab in terms of the Hindu Trimurti. As Brahma, Ishmael reveals the creative nature of the novel and the interactive relationship between the author and the reader, calling upon the reader to help in the creation and definition of the novel's universe. This interactive relationship helps to identify the whale, and by extension the novel, as Vishnu, the preserving aspect of the godhead and the medium through which the transcendent "all" of the universe can be more or less understood. As such, any attempt at chasing the whale or at exploring the depths of the novel is an attempt at divining some elusive universal truth, a noble, but ultimately futile endeavor. Although the human mind can only perceive shadows of the truth, Ahab (of all people!) offers hope by exorcising the reader's demons, thus allowing for new perspectives in subsequent readings of the text, subsequent attempts at perceiving the "all."

     Together, the members of Melville's secular Trimurti offer a challenging and at times maddening paradox. While granting the inability of the human mind to comprehend the entirety of the universe, Moby Dick calls upon the reader to continually contemplate the incomprehensible by constantly returning to the text. One can only oblige.

Works Cited

  • Elias, Mohamed. "The India of Melville and Mark Twain: A Study in Geo-Cultural Symbolism." Diss. U of Kerala, 1977.
  • Franklin, H. Bruce. The Wake of the Gods: Melville's Mythology. California: Stanford UP, 1963.
  • Kulkarni, H.B. Moby Dick: A Hindu Avatar. Utah: Utah State UP, 1970.
  • Marshall, P.J., ed. The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970.
  • Melville, Herman. Correspondence. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern UP, 1993.
  • Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Bobbs-Merril, 1964.
  • O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, ed. Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism. New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 1988.
  • Organ, Troy Wilson. The Hindu Quest for the Perfection of Man. Ohio: Ohio UP, 1980.
  • Sharma, Brijendra Nath. Iconography of Sadasiva. New Delhi: Abhinav, 1976.

Notes

     i Although H. Bruce Franklin argues against Melville's use of Hindu mythology in Moby Dick, favoring instead Egyptian mythology, H.B. Kulkarni thoroughly answers each of Franklin's objections, suggesting that "Moby Dick has room enough not only for Hindu and Egyptian myths, but many more" (Kulkarni 6).

     ii That is, Ishmael shapes the course of the drama as it exists on the page. To suggest that Ishmael shapes events as they occur on the ship would cast doubt on his veracity as a narrator.

     iii Indeed, "Call me Ishmael" invites the reader to engage in a fairly intimate relationship with the narrator.

     

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Marc Schuster served as managing editor of Schuylkill 2000-2001.

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