American Lit: Nation & Narration

2nd Class presentation essay

Jonathan Roche

The essay that I have read and will be discussing in class tomorrow is James Duban's, titled "Nationalism and Providence." In it Duban primarily points to how parts of "Moby-Dick" were written to reflect social and political changes going on at the time. Through this Duban shows clearly what "Moby-Dick" means for America, but I wonder more what it means for men.

In a book the size of "Moby-Dick" there is room for a lot of things, and certainly, at least, significance enough for both men and a nation, but it is a desire for focus on the part rather than the whole that leads me to try and understand what "Moby-Dick" means for men as individuals. Fortunately the parallels between men and the nation are strong.

As Duban shows the Pequod's quest for whales is much like America's quest for westward expansion, and at the helm Ahab steers the boat on with the same unchangeable intent that some say president Calhoun possessed. The idea of Manifest Destiny is central here. Was it inevitable that America should extend itself all the way to the Pacific? The question is hardly worth asking because one could never really know. It is enough to say, as Duban quotes, "Che sarà, sarà -- what must be, must be," or as I have seen it better written by Richard Adams, "What is, is what must be". This adds a degree of the most dire fatalism to the whole scene. There was no other way but for the Pequot to be Sunk, no other way for Ahab but to die lashed to the Back of his Whale. It is doubtful that even had Ahab killed the great white whale that he would have then after been satisfied, but, as it must be, his own hunger destroyed him, and his boat, and all of the men sailing with him, save one.

If Ahab, the Pequot and her crew represent America, might America share their terrible fate? If you believe that westward expansion was America's white whale then the answer would be no. But that was not the whale. The whale is no thing in particular, but rather a hunger, found only in the infinite desires of men. Only men, of all animals, can do what Ahab did; only men can carry on something until it continues for its own sake.

America is hungry. But it doesn't know what for, so it satisfies itself with a little bit of everything. Americans are hungry and America is all their hunger pooled together. America's innate purpose is to "save the world by absorbing it," quotes Duban. America absorbs beyond even its original purpose. It consumes for consumption's sake, as Ahab hunted and hated the whale because that was simply what he did, because he could not let go of it. Duban quotes Tocqueville as saying that the American mentality tended to "deprive the people themselves of the power of modifying their own condition, and [to] subject them either to an inflexible Providence, or some blind necessity." This is the nature of men and the nations they build.

It is men's hunger, drive, and desire that makes them more than animal, but it leaves them less than angel. Duban compares Ahab to Prometheus, the creator of men, because it is the uncompromising hunger that Ahab has in abundance, the same that Prometheus had, that makes us men. But what does this mean for men? Will what created also us destroy us? The answer is: sometimes. It will destroy some men, and some nations, as for both there is a point at which one must change or die, and sometimes, mercifully, they die. The last message of "Moby-Dick" is that there will be some providence, that someone will survive to better the rest with the tale.