Ahab the Hoarder

In Yunte Huang’s Transpacific Imaginations: History, Literature, Counterpoetics Yunte unravels the distinction between capitalist economy and antiquarian mnemonics and argues for the central role of “collection” in Moby Dick. Unlike other scholars that see Melville as “a willing or unwilling advocate of capitalist, imperial expansion” (53) Huang describes Melville’s writing as part of an anti-Romantic, anti-Emersonian mode that “unsettles the kind of transpacific interests expressed variously in nineteenth-century American economist and historical imaginations” (53).

 

He then elaborates on the “collector” attributes of Ahab, Ishmael and Queequeg of which the description of Ahab as a “collector in the Pacific” (61) or “a capitalist turned connoisseur” (61) is the most interesting for me. The beginning of the section titled “Ahab’s Collectibles: The White Whale and the Yellow Tigers” (61) seemed very reasonable at first. Ahab abandons his duties as a whale ship captain. Instead of concentrating his efforts on the capitalist enterprise at hand – slaying as many whales as possible - he seeks out one particular whale and basically changes the purpose of the Peqoud’s whaling voyage. Also, his reading of the “doubloon” as a non-sign which is unlike “the utilitarian deciphering of Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask” (65) strengthens the point that “Ahab’s nostalgic gaze draws on the mnemonic and not the use or exchange value of the object” (66). However, I always thought that to be a hoarder you have to collect more than one item of the same kind. I mean, it seems that if there were two white whales (both unique as far as whales concerned) Ahab will only be truly satisfied with killing the one that actually bit off his leg so although his aim is non-capitalist without a doubt, it is not entirely ‘teleology-free’ either.  

Also, even if we accept his later analysis of Melville’s style in the section titled “Melville’s Pacific Style: Fancy, Fate, Finis” (87) as that which is anti-Romantically centered around the materiality of words and Ishmael’s “inability to tell a coherent story” (96) which goes against the self-reliant, Romantic hero image, can we actually claim that the “collection”, which is a central elements both in the writing of and the plot of Moby Dick (I am convinced that it is, since his analysis is very good) triumphs over capitalism?

Is the sinking of the Pequod an anti-capitalist statement after all? Is it the end of Starbuck’s capitalist aspirations or Ahab’s antiquarian enterprise? If we accept that Ahab changed the trajectory of this particular whaling voyage almost from the get-go then what actually sinks is the monomaniac obsession and not the capitalist enterprise.

Therefore, I wouldn’t be too quick to announce Melville as an advocate of anti-expansionism, but I do agree that Huang makes a strong case for the centrality of the “collection” mode in Moby Dick.