A Romantic Impossibility: The Pitfalls and Values of Self-Construction in Moby Dick
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This paper centers around the idea of ‘self-construction,’ an attempt at which is made by the two main characters of Moby Dick: Ahab and Ishmael. The central argument is that this attempt at fleshing out one’s own identity and dignity, although bound for disintegration, is nevertheless pregnant with internal values. The endeavor proceeds from the “heartless voids and immensities of the universe,” in which humans are engendered ex nihilo and left to universal vulturism without knowing the whys and wherefores of their Being. Hence, the aforementioned characters in the novel seek to establish the order of their Selves by conquering the inscrutable world of Other. Nevertheless, the interpenetration of Self and Other baffles their endeavors to carve out the former by understanding the latter. This loss of demarcation between Self and Other engenders that “ungraspable phantom of life” which involves humanity in a circular toil. Despite the futility of the quest, nonetheless, undergirding their attempts at self-construction are two intrinsic values that defy the logic of teleological progression. First, the process of acting for a purpose imbues Ishmael’s life with an existential mainspring, preventing him from losing himself in the “Descartian vortices” of morbid nihilism. Second, the normative values that the assayers feel in their trial is held as a touchstone of truth that eclipses the calculation of result. In case of Ahab, his remonstration with God’s dereliction and irresponsibility emanates a crying pursuit of democratic justice for humanity. In this sense, the novel’s display of human failures is less a call for a categorical abandonment of what is bound to fail than an allusion to the lofty values that keep humans gravitating towards those ‘failures’ despite the futility.
Abstract
This paper centers around the idea of ‘self-construction,’ an attempt at which is made by the two main characters of Moby Dick: Ahab and Ishmael. The central argument is that this attempt at fleshing out one’s own identity and dignity, although bound for disintegration, is nevertheless pregnant with internal values. The endeavor proceeds from the “heartless voids and immensities of the universe,” in which humans are engendered ex nihilo and left to universal vulturism without knowing the whys and wherefores of their Being. Hence, the aforementioned characters in the novel seek to establish the order of their Selves by conquering the inscrutable world of Other. Nevertheless, the interpenetration of Self and Other baffles their endeavors to carve out the former by understanding the latter. This loss of demarcation between Self and Other engenders that “ungraspable phantom of life” which involves humanity in a circular toil. Despite the futility of the quest, nonetheless, undergirding their attempts at self-construction are two intrinsic values that defy the logic of teleological progression. First, the process of acting for a purpose imbues Ishmael’s life with an existential mainspring, preventing him from losing himself in the “Descartian vortices” of morbid nihilism. Second, the normative values that the assayers feel in their trial is held as a touchstone of truth that eclipses the calculation of result. In case of Ahab, his remonstration with God’s dereliction and irresponsibility emanates a crying pursuit of democratic justice for humanity. In this sense, the novel’s display of human failures is less a call for a categorical abandonment of what is bound to fail than an allusion to the lofty values that keep humans gravitating towards those ‘failures’ despite the futility.
참고문헌 (19)
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