• In total there are 4 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 4 guests (based on users active over the past 60 minutes)
    Most users ever online was 789 on Tue Mar 19, 2024 5:08 am

Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

#106: Mar. - May 2012 (Fiction)
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6499
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2719 times
Been thanked: 2661 times
Contact:
Australia

Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

Link http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/270 ... m#2HCH0032

One for the dedicated. A long chapter describing all the known species in Melville's day, focussed on their utility for burning oil.

This chapter, often omitted in abridged versions of the novel, has its very own wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetology_of_Moby-Dick
I. Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), the most important prey of Nantucket whaling fleet, which operated principally in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean. The notorious fictional white whale Moby Dick in the novel is of this species, and is based on the real-life sperm whale Mocha Dick in the South Pacific in the 1840s. Because of lack of observations of the blue whale at that time, Melville asserts inaccurately that the sperm whale is the largest creature on Earth.
II. Right whale (several species of the genus Eubalaena of the family Balaenidae), also known simply as the Whale, the Greenland whale, the Black whale, the Great whale. Melville claims this whale was the first to be regularly hunted by human beings and is famously known for providing baleen, which was also known as "whalebone" at the time. The oil of this whale was commercially known as "whale oil" and was of inferior grade to that of the sperm whale. During the middle 19th century, it was the principal prey of the whaling fleets of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which operated largely in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean.
Contents
1 Description
2 Melville's classification
2.1 I. The Folio Whale
2.2 II. The Octavo Whale
2.3 III. The Duodecimo Whale

3 Beyond the Duodecimo
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
DWill

1H - GOLD CONTRIBUTOR
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6966
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:05 am
16
Location: Luray, Virginia
Has thanked: 2262 times
Been thanked: 2470 times

Re: Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

Ishmael knows the scientific reason to classify whales as mammals, but it makes him happier to ignore that and call the whale a fish. He's capricious in that way.
User avatar
Saffron

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
I can has reading?
Posts: 2954
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:37 pm
15
Location: Randolph, VT
Has thanked: 474 times
Been thanked: 399 times
United States of America

Re: Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

DWill wrote:Ishmael knows the scientific reason to classify whales as mammals, but it makes him happier to ignore that and call the whale a fish. He's capricious in that way.
This quality of Ishmael's is what makes him such an endearing narrator. I remember thinking while reading this chapter that Melville is obviously a very intelligent and thoughtful man, it is so funny that he has Ishmael list the characteristics of a mammal as he describes the whale and yet classifies it a fish! It made me wonder if at the time whales were categorized as fish.
User avatar
heledd
Doctorate
Posts: 508
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2011 4:47 am
12
Has thanked: 45 times
Been thanked: 117 times

Re: Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

Well he does mention Linneus (he spells it Linnaeus) and his reasons for categorizing whales as mammals. Linneus was a Swedish biologist who categorized them as mammals in 1778. I get confused sometimes as to who is speaking - Ismael of Melville. Melville published in 1851, perhaps it was not generally accepted then?
Life's a glitch and then you die - The Simpsons
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6499
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2719 times
Been thanked: 2661 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

Melville is using the term 'fish' in a broader than botanical sense, in that we can fish for comments, for beche-de-mer, for pennies in a fountain, and for whales, none of which are botanically fish.

It is partly that whaling is now so foreign that people don't see it as a a form of fishing. Melville knows that whales are mammals, but he still calls them fish for convenience - if it waddles like a fish, quacks like a fish and can be converted into lucre like a fish, then it is a fish.

He is deliberately ambiguous regarding Ishmael as his alter ego, so we can generally assume that Ishmael is speaking for Melville himself.
User avatar
heledd
Doctorate
Posts: 508
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2011 4:47 am
12
Has thanked: 45 times
Been thanked: 117 times

Re: Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

Yes thanks Robert. It makes the chapter much more interesting to re - read
Life's a glitch and then you die - The Simpsons
User avatar
Saffron

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
I can has reading?
Posts: 2954
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:37 pm
15
Location: Randolph, VT
Has thanked: 474 times
Been thanked: 399 times
United States of America

Re: Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

Robert Tulip wrote:Melville is using the term 'fish' in a broader thanbotanical sense, in that we can fish for comments, for beche-de-mer, for pennies in a fountain, and for whales, none of which are botanically fish.
Robert, I do not under stand your usuage of the botanical in the above sentence. I understanding your meaning, but to my understanding of the word it would be an incorrect ususage - botanical refers to plants. What am I missing?
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6499
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2719 times
Been thanked: 2661 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

Sorry, I meant biological. Saw the name of Linnaeus and just associated botanical. Finished reading the book today.
User avatar
Saffron

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
I can has reading?
Posts: 2954
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:37 pm
15
Location: Randolph, VT
Has thanked: 474 times
Been thanked: 399 times
United States of America

Re: Moby Dick Chapter 32 Cetology

Unread post

Robert Tulip wrote:Sorry, I meant biological. Saw the name of Linnaeus and just associated botanical. Finished reading the book today.
:)
Post Reply

Return to “Moby Dick; or, the Whale - by Herman Melville”