Napoleon, Taylor, and the Paradox of Popular Sovereignty in Moby-Dick
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In this essay I examine how Herman Melville in Moby-Dick offers a critical insight into the profound paradox of popular sovereignty to indicate its centrality to the American and French presidential elections of 1848 and their political ramifications. I argue that Melville unveils the inherent, constitutive contradictions central to the new power of popular sovereignty in Moby-Dick. The Taylor Boom and the Napoleonic Cult in 1848 showcased how the American and French people deceived themselves respectively through the new democratic political system of universal referendum built on the principle of popular sovereignty, as represented in the quarter-deck scene in Moby-Dick. My rereading of the scene challenges the existing interpretation of Ahab as a totalitarian leader who deceives and coerces the innocent crew. By focusing on how the entire crew including Ishmael and Starbuck deceive themselves by feeling for Ahab and giving their consent to his request in a procedurally democratic way, I claim that Melville reveals the new modern paradox that the possibility of democratic despotism is implicated in the institution that makes possible the practice of popular democracy.
Abstract
In this essay I examine how Herman Melville in Moby-Dick offers a critical insight into the profound paradox of popular sovereignty to indicate its centrality to the American and French presidential elections of 1848 and their political ramifications. I argue that Melville unveils the inherent, constitutive contradictions central to the new power of popular sovereignty in Moby-Dick. The Taylor Boom and the Napoleonic Cult in 1848 showcased how the American and French people deceived themselves respectively through the new democratic political system of universal referendum built on the principle of popular sovereignty, as represented in the quarter-deck scene in Moby-Dick. My rereading of the scene challenges the existing interpretation of Ahab as a totalitarian leader who deceives and coerces the innocent crew. By focusing on how the entire crew including Ishmael and Starbuck deceive themselves by feeling for Ahab and giving their consent to his request in a procedurally democratic way, I claim that Melville reveals the new modern paradox that the possibility of democratic despotism is implicated in the institution that makes possible the practice of popular democracy.
참고문헌 (31)
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