Watermarks Neither Believer nor Infidel by Eric Verhine

A cornerstone of the philosophical and narrative substructure of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is point of view, or perspective. The textually primary point of view in the novel is Ishmael's, since he is the narrator of the story. However, Ishmael relates his story in such a way that one can easily detect numerous other "voices," or other perspectives, in the story, which often oppose the narrator's voice. These other, non-primary perspectives function both to establish Moby-Dick as a novel with numerous points of view and to clarify Ishmael's own particular point of view on certain subjects. For instance, in "The Ramadan" Ishmael attempts to convince Queequeg of the ridiculous and impractical nature of Queequeg's religion. Ishmael quickly perceives that his attempt is ineffective. He writes, "I do not think that my remarks about religion made much impression upon Queequeg. Because he somehow seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered from his own point of view" (88). In this passage and its, context are two important implications. First, in blatantly noting that Queequeg must see from "his own point of view," Ishmael states and accepts that he and Queequeg view religion from different perspectives. Second, in stating in the context of this quotation his criticisms of Queequeg's religion--that it is impractical, unhealthy, and without benefit to the soul - Ishmael reveals something of his own perspective on religion (87-88).

Religion, or in the case of Moby-Dick, one's perspective on religion, is a substantial theme in the novel. Of this "important subject," as Ishmael describes it, numerous voices in the narrative speak. The orthodox Christian voice speaks; Queequeg speaks; Ahab speaks. Each of these different voices yields a different outlook on religion. Ishmael speaks also, but his voice, perhaps because it is primary and spread throughout the vast, ocean-like novel, often seems the most muted, the least detectable. Yet Ishmael has a clear and distinct perspective on religion that clearly and distinctly differs from the orthodox Christian perspective, from Queegueg's, and from his tragic Captain Ahab's perspective. Making use of the perspectival structure of the text, I aim to contrast Ishmael's unique religious perspective with these other implicit and explicit perspectives set forth in the text, and by this contrasting to ascertain a definite understanding of "Ishmael's religion."

The voice of Christian orthodoxy speaks loudly in Moby-Dick. Before one can consider this voice properly, however, one must understand that Ishrnael is not a Christian in any orthodox sense of the term. Ishmale twice states that, during the time of his sailing on the Pequod, he was a Christian. Early in the novel he says quite plainly, I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church" (57). Later in the novel, he refers to "we good Presbyterian Christians" (84). Carfeul mediation on these passages and others will lead one to the conclusion that Ishmael is being disingenuous when he refers to himself as a "good Christian. ' It is obvious, first of all, that Ishmael is being ironic and sarcastic in the passages quoted above, as the tone and the context of the passages intimate. Note the tone of the two passages. In both, Ishmael refers to himself as a "good" Christian, or a "good" Presbyterian. The repetition of that adjective functions not to reinforce the statement, but to undermine it, for one tastes immediately the ironic flavor of the word. Also, in the first passage, the reference to the "infallible" Church shines in bright, ironic light; obviously no church is infallible. What really allows one to detect the taste and sight of irony in these passages are the respective contexts of the passages. In the passage I quoted first, Ishmael makes the statement "Pagans" and writes, "We are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending" (84). One doubts that Jonathan Edwards would have approved.

To perceive that Ishmael is not an orthodox Christian, or perhaps not a Christian at all, one could also look to the first sentence of the novel proper: "Call me Ishmael" (I 1). The two telling and relevant aspects of this sentence are, first, the name itself, and, second, the act of naming himself. In selecting this name, the narrator identifies himself with the biblical character by the same name. In Genesis, Ishmael is the outcast child, the child removed from the primary line of God's blessing. Ishmael's self-identification with the biblical character of the same name characterizes him as a self-defined outcast. The God to whom he is an outcast can only be the Christian God. The religious community from which he exiles himself can only be the Christian community. But what is more significant than the name Ishmael chooses is that he names himself. In the Genesis narrative, God tells Hagar to name her son Ishmael, but in Moby-Dick the narrator names himself. Thus, Ishmael implies not only that he is an outcast of the orthodox Christian worldview, but also that he accepts the responsibility of naming, of identifying, of defining himself, a task traditionally belonging to God.

If one remains convinced that Ishmael is an orthodox Christian, one need only consider a passage near the end of the novel that settles the issue (346-347). In this passage, which is his discussion of the religious intuitions that he receives, Ishmael bluntly states that he is "neither believer nor infidel," but one who regards all "with an equal eye" (347).

In performing the central task of this essay, which is to contrast Ishmael's religious perspective with other perspectives in the text, I will further prove beyond doubt that Ishmael is far outside the camp of orthodoxy. I come now to this central task and to this first voice, the voice of orthodoxy.

In contrast to the other two perspectives on religion I will consider in this essay, those of Queequeg and Ahab, the orthodox Christian perspective does not receive an explicit exposition by any one character. Father Mapple's sermon is important, but even this entertaining and challenging exhortation fails to hit upon, understandably, the axiomatic Christian premises that Ishmael challenges. The orthodox Christian perspective is the primary contrasting voice to Ishmael's religious voice; thus, it arises in various different passages throughout the novel, passages in which Ishmael wishes to describe, via explicit contrast, his own point of view. Ishmael describes or depicts four central contrasts between his religious perspective and the orthodox perspective.

First, Ishmael's religion has nothing of the doctrinally based and biased exclusivity of orthodox Christianity: His is a universal religion. One of Ishmael's clearest expositions of his universal religion comes when Peleg and Bildad attempt to exclude Queequeg from the crew of the Pequod. Bildad says to Ishmael regarding Queequeg, "He must show that he's converted," and then to Queequeg himself Bildad asks, "Art thou at present in communion with any christian church?" (89). Thus, Bildad and Peleg, the instantiated voices of orthodoxy, attempt to exclude Queequeg from participation in social and economic activity on the basis of religious doctrine, that of conversion and practice, that of Christian fellowship. Queequeg does not respond, for Ishmael defends him. Ishmael asserts outrageously, "Queequeg here is a born member of the First Congregational Church" (90). Bildad replies outrageously, "Explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? Answer me" (90). To this challenge Ishmael responds with a fine statement of his universal perspective: "I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic church to which you and I... and Queequeg... and every mother's son and soul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world; we all belong to that [...] in that we all join hands" (90). And then, with the orthodox in mind, Ishmael stabs in this quip, "Only some of us cherish some queer crotchets noways touching the grand belief" (90). It is plain to Ishmael, then, that every sould is a member of and belongs to the elect of "the whole worshipping world." Ishmael implies that what is important to him is that people worship, that they express themselves to divinity. The question of what people worship is a Greek question, a Christian question, one that requires definitions and barriers and doctrinal specificity. For Ishmael, doctrines are "queer crotchets," whimsical and stubborn notions that do not touch "the grand belief," or the general human sense and intuition of the divine and the "inborn" need to express oneself to the divine.

Ishmael's universalistic religion affects his view of proselytizing, or missionary work: He does not believe in it. Ishmael's stated policy towards Queequeg and his conversion is as follows: "Let him be" (84). Cotton Mather would have fainted to read such rubbish! Let him be! That is precisely the opposite of every Christian teaching regarding the heathen ever put forward. How full with irony, therefore, swells Peleg's statement to Ishmael: "Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead of a foremast hand" (90).

A principal philosophical foundation for Ishmael's universalistic and tolerant religious perspective is his belief in the dignity of all human beings, a dignity that derives not from government mandate or legal fiat, but from divine omnipresence. In a crucial passage, Ishmael speaks of this dignity that is "not of kings and robes, but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture" (113). Everyone, or at least every man, has this dignity: "Thou shalt see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike" (113). This dignity comes directly from God, from the human connection with God; it is a "democratic dignity, which, on all hands, radiates without end from God" (113). Ishmael's best presentation of this dignity is in the form of an equation: "his omnipresence, our divine equality" (113). Here Ishmael sounds like a Transcendentalist, for he asserts that the infused presence of God in all humans imputes dignity to all. That God "shines" on the worker's arm, that he "radiates" himself on all, grants to all a certain "democratic dignity." Absolute equality therefore comes through the presence of "the great God absolute" in all things (113). This belief in human equality based on the omnipresence of God is a suitable ground for holding to a religion that is universally inclusive and tolerant of the beliefs and ways of others.

Second, Ishmael's religious perspective is not only universalistic and broad-minded, but, in contrast to the orthodox perspective, Ishmael's is based on an adamant commitment to the self and to harmony with other, as the chapter entitled "A Bosom Friend" illustrates. In analyzing this complex and rich scene, one must take into account the structure of the novel. For, this famous chapter in which Ishmael literally, in the most frankly biblical way, commits idolatry follows immediately after Father Mapple's harsh sermon. The meaning that this structural juxtaposition generates is singular and worthy of ample consideration.

Ishmael returns from Father Mapple's sermon and finds Queequeg sitting before the fire, holding before his face "that little negro idol of his" and "humming to himself in a heathenish way" (54). After some talk, a smoke, and their "marriage," Queequeg hints to Ishmael that he would like for Ishmael to join him in worshipping his idol (57). Remember, Queequeg had gone to the church to hear Father Mapple's sermon (54). After some rather silly and parodic deliberation, Ishmael comes to the conclusion that he "must turn idolater" and join Queequeg in his heathenish worship (58). Ishmael begins his parodic deliberation with a question: "What is worship?" (57). Then he asserts, in question form, that the "god of heaven and earth" cannot "be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood" (57). Next, Ishmael gives an answer to his first question, asserting that worship is "to do the will of God," and he declares that the will of God is to "do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me" (57). Ishmael reaons, "Queequeg is my fellow man," then states that what he would have Queequeg do for him is to unite with him in his particular form of worship (57). Then comes the already stated conclusion: "I must [...] unite with him in hi [form of worship]; ergo, I must turn idolater" (58). This reasoning is supposed to sound funny and seem questionable; it is, indeed, a parody of religious reasoning. This reasoning has the dialectical and discursive format of the sort of reasoning Ishmael would have encountered among his Calvinistic, New England shipmates, but it reaches a conclusion they would obviously reject.

One soon realizes that Ishmael is simply doing what he wants to do. He wants to live according to a universal religion; he want to appease Queequeg, and thus he generates a line of reasoning that justifies such behavior. The subtle criticism, then, of religious reasoning, even reasoning based somewhat on biblical texts, is that one can set and skew definitions and premises in such a way that one can reach any conclusion one wishes to reach. Ishmael wants to join Queequeg, so he finds a rational justification to do so. In doing what he wants to do, Ishmael commits another sin according to Father Mapple, who is another instantiation of the orthodox Christian voice. In his sermon from the preceding chapter, Father Mapple says, "All the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do [...] And if we obey God we must disobey ourselves" (47-48). Ishmael obviously does not believe this. Nor does he believe Mapple's later injunction: "Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appall" (53). Ishmael's joining Queequeg in worship, therefore, not only shows the intended universality of his religion, but the basic commitment to the self, to obeying the self rather than disobeying, and to tolerance and humanity, as Ishmael is one who seeks to please rather than to appall. Ishmael roots his perspective in a firm commitment to the self, in tolerant harmony of the beliefs of others, and in a will to see the value in the worship of humans everywhere (83-84).

Third, Ishmael's religious epistemology contradicts orthodox epistemology in that the starting point for Ishmael's is not revelation, but his own mind, to which he bluntly subordinates revelation. One can see this subordination most distinctly in Ishmael's parodic reasoning that allow him to commit idolatry in "A Bosom Friend." Though Ishmael makes some implicit references to the Bible in his reasoning, he does not base his reasoning on revelation. The first question he generates--"What is Worship?"--is a starting point with which his subjectivity begins (57). More importantly, Ishmael's assertion that God could not possible be jealous of "an insignificant bit of black wood" flatly contradicts the second commandment. Also, Ishmael's assertion that worship is "to do the will of God" and that the will of God is "to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me," though they sound biblical, are arbitrary and intentionally limited. An orthodox thinker would know that worship is more than just doing the will of God and would demand that the will of God is necessarily much more than the golden rule. An orthodox thinker, a person whose epistemology is based on revelation instead of autonomous reason, would contend that both the second commandment and the golden rule are the will of God, as well as the rest of the Bible's commandments and exhortation. Ishmael intentionally and arbitrarily focuses on the golden rule because it fits his purpose at the time, and in so doing he limits, without justification, the nature of the will of God. Ishmael can reason thus only because his starting point is his own mind.

Ishmael provides another of his reflections that highlights the nature of his epistemology (43-44). While sitting in the chapel waiting for the sermon, Ishmael reflects on "Life and Death":

Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance [...] Methinks my body is but the less of my better being [...] and therefore [...] come a stove boat and a stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. (43-44)

Fourth, Ishmael's religion doe not contain a linear view of history as does orthodox Christianity, but a cyclical one. In fact, Ishmael seems to believe in reincarnation, or as he calls it, "the metempsychosis" (395). Late in the novel, Ishmael presents this belief about "life." He writes that mortals have hardly "extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm" and cleansed themselves of the world's defilements and "learned to live [...] in clean tabernacles of the soul," when "the ghost is spouted up" and they sail away "to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again" (395). Then Ishmael call on Pythagoras, the famous Greek philosopher who himself taught reincarnation, and says, "I sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage--and foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope" (395). In this particular belief, Ishmael most obviously parts ways with Christianity, which contains a linear view of history, one death for each person and one eternity for each soul.

The second important religious perspective with which to contrast Ishmael's is Queequeg's perspective. Queequeg's religious point of view receives its best expression in the chapters "A Bosom Friend" and "Ramadan." Ishmael describes what Queequeg's worship entails: kindling shavings, offering a burnt biscuit or some food to the idol, and bowing before the idol and kissing its nose (58). For the purpoes of contrast, however, it is most important to consider what Ishmael calls "Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation," a twenty-four hour period during which Queequeg squats before his altar and holds his god Yojo on the top of his head (86).

For Ishmael, this "Ramadan" is simply impractical and unhealthy. After breaking in on Queequeg and finding him still kneeling before his altar, Ishmael shouts to him, "For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and have some supper. You'll starve; you'll kill yourself" (87). Later, Ishmael reasons that he must deal rationally with Queequeg and attempt to convince Queequeg of the absurdity of his religious practice. Ishmael give the following justification: "When a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him [...] and makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to [...] argue the point with him" (87). Ishmael tries to argue the point with Queequeg, and what he argues reveals much about his own perspective: "I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings [...] were stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense" (87-88). Ishmael shows in this passage that he subordinates his religious practice to his health, to his "Hygiene." Thus, "common sense" values, those culturally propagated and engraved notions that Ishmael calls "laws," dominate Ishmael's religious perspective. He will not submit to religious practices that are impractical and unhealthy.

The perspectivism of the novel, that it contains numerous and conflicting points of view, comes out in this passage, as two systems of "common sense" collide. Ishmael states plainly that Queequeg's religious perspective goes against "common sense," but Queequeg likewise, according to Ishmael, thinks he knows "a good deal more about the true religion" than does Ishmael (88). From Queequeg's behavior violates the laws of practicality and healthiness that form his "common sense." In short, common sense is not "common" to all, but culturally perspectival and common only to those who share a certain cultural-religious perspective.

Thus, it is unfair to contrast these two religious perspectives by saying that Ishmael's is more rational than Queequeg's. Ishmael, of course, thinks that his perspective is more rational. He says of Queequeg, "He did not more than one thid understand me, couch my ideas as simply as I would" (88). In saying that he had to couch his ideas "as simply" as he could, Ishmael implies that Queequeg could not understand him because of Queequeg's lack of rational sophistication. But Ishmael inverts this judgment when he writes of Quequeg's response to Ishmael's religious point of view, "He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical piety" (88). Both are being "condescending" to the other; both perceive the other as "hopelessly lost" in his own perspective. Both condescend to the other not because one is more rational than the other, but because two different "rationalities," two different forms of common sense, underlie their respective points of view. Ishmael's religious perspective is not more rational than Queequeg's; it simply starts by valuing health and practicality above ritualistic behavior that is unhealthy and impractical--from Ishmael's point of view, of course.

Finally, Ishmael's religious perspective differs significantly from Ahab's. Ahab's mad religious and philosophical perspective is an odd mixture of Greek rationalism and New England Calvinism.

Over and over, Melville links Ahab to the ancient Greek worldview by linking him to particular Greeks. Melville connects Ahab to Oedipus in making Ahab a self-professed riddle-solver: "There's a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line of judges [...] I'll, I'll solve it though" (510). Melville also connects Ahab to the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander when he has Ahab say, "I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the dun do that, then I could do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealously presiding over all creations" (157). The idea that there is a "fair play" in nature, a direction of warring creations in which an injured party must necessarily injure in return, comes from Anaximander. Melville links Ahab also to Plato. Ahab says, "All visible objects [...] are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event [...] there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the moldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask" (156-157). In this passage, Ahab expresses the Platonic notion that the world of visible, particular objects is but a "pasteboard mask" that hides behind it a vaster, immaterial world of reason. This mask of the visible world is "unreasoning." Thus, Melville has Ahab ask the consummately Platonic question: "How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?" (157). This is, of course, an allusion to Plato's allegory of the cave, meant to allegorize how the visible world, the cave, darkens and holds captive the human mind and keeps it from seeing the light of transcendent, non-empirical reality.

More important than noting the particular Greek philosophers with whom Melville connects Ahab is noting simply that he identifies Ahab with the tradition of Greek rationalism. All the thinkers mentioned above were Greek rationalist philosophers, men who attempted to understand the world and their experience by means of their own minds, men who believed in and even were obsessed with rationality and truth, men who could not bear unsolved riddles, gaps in reasoning, and unintelligibility. Melville further identifies Ahab with this tradition when he has Ahab say that the "inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate" and "Truth hath not confines" (157). Moreover, Ahab is by far the best discursive, dialectical thinker on the Pequod. He, much more than Ishmael, is able to put forth profound questions--such as "How can the prisoner reach outside?"; "Is Ahab, Ahab?"; and "Who's to doom when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?"--and then carefully and logically reason out the implications and consequences of the assumed truth of such questions.

Ahab's religious perspective also has the sound and fury of Calvinism. Ahab expressed his belief in the absolute sovereignty of God in all human actions in two passages. Indeed, Ahab's most famous question--"Is Ahab, Ahab?"--is the starting point for his assertion that God is actually controlling and forcing his own actions. He asks, "Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?" (493). He answers this questions with a logical and rhetorical device, a rhetorical question: "How [...] can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I" (493). Then Ahab exclaims ecstatically, "By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike" (493). Thus, for Ahab, it is God who lifts his arm and beats his heart and thinks his thoughts and lives his life. God is the active agent, Ahab the passive recipient of agency, as the passive voice in "we are turned round and round" mirrors.

Later in the novel, Ahab makes an even clearer assertion of the Calvinism that infuses his religious perspective. On the second day of the chase, Starbuck again attempts to dissuade Ahab from madly pursuing Moby-Dick. To Starbuck's petitions, Ahab responds, "Ahab is forever Ahab [...] This whole act's immutable decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled [...] I am the Fates' lieutenant. I act under orders" (509). Ahab could not be more articulate and lucid. He argues first that he cannot change himself: "Ahab is forever Ahab." Moresignificantly, he explains that the actions in which he and Starbuck and the Pequod, and by implication the whole world, are engagin in were "immutably decreed" before, to borrow not Ahab's but Paul's famous phrase from Ephesians, the foundations of the world were set.

In contrast to Ahab's Socratic, Greek rationalism as a way of reasoning, Ishmael's is much closer to Romantic and Transcendental ways of reasoning. One can best discern Ishmael's particular epistemology, or how he knows what he knows about the divine and religion, by considering his particular form of reasoning. Ahab knows about religion and God via rational, dialectical reflection on his own experience, the Greek approach. Ishmael, as he tells the reader, learns though intuition:

Through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with an equal eye. (347)

In contrast to Ahab's Calvinistic, complete determinism, Ishmael holds to some measure of human freedom. In one of the most poetic and awe-inspiring passages of the entire novel, Ishmael presents his view of determinism and human freedom. He and Queequeg are "mildly employed weaving what id called a sword-mat" (203). Ishmael's duty is to pass and "repass" the woof "between the long yarns of the warp" (203). Ishmael uses his own hand as a shuttle, and Queequeg "ever and anon" slides his "heavy oaken sword between the threads" and "carelessly and unthinkingly" drives home every yarn (203). This dreamlike duty shoots an intuition into Ishmael's mind. He imagines the sword-mat as the "Loom of Time," himself as a "shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates" (203). A particular warp seems to him to be necessity, and asserting his conception of free will, he says, "With my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads" (203). Ishmael identifies Queeueg's "indifferent sword" with chance (203). Then he sums up the vision: "Chance, free will, and necessity [...] all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course [...] Free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads [...] and chance" (203-204). According to Ishmael, chance, free will, and necessity all operate in the constitution of the world, just as the sword, the shuttle, and the warp all operate in the constitution of the sword-mat.

One can discern from this contrast of Ahab's and Ishmael's religious-philosophical perspectives that their interpretations of Ahab's pursuit of the whale differ. Ahab interprets his pursuit of the whale as necessity. He believes that he is a determined agent under the control of a higher power. Ishmael would assent to Ahab's actions being necessary, but he would add that chance has produced Ahab. And he would further add that Ahab's own free choices have shaped his destiny. To Ahab, Ishmael's view would probably seem contradictory, since one cannot be both determined and free. One can infer that Ahab would reason thus from the fact that, in presenting his determinism, Ahab presents a determinism that completely excludes any human freedom whatsoever. Ishmael, however, does not base his knowledge on religious matter on discursive, dialectical reasoning; he bases his knowledge, rather, on intuition, which one can experience while weaving a mat in the middle of a vast ocean.

Now it remains only to summarize Ishmael's religious perspective, to draw from the many contrasts and implicit comparison an overall, coherent picture of Ishmael's point of view, to offer Ishmael's "Credo." Ishmael believes in God, and he believes that he has a soul. He believes that religion is not a matter of doctrinal specificity but of worship, or of expression to the divine, and he believes that pagan religions are sufficient for this purpose. Ishmael believes that all humans have dignity by virtue of the omnipresence of God. He believes that religion should be practical and healthy. Ishmael believes that history is cyclical, not linear, and he believes in reincarnation. Ishmael believes that humans are the products of their interplay between chance, necessity, and free will. Ishmael argues for all these beliefs not on the basis of canonical revelation or discursive reasons, but on the basis of intuition and mystical insight. This is Ishmael's religious perspective.

But whose perspective is right? Is Ishmael's correct? Is Ahab's? Queequeg's? Is the orthodox Christian perspective correct? Moby-Dick does not answer these questions. Ishmael tells the reader that the "pulpit leads to the world" (46). Ishmael shows the reader that who is in the pulpit makes all the difference.

Melville, Herman.  Moby-Dick.  New York, NY: Bantam Books,  1981.
 

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