Transformation and Mixture in Moby-Dick :: Moby Dick Melville

Classroom discussions of Moby-Dick often result in a heightened awareness of Melvilles depictions of dichotomy in nature for example, the contrasting toss away and sea respectively represent heaven and hell and the foul-smelling whale in Chapter 92 produces a fragrant and valuable substance called ambergris. But interlingual rendition Melvilles Moby-Dick only as an exercise in duality limits the scope of this complex original. Melvilles contemporary, Margaret Fuller, also seems aware of the confining notion of duality and states in Woman in the Nineteenth CenturyMale and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into nonpareil another(prenominal). Fluid hardens into solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine womanNature provides exceptions to every rule (Fuller 293-4).Fuller explains that duality is a limiting and artificial concept, especially when used to describe nature. Tran sformation and mixture are concepts that more accurately characterize both nature and the publications of Fuller and Melville. Multiple perspectives are ideal for these authors, as is evident in Melvilles multifaceted Ishmael. At the end of the novel only Ishmael survives because he is able to view life and nature in an all-encompassing fashion.Melville is preoccupied with coffins in this novel, exploring the connection that this object has to nature -- an object that is made from nature (wood) and holds another part of nature (a body) after a natural progression has taken place (death). Melville seems fascinated by this odd and frequent custom of humankind of burial bodies inside a wooden box. Even seamen who remain unattached to land, such as Queequeg, desire such a burial at sea. This coffin root word begins within the first few lines of Chapter 1, Loomings, when Ishmael thinks of funeralsWhenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth whenever it is a damp, drizzly Novemb er in my soul whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral procession I meet (Melville 3).This statement in the beginning of the novel introduces the reader to the coffin imagery that Melville uses throughout Moby-Dick and serves as the metaphor for transformative mixture throughout this paper.In Chapter 110, Queequeg in his Coffin, Chapter 126, The Life-Buoy, and the Epilogue, Melville explores many different and interesting representations of Queequegs coffin. Queequegs coffin cannot be defined only in terms of duality it is not simply just a coffin and a life-buoy.