Henry Melville’s Moby Dick stands as America’s greatest contribution to the literary world. Melville delves into the depths of human nature and raises several thought provoking questions. In chapter seven, protagonist Ishmael enters a small church and finds a crowd of worn out persons mourning sailors whom the seas have claimed. Upon seeing this Ishmael wonders, “how is it that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss” (65). Melville here places Ishmael in the same role as Shakespeare’s Fool in Twelfth Night. To mourn the loss of those presumably in heaven seems, from the onlooker’s perspective, foolish; however, Melville qualifies this foolishness in saying that “Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope” (65). The mourning benefits not the deceased, but rather the living. The mourners turn to the Lord when seeing no other option. All said, Ishmael seems to envy the dead who have been set free from the burdens of the world. As he sets to go on his epic journey, the read must consider whether Ishmael will use the ship, as Jonah, to run from God or perhaps as a form of self-penance. Ishmael claims to be a Presbyterian believer, but his actions and thoughts seem to betray a great amount of doubt. He appears a man running from his past and what better pensieve to store away painful memories than the endless sea?
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