Ilana Pardes points us to the interesting
notion of God as a "democratic author" in Moby Dick. This Melvillian
idea of God as a "center and circumference of all democracy" allows
for every common sailor in the book to find his place as a character of biblical
stature, as a figure of mythological grandeur and importance. In order to allow
his creatures to expand to those scales of magnitude, God must withdraw and
reduce himself to a much less dominant and significant entity than the one Jews
are familiar with, namely the omniscient, omnipresent and extremely demanding
God of the Torah.
But Pardes also hints to another figure of God
prevalent in Moby Dick: the arbitrary, uncompromising God of Job and Jonah. This
figure of God is personified in Captain Ahab, who (in chapter 109) points his
loaded musket at his first mate Starbuck and declares: "There is one God
that is lord over the earth, and one captain that is lord over the Pequod. – On
deck!". Starbuck obeys. Later on (chapter 123) Starbuck holds the same
musket in his hands, on the threshold of the cabin of sleeping Ahab. This is
his chance: if he shoots Ahab to death – he will return to his wife and child. If
not – he is doomed to die himself, together with all his comrades and
subordinates. Starbuck doesn't shoot. Instead, he performs his official duty of
informing his captain of the ship's direction. Why didn't Starbuck pull the
trigger? Cowardice is not the answer. Starbuck is a brave man. Nor is
uncertainty of his faith in the mad tyrant's hands: Starbuck knows very well
that in sparing Ahab he determines not only his own faith, but also his beloved
wife and child. Why then?
A possible answer lies, I believe, in Ahab's
God-like quality, in the second sense that Pardes speaks of. The totalitarian leader
is not only characterized by his uncompromising demand for obedience, but by a
certain kind of mystical influence he radiates on his subjects, even the brave
and conscious among them. This influence, which is the basis for the cult of
personality, is a subterranean theme in Moby Dick; a pestering question that
looms once and again: why does everyone on the ship follow Ahab, although all
knows he's a dangerous madman? How come nobody even considers seriously the
mutiny option?
The only opponent to Ahab's totalitarian rule,
it seems – is Moby Dick himself. And bearing in mind the paragraph from Isaiah quoted
by Pardes, depicting the final battle between God and Leviathan, we can
understand why totalitarian God-like Ahab cannot accept the mere existence of
the White Whale.
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