THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM IN MOBY DICK
Tania Panes (Erasmus)
If I had to describe Moby Dick in one word, that would be “many-sided”. You can talk about it as an adventure novel, you can describe it as a whaling essay with some scientific intention in some chapters, and finally, you can interpret the book as a philosophical essay. It is really important to have this versatility on mind when you read Moby Dick because maybe you can expect a sailing novel full of adventures and action, while Moby Dick has nothing to do with that. When you read this novel you have to be patient, not only because of the “scientific chapters” or “descriptive parts” referred to whaling, but because of the message Herman Melville tries to send us.
We have to be with the eyes and the mind wide open to absorb all the ideas he tries to express through the experience of Ishmael. I think this voyage, this philosophical trip has to do with life itself, and that is what Melville tries to work on in this beautiful novel. Freedom is one of the key ideas of the book, aspect which is expressed in many different ways, and specially, through multiple vehicles. So, in this modest essay, I am going to analyze the concept of freedom in Moby Dick, but more precisely, how Melville understands the contradictions that freedom suggests, and how human beings have been dealing with that problematic throughout history.
The first time Melville talks about this dichotomy it is in Chapter 1, when the narrator (Ishmael) says “Who aint a slave? Tell me that”. So we find that the author is showing us this problematic right at the beginning of the book. With this simple question, Melville is raising the whole thematic of Moby Dick, a novel that at first sight seems to be just a whaling adventure book.
I think Melville tries to show his perception of freedom and slavery through the characters. Of course, Ishmael is like his own vision, his eyes. We can see that Ishmael is always apart, like if he was not really...