Hoo, I think I’m finally in the clear.

From the summer heat, I mean, though the season doesn’t technically end for a few more weeks. It’s been awfully muggy here lately, and we had a couple last days of unbearable warmth, post-labor day. Ugh, it was right when I was working from home too, nearly melted into a puddle at my desk during a meeting, where I had to have my headset on. Anyway, I must apologize for missing last week, I was overwhelmed with Emotions after getting back into an old hobby. Perhaps I’ll write on it another time.

Summary

The next morning, the Pequod is veritably flying over the ocean, the wind at her back, the golden sunlight glinting off the waves, as the remnant of the storm pushes them forwards.

Ahab stands aloof, enjoying the way the fates seem to smile upon his new mission. But then, he realizes something is amiss. Based on the position of the sun, they are heading west, not east as he desired. Asking the helmsman for the heading, he finds that the compasses in the binnacle have been affected by the mysterious electrical events of the previous night, and are now pointing precisely the opposite of the direction they should.

Setting the crew to turn the ship around, Ahab watches them carefully and paces the deck, until he nearly slips on the sextant he smashed there before. This gives him an idea, and he asks Starbuck to fetch him a needle, a maul, and an unsheathed harpoon.

With the whole crew gathered ’round, he has one of the men hold the iron rod from the harpoon, with the needle on top, suspended above the deck. Ahab smashes the needle repeatedly, and then hangs it in the binnacle, where it does indeed point true. He invites every member of the crew to look for himself, seeing how Ahab has mastered the power of magnetism and restored their navigation.

Analysis

In which, through some mysterious means, Ahab makes a compass.

I’m not particularly interested in digging into the whys and wherefores of how he made a compass, and whether or not this would actually work. Electromagnetism is one of those things in modern science that may as well be wizard magic as far as I’m concerned. What with all the mysterious sigils and crystals and toxic potions involved, you must admit it is a fair comparison.

But, what is the reason for this? Why is it so important for there to be a new compass when the old ones were, really, still perfectly functional? Well, I think it stands out as Ahab trying to reclaim control over the situation, after somewhat losing himself to his emotions the previous evening.

Bad Omens

The main thing here is that Ahab needs to walk back just a li’l bit of his madness. He needs to regain the full trust of the crew, having seen how they were almost ready to mutiny on him the night before.

What’s the best way to regain the trust of superstitious sailors? Why, by playing into that same superstition, of course. He lost their trust by going against the seeming wishes of the sea itself, and plowing foward into the storm, and then defying that storm directly. This is all a bit too much tempting fate for even an ordinary person, much less a sailor, who sees omens and portents in every wave and breeze.

This is why it’s important that he fix the compass. A turned compass, which now points exactly the opposite of how it should, is absolutely still usable once you know that that’s happened to it. But… think of what that means symbolically.

You are now pointing your whole ship in the wrong direction, on purpose. The mysterious magnetic power inherent in the compass has been flipped around, by some mischief of the grand natural forces which you battle against every day. You are, objectively, sailing correctly, but in a way that goes against the natural instinct of the helmsman, and every other sailor on the ship.

Combined with… well, everything in the previous night, and all the other nonsense Ahab has gotten up to in recent weeks, and it’s not looking particularly lucky to stick with him. Perhaps this voyage may be, just slightly… doomed?

Ahab’s Apology Tour

So, what’s a megalomaniacal tyrant of the waves to do? When his grip on the psyche of his crew is waning, through their own natural superstition, a thing which he was counting on to help bind them to his will in the first place?

Why, it’s time for some magic tricks! To reestablish himself as the most competent and powerful man on the ship, one who will guide them through whatever trouble and tribulations come their way. To prove, in essence, that he can walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

After all, it’s one thing to say you’re going to defy god/fate/whatever and murder it in effigy, but to actually do it you need to demonstrate some physical powers of some sort. You gotta show the goods, at a certain point! And that point is now. Otherwise, this is just another faint flailing of a doomed man, struggling in vain against the pall of death as it falls over his sad corpse.

But no! Ahab is a strong and lively man. He has the arcane knowledge necessary, and the showmanship skills, to convince the men to at least stick around and see what happens, if not to give their full-throated endorsement once more.

It seems notable to me that Ahab does not return to his cabin after seeing the turned compasses. He knows that this is a critical juncture. Left to their own devices, the men of the Pequod would probably grumble but continue to follow along… for a while. But not all the way to the end. It would set in motion a wave of discontent that would be difficult to stop.

So, instead, he theatrically makes a new compass, and invites everyone to view the results, one by one, with their own eyes.

“Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level loadstone! The sun is East, and that compass swears it!”

Master of the Physical World

Once again, this follows on thematically from the big speech in The Candles. Ahab is rejecting any belief in the spiritual, any couching in fate or sunshine or the mystical unseen powers that other men place their faith in.

What he’s asking his men to do, then, is to place their faith in him instead. In place of their belief in some unknown will of God or the sea or nature, simply allow him to care for them. His ultimate paternalistic pride is that he can repair and replace anything that nature could take away.

The ultimate avatar of American individualism stands here, before us. Ahab wants to depend on nothing and nobody else. He is finished with the vague promises of religion. It’s no longer enough, he places his faith in the pale fire itself, the raw power of nature.

Ah, it reminds me of the description of the sea once again, from so long ago. As a heartless cannibal, who mashes her own children against the rocks, and never lets up the dead. This is the thing that Ahab finds an equal partner in this business. The only thing he could possibly respect, another relentless force with its own unknowable aims, smashing its way through the physical world, heedless of the cries of any others!

Ahab will prove himself equal to that power through his own raw will. The time for careful reflection is over, it is now time for action!

The Power Fantasy

The allure of this particular fantasy that Ahab taps into has not decreased one bit in the intervening years, I reckon.

The desire for mastery over the physical world, the desire to be truly independent, to be a human island… it lives deep within the American psyche. And, indeed, in those of many nations, but it is really part of the air we breathe here. It drives the growth of fascist movements all over, the desire to believe in a strong leader, that you can simply take care of things yourself, that nothing could be beyond your power, simply because you will it so.

But what do we see, truly, with Ahab? An old man tricking his men into ignoring what their brains and their hearts tell them, to follow along with his doomed, beautiful dream. Most of the time, when this happens, you just end up with a bad movie or perhaps a video game, but they are gambling with their lives, here.

At the end of the day, it is a childish fantasy. And I mean that in a very literal way, it is the fantasy of someone desperately dependent on others for their livelihood (parents), who both admires that power more than anything and believes they could achieve it. It is the naive view that power is a thing in and of itself, rather than only existing in a certain context.

Ahab only has power because the men of the Pequod give it to him. Should they will it, they could toss that old man overboard without a second thought, and be on their way home. But the desire for leadership, the wish to be directed by a great conquering hero, to bask in the reflection of his greatness, is simply too great.

Believing in and being that crazy old man, in turns, is the human condition.

In this novel, Ishmael in turn portrays Ahab as a demonic madman, and a great hero in line with great heroes of antiquity. If he is evil, it is the sort of grandiose and tragic evil that befalls the great kings and emperors of old.

Because at the end of the day, this all has to mean something….

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Aw yeah, getting back to some core themes here! I was reading over some of my older write-ups, from that first year when I covered like half the book, to remind myself what I should be watching for as we near the end. I think it will be prove quite fruitful.

Until next time, shipmates!