Ask Ishmael: Whaling

Q: Dear Ishmael, how is a whaling ship like life?

A: Hey! What a great question. There are so many answers to this, from the mundane housekeeping to the way superstitions spread like a virus among the men... I'll give you just a few of the most important ones, to me.

1.  The Quest. The whaling ship sails round and round the earth for years on end in pursuit of her prey, only to find she has gone in a great circle. Indeed, "whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us." And what is life but an endless voyage to destinations unknown, where we all either end up where we started or get lost along the way? Aye, "in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed" [218].
2. The Never-Ending Work. There is always another whale to chase after, and kill, and scoop the sperm out of, just as day after day life presents us with its challenges and we must go through the routine again. "Oh! my friends, but this is soul-killing! Yet this is life" [380].
3. The Joint-Stock Company. When we worked on butchering the whale, Queequeg and I would have to be tied together to prevent him from falling into the sea. If one of us fell, we would both fall. While we were thus wedded, "I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two: that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another's mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death" [289]. And is this not the situation of every mortal that breathes; we are all of us connected to each other in multitudinous ways such that our fate is forever in another's hands whether we are aware of it or not. Ah! such little control have we really, over our own lives!
4. Fast and Loose. We are tied to more than just other people. In whaling, there are fast fish and loose fish. A fast fish belongs to the party fast to it, while a loose fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it [352]. Both the doctrines of fast fish and loose fish are "internationally and universally applicable." All our political and social institutions either hold us fast to their demands or try and claim us when we are loose. For example, "What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish wherof possession is the whole of the law?" And "What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress?" Indeed, What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, a reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish too?" [354]
5. Whaling and life--they both end up in death. Yes, my friends, "there is death in this business of whaling--a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of man into Eternity" [51]. And there you have it.