Ishmael is an educated and intellectual man, who is well aware of
the fact that Ahab is a monomaniac. If so, why did he not stand up to Ahab and
never once tried to question his authority? In chapter 42, Ishmael attempts to
explain to the reader why he decided to follow Ahab’s quest, claiming “it was
the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me” (159).
Ishmael reverses the traditional associations that white has to
purity and beauty. Whiteness to him stands for emptiness, conveying both the
lack of deeper meaning and the inability of man to reach a higher truth. James
claims that white is a reminder of a world without any spiritual values,
without any trace of the higher truth Ishmael is determined to find.
James goes on to claim that Ishmael sees nature as superficial,
that he examines everything in search of something, but establishes nothing,
only finding a bare, white blankness (42).
In that sense, Ishmael portrays the exact opposite of Ahab, who
believes that behind every object lays a higher power. For him, object and
colors are masks of deception, not for hiding an unnatural force. For Ishmael,
the white whale symbolizes the fear from the failure of his project, his quest
for a higher, spiritual truth. He joins Ahab in order to demolish that fear.
In my opinion, Melville uses the issue of whiteness in order to
comment on the subject of transcendentalism, especially when reading closely
the last paragraph of chapter 42. The point of transcendentalism is digging
into meaning in the purpose of connecting to a higher truth. Yet, this search may
yield no results, only a white blankness which ultimately blinds, not
enlightens.
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