Through to the 8th chapter of the book and I now have had the opportunity to meet up with the first of the major characters that Ishmael introduces to the story – the unique Queequeg. Queequeg, a Fijian, is tattooed from head to toe, is uncommonly massive and shaves himself with a harpoon. Nowadays Queequeg would play rugby for Leinster, like the current Fijian star, Isa Nacewa http://www.leinsterrugby.ie/profiles/index.php?player=14900&includeref=dynamic . But back in the 1800’s, Queequeg instead was on the front line of the most dangerous game afoot – the whaling ship. Even at this early stage of the book the respect that both the narrator, and the other whalers, seem to have for Queequeg is apparent. I also get the feeling that Queequeg is going to be such a big part of this narrative that we’d be better off leaving an in depth examination of him until a bit later.
But the early parts of this book are full of other things that are worth talking about. Melville basically takes the reader on a walking tour of New Bedford, checking in to an inn down by the docks, spending some time in the rough bar associated with this place of accommodation, finding himself sharing a bed with the aforementioned Queequeg, strolling about the town the next morning and stopping in to the local church.
It is at this church that a rather strange thing happens. Ishmael is looking around at the plaques on the wall, most of which relate to whaling men lost at sea, when the local preacher wanders in and ascends the pulpit. Melville describes the pulpit as if it were a ship, and there is indeed a ladder that is used to get into it that is an exact replica of a ship’s ladder – right down to the fact that the preacher pulls it up behind him after he has climbed in. Melville (through Ishmael) even comments on the symbolism of the act – and it’s symbolism that I’ll talk about next.
Moby Dick is, by every account, full of symbolic meaning at every level. The whale itself is, as we’ve discussed, perhaps the greatest metaphorical symbol in literature. The whale means something, the pulpit means something, the fact that Queequeg is tattooed certainly means something – and by “something” I mean something other than an oceanic mammal, a place from which to give sermons or skin markings.
In fact, my worry is that it will be hard to read the book without the symbolic possibilities getting in the way. This probably derives more from my built in prejudices concerning the book's “importance” than from anything else, but I’d be willing to place a bet that there are plenty of people who have spent time worrying about the meaning of the “harpoons” in the story while overlooking the fact that they are the long pointy things that get stuck in the whale.
I don’t want to be “that guy” – the one who sees too much behind every image in the book. First of all, I think it dilutes the value of the truly symbolic images. Secondly – I think it cheapens the story. Most of all I don’t want to get hung up on relatively meaningless symbolism because I think that we deal with far too much of it in our everyday lives.
“What?” you say. (Yep – I saw you). “He’s crazy – modern storytelling uses much less of heavy metaphors than the type of writing from back in Melville’s day”.
“You’re right” I answer.
“And the most common form of storytelling isn’t even writing anymore – it’s film and television – and while some TV (like “The Wire”) and some film (like “Citizen Kane”) get into literary metaphors and symbols – most of it (like “Scream III” and “The Brady Bunch”) are just light entertainment.”
“You’re right there too” I say (even though deep down I believe that the Brady boys change to frizzy perms symbolized their longing to break the chains of their suburban bondage).
“So how do you think we end up with an overload of symbolism in the 21st century? – what makes you think that we get bombarded by things that aren’t really what they seem but just stand for something else?”
And to this I answer:
Hot dogs – Armour hot dogs – what kind of kid eats Armour hot dogs?
Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks
Tall kids, small kids – even kids with chicken pox
Eat hot dogs – Armour hot dogs
The dogs kids love to BITE!
Advertising is pretty much nothing but symbols, and I do not mean that in a good way. Hot dogs are not really that good for you, and Armour hot dogs aren’t appreciably better than any one of the hundreds of other brands you can get. But if you grew up during a certain time I pretty much guarantee that five words in to that jingle you remembered the tune and were singing the words in your head.
The metaphors and symbolism used in advertising are almost never as deep or subliminally sneaky as some would have you believe – and that is, in many ways, the problem. The usual means by which ads try to hook you is by making you associate the imagery of a cute face, catchy song, sexy model, scary situation or (most often) unfulfilled need with their product. As a result symbolic imagery in the modern world is not so much associated with intelligence as with absurdity. We all get hit with so many in–your-face images in advertising that we are simply not prepared to work at recognising and appreciating the subtle ones in literature any more. Disagree if you will, but I ask you, would you really be loved if you were a processed sausage? That’s what I was told when I was a kid – and I remember it to this day:
Oh I wish I was an Oscar Mayer weiner;
That is what I’d truly like to be –ee-ee
'Cause if I was an Oscar Mayer weiner;
Everyone would be in love with me.
I don’t know that changing yourself into a sausage is the road to true love, or, Freudian imagery aside, that the use of it as a symbolic stand in for the road to affection is intellectually challenging – but it sure was catchy. There are other examples of the lingering effects of the advertising that I grew up with. For instance – the most memorable seagoing commander of my childhood was not Ahab. Or Queeg from The Caine Mutiny. It wasn’t Cook, Hook, or any other hero of the seas. It was another Captain – Crunch. (Sorry “Cap’n”). Cap’n Crunch promised to stand up to milk – and he did. Cap’n Crunch the cereal tasted all right – but it was made so hard to keep from softening in milk that it was like eating gravel. Seriously – there used to be little tatters of skin hanging from the roof of your mouth after you finished with the stuff. Not to mention that the cereal would get so pasty that when you chewed it you could make up a decent school lunch by scraping the leftovers off your teeth when noontime rolled around. Still – I ate it.
The jingles associated with that multitude of products still reverberate in my head. Here’s a selection of some of the greatest hits:
Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce,
Special orders don’t upset us,
All we ask is that you let us
Serve it your way
HAVE IT YOUR WAY (at Burger King)
McDonalds fired back:
Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonassameseedbun.
Of course we would try to twist the words around every once in a while, for instance, the neighbourhood kids did this with one McDonalds jingle:
McDonalds is your kind of place
Hamburgs in your face
Pickles up your nose
French fries between your toes –
And don’t forget their chocolate shakes –
They come from polluted lakes
MCDONALDS IS YOUR KIND OF PLACE!
Kawasaki let the good times roll, Giant Glass is who you call when your windshield’s busted, Pepsi claimed a generation and Coke even changed the words of a hit song so much that to this day I still think of it first when I hear “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” (“I’d like to buy the world a Coke”).
In addition to the intrepid Crunch, breakfast cereal was sold by a tiger, a toucan, three homosexual elves, a rabbit who never could get the cereal away from kids (give him some Trix for crying out loud), an alien (who remembers Quisp?), a vampire, a ghost, a re-animated strawberry-flavoured corpse, a leprechaun, a wig wearing eighteenth century member of a pacifist sect, a cuckoo, a wizard named Jarvis, a frog, a honey bear and, finally (though I’m sure I’m missing loads of these) a guy I actually went to college with whose brother hated everything.
Advertising teaches you that if you drink a certain type of beer you’ll feel like you’ve been wandering across a clean, crisp Rocky Mountain hillside (I love beer but after a session I more often feel like I’ve fallen off a clear crisp Rocky Mountain hillside), if you use the proper underarm spray you’ll get the best looking women (yep, that worked), if you wear the proper footgear you’ll end up in the Hall of Fame (still working on my speech for Cooperstown), if you don’t buy your parents a special alarm they may fall and never get up and, if you use the proper shampoo, you’ll have a thick, full head of hair (filthy, rotten, no good, LIARS!).
So I think these days, as advertising bombards us with simplistic images that we really don’t need and probably wish to escape, (thank God for TIVO and SKY Plus, which allow you to fast forward through the commercials) we’ve kind of lost our appetite for images that make you work to grasp their meaning – however worthwhile understanding those symbols might be. That’s why reading a book like Moby Dick is good for you – it keeps you sharp.
So, while I don’t want to be the guy who over-analyzes this book, I also don’t want to skip past the important symbolic moments when the book is obviously saying one thing but telling you more. That pulpit is important – at this early stage, (without knowing where this will lead), I’d guess Ishmael is telling us that the reason the place from which the preacher tries to reveal God’s truths looks like a replica of a ship is because the real place where you can find those truths is not something that just looks like a ship – but is a ship. (Now, queue the “Old Spice” jingle).
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