Following Yoni Dayan's book - Ahab's battle against MD is representative of a schysm between contesting philosophical stands (the old/new world, English language/American, nature/culture). These tenstions are carried on by language and subverted through language. Of the most interesting among Dayan's claims is his assertion that Melville created a language of the savage, pre-literate (or post modern?), ungraspable. This is the language of the "outlandish" realm with its multinationalities, mutinitys and outlaws. Ahab is charactarized by high culture language, strong domineering language, the language of scientific knowledge and of Shakespear. Ishamael's language stresses the materiality of words and sends us back to the magical power of word sounds. Followed further, Ishmael's and Ahab's language, and everything that comes with it, no longer seem to contrast so sharply. Ahab becomes the whale. Ishmeal becomes a 'sea body' (a body of water). The result, as I understood it, is a sharpening of the incongruity of language and nature; symbolic apprehension and being. The weaving of time, as an organizing priniciple: The inescapable impossibility (of conquering nature, of symbolizing... ) is thus felt more presently and insistingly. There is a definite horror about it. At the same time it is made poetic- therefore bearable. When all possibilities, and the ultimate impossible, are co-weaved there is a sense of harmony (sharp-edged, high-priced and horrific as it may be).
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