Dimock's "negative individualism" is an interesting opposition to the "American Adam" that Melville's counterparts were so enamored with. The Indian is once more displayed as the polar opposite of the white man, his negative image. Rather than rising up in the world as a consequence of his hard work and individual freedom, he digs downward to extinction - an agent of his own destruction.
But the Indian, like Ahab, is also unconcerned with rising up in capitalistic society. Personal gain means nothing to him, and he prefers vengeance over it.
And isn't this exactly what Melville does with Moby Dick? In other words, he works steadfastly day and night on a book that will not sell, on his own capitalistic demise. And, like Ahab, he takes his vengeance on the reading public, who are stuck with a whale of which no one can make heads or tails: as Dimock says, "It cannot be read because it refers to nothing other than itself." (In other words it is self-reflexive, leading the reader around in a circle, like the phrase, also mentioned by Dimock: "Ahab is forever Ahab.")
And Melville tells us exactly why his reading public will naturally be so frustrated with his whale of a tale. In chapter 73 he compares the two massive heads hung from the ship to the philosophy that weighs on the mind of man: "When on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist and you come back again, but in very poor plight... Oh ye foolish, throw all these thunderheads overboard, and then you will float light and right."
In other words, Melville has hoisted these philosophers into his text only to throw them out again with a flourish, as Flask would throw the devil overboard. But this will also leave his readers unmoored, afloat on the dangerous tides of their own untethered minds.
But the Indian, like Ahab, is also unconcerned with rising up in capitalistic society. Personal gain means nothing to him, and he prefers vengeance over it.
And isn't this exactly what Melville does with Moby Dick? In other words, he works steadfastly day and night on a book that will not sell, on his own capitalistic demise. And, like Ahab, he takes his vengeance on the reading public, who are stuck with a whale of which no one can make heads or tails: as Dimock says, "It cannot be read because it refers to nothing other than itself." (In other words it is self-reflexive, leading the reader around in a circle, like the phrase, also mentioned by Dimock: "Ahab is forever Ahab.")
And Melville tells us exactly why his reading public will naturally be so frustrated with his whale of a tale. In chapter 73 he compares the two massive heads hung from the ship to the philosophy that weighs on the mind of man: "When on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist and you come back again, but in very poor plight... Oh ye foolish, throw all these thunderheads overboard, and then you will float light and right."
In other words, Melville has hoisted these philosophers into his text only to throw them out again with a flourish, as Flask would throw the devil overboard. But this will also leave his readers unmoored, afloat on the dangerous tides of their own untethered minds.
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