Ishmael's Passage To The Otherness

Moby-Dick, a literary leviathan by Herman Melville, is highly acclaimed for its density of meaning. A doubloon, it is not to be pinned down by any easy definition. Yet, despite all the heterodoxy of the opinion on it, the sense of the sacred with which the book is infused never evaporates. And critics have already reaped a bountiful harvest of archetypal mythic patterns from it.But of all those illuminating readings, focuses have generally been on the imposing but appalling White Whale and the monomaniac, tragic Ahab, While the significance of Ishmael is far from being aptly recognized. Traditionally, Ishmael is held by the critics to be a witness, a recording consciousness of the tragic encounter. In fact, Ishmael is more than that; he is an active participant. He dives into the sea, the maternal principle of unconsciousness, and reaches the nourishing fountainhead of life. As unconsciousness is depravity, the primal sin for the Logos, through his archetypal diving, the "wild" Ishmael raises his hands against the orthodox Western civilization, which has drained us of our instinctual sentience.The thesis is an attempt to elucidate the significance of Ishmael's sea voyage. It consists of an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion.The introduction is a brief analysis of the archetypes and the psychological attributes of Moby-Dick. Then the author establishes Ishmael's position as a major character mainly through the following aspects: Ishmael as an outcast, Ishmael as a brave diver, and Ishmael as a rebel.Chapter One is an analysis of Ishmael's suicide complex and his brave gesture of diving into the Water, the unconsciousness for spiritual salvation and resurrection.Chapter Two concentrates on Ishmael's oneness with the primordial nature. In the bosom of the nature, Ishmael regains the instinctual life force. He not only forms a bond of fraternity with the pagans excluded from the orthodox culture, but establishes a "marriagelike" relationship with the cannibal- Queequeg, a relationship transgressing two norms-heterosexuality and racial purity.Chapter Three elaborates on Ishmael's fascination with the Whale. Through his scrutiny on the Whale, which haunts his mind, Ishmael at last overcomes his Whale complex and comes to accept its inscrutability, its bisexuality as well as his archetypal meaning of being a savor.Chapter Four focuses on Ishmael's epiphany of the archetypal image -Mandala. Perceptive enough, Ishmael sees that the opposites are not only united in one, but are interchangeable/and that there is always a center of inner order, of wholeness and of safe refuge against the outer commotion, as revealed through the circumnavigating whales. This realization anticipates his spiritual wholeness and rebirth.In conclusion, Ishmael's sea voyage is emblematic of a plunge into unconsciousness, the Otherness, for spiritual rebirth.