AN APPROACH TO MELVILLE
291
Tunnel; then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay
in
one place; then,
anns three feet through at the wrist; no heart
at
all, brass fore–
head, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let me
see--shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a skylight
on top of his head to illuminate inwards.
It is the abortive transfiguration of Ahab himself, the master of the
ship and all the tribes and complexions aboard.
In Melville, then, Cod manifests Himself as Death, as whatever
unmans man. The incarnate Adversary is at once tantalizing and
murderous. Man is tempted to forsake the creative Promethean ethos
and
to
imitate the lure of God. Ahab fails because he imitates what is
bestial and godlike and thereby fails to imitate what is pre-eminently
human. For the rhythm of life out of which issues the Promethean
elan,
he substitutes the mechanical, death-wishing rhythm of the
three final onslaughts against the Whale.
As
for the comprehensive and pervasive meaning of
Mob
y
Dick,
D. H. Lawrence seems to me to have been right (in his
Classic
American Literature) .
Melville's theme is the apocalypse and doom
of civilization, the whole world hustled to extinction by an American
master, the spectacular spiritual-intellectual-emotional failure of the
great Prometheus of the West.
Pierre.
The theme of
Pierre
is incest and parricide. Pierre Glendinning,
an aristocratic and promising youth, has made a god of his dead
father. In the shrine of his heart "reposes the perfect marble form
of his departed father; without blemish, unclouded, snow-white, se–
rene." With his proud, handsome, willful mother Pierre enjoys a bliss–
ful adolescence. He falls in love with Lucy Tartan, a pure and lovely
girl. But then the dark lady of the story enters : Isabel, the daughter
of
Pierre's father by an illicit intercourse. Overcome with feelings of
guilt, Pierre forms an incestuous attachment with Isabel. They flee
to New York. Pierre tries to write a great novel. His mother dies.
Lucy joins Pierre and Isabel. The two central projects of Pierre's
life- his novel and a happy, productive relationship with Isabel–
are both impossible to accomplish, given Pierre's temperament, capa–
bilities, and the social system which he cannot escape even in bohe–
mian New York. Yet he drives towards his goal with all the mad
zeal of Ahab. The whole thing ends quickly when Pierre shoots his
cousin, Glendinning Stanly, who has been trying to rescue Lucy.
