The Painting at "The Spouter Inn"
“Moby Dick” is a novel which is full of symbolic meanings and ideas depicting human courage and dignity, the role of fate and destiny in life of common people. This novel depicts life experience of a common sailor Ishmael through the lens of fate and destiny. The journey around the world serves as a symbol that represents dilemma and the knowledge retrieval, the desire to find old truth, and the symbol of maternity. Thesis Using the painting at “The Spouter Inn” Melville gives some hints to readers symbolically portraying hardship and tragedy, a struggle between life and death awaiting the main character of the novel.
From the very beginning, Ishmael cannot understand the meaning of the picture. He tries to find different interpretations of the image described as “there was a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvelous painting meant” (Melville, Chapter 3). In a moment, the image “bears a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish” or “even the great leviathan himself” (Melville, Chapter 3).
It is possible to assume that the picture represents eternal existence, so it is difficult find the right meaning of the painting. Nature and the sea theme in particular are used as a symbol to describe deep personal feelings and life experience of a human being. This symbol gives only some hints to the reader to comprehend the meaning of the story development. Ishmael reflects: “It’s a blasted heath. – It’s a Hyperborean winter scene. – It’s the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture’s midst” (Melville, Chapter 3).
It is important to note that “The Spouter Inn” plays a crucial role in the life of Ishmael as a starting point of his circumnavigation. He is at the crossroads trying to find his place under the sun. Threatening scenes of nature grasp the readers’ imagination: “the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads” (Melville, Chapter 3).
Taking into account symbolic meaning of this painting, it is possible to say that threat is depicted and enhanced by the author’s rendering of expressions that come together to form a composition of nature and wildness. The theme of “ship” means the nature and a human being. Altogether it means life experience of a particular person and it brings message to everyone to think over next step in his or her life. It implies not only wisdom, but also the whole life of a person who has a right to choose which path to go. The nature is different as is human’s inner world. “You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement” (Melville, Chapter 3). In general, nature and sea are impossible to conquer or subdue.
Life realities and atmosphere of the Inn have a great influence on imagination of Ishmael. The suddenness and the strength of the sea underline eternal life and symbolize maternity. Finally, Ishmael decides that it symbolizes the death of a sailor, when ”the original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a man, traveled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the hump” (Melville, Chapter 3).
This theme is very important because from the very beginning readers are faced with the psychological importance of death and nature. Putting all of these together the author creates a complicated emotional mix. The protagonist is the only character to sustain a conflict with the harsh materialistic world supported by dogmas and based on sea tales. Now there surfaces the long interior conflict between natural respect for the past and his equal abhorrence of its cruelty. Only the feeling of the intense emotions and guilt could even begin to answer his struggle with himself over the past.
As a symbol of tragedy this picture foreshadows difficulties and grievances in lives of the characters. For instance, a story of Moby Dick is the first sign of tragedy. It is mentioned that this whale took Ahab's leg and drove him crazy. He describes: “and his spout is a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils!” (Melville Chapter 36). This description reflects Ishmael’s ideas of painting and gives some hints about possible death of a person. It is illogical, but the story of a whale emphasizes that human life depends upon natural phenomenon and sea much more than we think.
The story about the Town-Ho and its conflict with Moby Dick is another unifying force which joins the painting to the rest of the story. Melville stresses that the hero, like other men, lacks self-preservation instinct. In contrast, a whale who has no great intellect and “knowledge” can easily survive in any circumstances. The story tells that “the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses to give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that destroyed him (Melville, Chapter 54). This story depicts asceticism of the main character as human necessity for survival, and the lengths to which a person will go to save his or her life. Everything about the old world was central to the character’s interior life; in some way that was also his life ordeal.
Another important element and detail is a special harpoon which should be used against Moby Dick. Ahad asks the blacksmith to forge it and use against this monster. Some elements on the painting described by Ishmael bear resemblance with harpoons and battle. Another interesting detail is that there is no exact information about Moby Dick. Some ships prove the existence of this monster, but some deny this fact. This important element of the story has much in common with doubts of Ishmael. On the one hand, it is difficult to interpret the painting at the Spouter Inn, and it is also difficult to tell apart true and false elements of the tales about Moby Dick. For instance, the Bachelor’s crew say that they “only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all” (Melville, Chapter 115). In contrast, some other sailors prove its existence and even describe it: “I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!" "The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it" (Melville, Chapter 59). It is possible to say that the theme of painting helps Melville create a story conflict and hold readers in suspense. This very symbol represents the essence of life and struggle, life and existence. A typhoon is another important detail which is depicted in the painting. In contrast to “the ship” imagined by Ishmael, the Pequod comes upon it on its journey in the Pacific when its compass moves out of alignment.
When the crew finds Moby Dick the battle lasts three days. It is possible to say that suffering is sent to us in order to expand the human spirit, to delve into matters previously kept hidden, to grow through pain. The author comments that: “In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men” (Melville, Chapter 126).
At that tragic cost, Ahab reaches some new understanding of life all on his own. He boldly goes where no man had gone before, and the physical and mental scars he bears are his honor. The main idea is that every man should take a true journey alone, and the men who made these are heroes themselves in the true sense. It is possible to admit that this very moment caused the awakening of the crew. Only in difficult situations people can show their real inner state and their morals. The whale breaks Ahab’s ivory leg, “his ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter” (Melville, Chapter 126). The most terrible is the death of Fedallah who becomes entangled in the harpoon line and is drowned, as well as the man on the painting with “a restless needle sojourning” in his body. During the third attack only Ishmael survives.
Structurally, the symbols of death, a whale and a broken ship anticipate future tragedy faced by the hero. The main character comes to know that every moment and every act share the same fate. All are destined to dissolution, to be swept up and fixed in the complete picture of a terminated existence. The anticipation of his life dissolves the feeling of overriding importance. The gritty feel of the story also gives an added realistic psychological mood of the main character.
Philosophically, Melville rings up questions concerning natural phenomena and the power of nature and sea, and in spite of all the negative life lessons Ishmael understands what it is to be an individual. Throughout the story he definitely blames human behavior for the tragedy that happens but it is most poignantly and symbolically demonstrated with the rejection of safety and live of other people. The facts mentioned above prove the idea that only in difficult situations people show their real nature. Following Melville: ‘The drama's done.- Because one did survive the wreck” (Melville, Epilogue).
Summing it all up, the third chapter about the painting can be seen as a core of the story introducing the symbol of struggle with nature and the whale. This struggle is probably the most difficult battle in life. It does not matter how young the hero is and what is his name, because human dignity and inner strength are not influenced by these factors. Having described the effect of desire to take revenge and madness of the mind, Melville shows that terror as it occupies and expands the mind and elevates it to high expectations is purely sublime and leads to aimless deaths.

References
1. Melville, H. Moby Dick. 1998. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/moby10b.txt