Gold Sofa1

            Several American writers in the 19th century were fascinated with an "uncertainty principle" in the search for absolute truths. Although some felt that the discovery of these universal facts was impossible, others believed that the discovery required utilizing a combination of abstract and practical means. In either case, a prevalent theme is that the answers cannot be found simply by opening up a book.            
            Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville were two authors obsessed with this principle. They strived to discount the notion that there was a single authority responsible for providing these answers. The medium they used for this task, literature, was ironically one such established mode of instructing a large audience on how to live.            
            Each implied an extended metaphor for the journey of life by using travel narratives.  By indicating that the escape from established tradition was necessary for a better understanding of the self, both authors discredited the moral absolutism of so-called "civilization." Moral relativism could be discovered between history and fiction, the work being its own moral experience. Arguably, the most famous novels written by each author, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Moby-Dick, respectively, are excellent examples of their consuming quarrels with both the self and with nature in the quest for veracity. It is important to note that neither intended to write a "textbook" full of sets of mores for living life, but instead as an open invitation for figuring them out for yourself, as well as themselves, through active participation, or experience. The reader in this way acts as a ‘howadji,’ or traveler, himself in his adventure of reading the book, mirroring the action taken by the explorer in the piece. As William Spengemann said in his book, The Adventurous Muse, the reader and narrator are "in the same boat." Neither has any idea where the action will take them (Spengemann, 143). Neither man intended to illustrate transcendental ideals of man, such as popular philosophers of their days inferred. Instead, they attempted to display the position of man as stuck somewhere between angel and ape.            
            A study in the works of these two men exhibits a fundamental dissimilarity in their respective approaches. A short story of Poe, "A Descent into the Maelstrom," and also his lone work of length, Pym, are representative of his perspective on travel literature. For Melville, a dramatic shift occurred between Typee, one of his earlier novels, and his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, involving his ideas of actual experience. These works signify important ideologies at separate points in the careers of two of America’s greatest writers. In each, it is essential to note that narratives of voyage were imperative in the dispensation of these thoughts.            
            The protagonists in Poe’s narratives of exploration were ratiocinative. Deductive or methodological reasoning was the primary basis for learning. Situations causing extreme duress for the characters were meant to increase the bond between the body and the brain. The mind, then, acted as the main tool for survival. The writing of Poe at times seemed to lack passion; however, it certainly never lacked excitement. Walt Whitman called this style "brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat" (Essays on Poe, 83).             
            Poe believed that the irrational existed within the rational, and that only through the avenue of reason could an individual understand the greater workings of nature. Melville, in contrast, had his travelers led by the heart. Feeling is a much more crucial facility than thinking. There is a heat in his writing hot enough to set the pages ablaze. The passion in Captain Ahab serves as an uncontrollable desire, that eventually leads to the destruction of his whole crew, with the exception of the narrator, Ishmael. Characters attempting to gain absolute knowledge such as he did were driven by irrational and insane motives unable to be explained to outsiders. Intentions such as this appear at the opposite end of the spectrum from Poe, and rather than belonging to logic, have their roots in ethereal substances such as faith and human intuition, or feeling. Although these characters’ tactics represent the binary opposite theories of their sources, the result sought after by all involved is the same, knowledge about life. And there are a number of comparable circumstances.
Renaissance Influences
            Poe and Melville exploited several characteristics of the renaissance to intimate their intellectual travels. Both men were extremely well read in the literature and history of this epoch. A major value drawn on by the two men for their novels includes the notion of the three types of knowledge, mind, body, and soul.  These powers represented, correspondingly, reason, sense, and faith or intuition. This idea was revealed in form especially by a few famous renaissance thinkers, including the skepticism of Francis Bacon, the classical humanism of Girolamo Cardano and Sir Phillip Sidney, and the combination of both beliefs found in Michel de Montaigne.
            Bacon believed that truth was able to be established, but not by the methods in use of his day. Unlike other skeptics, he did not simply state the infallibility of any knowledge; he also proposed means for answering questions. He thought that knowledge could be discovered only after truth was. Wisdom was then built upon stable foundations up using experimentation. He argued in his work The New Organon that if conventional wisdom was proceeding in the wrong direction, that falsity would appear and be taken in place of truth. He decided to abolish traditional values of knowledge and start anew. Dr. Radhoff insisted in his Cosmopolis and Truth: Melville’s Critique of Modernity, that Bacon perceived that finding truth was a quest: the first part consisted of the senses, and the second was investigation of that experience. This journey for truth must go "through and to nature" (Cosmopolis, 149-51). Also noteworthy, the title of another of Bacon’s most famous works, The Advancement of Learning, is mentioned at one point in Moby-Dick (Moby-Dick, 265).
            Cardano believed that natural phenomena escaping explanation was a cause of the divine. He had faith in the practices of sense and reason, but not as much as he had in faith itself. While he felt that discovery led to certainty, he did think that the medium of interpretation was at fault. Reason stood in between experience and enlightenment. God and nature provided both knowledge and experience to man. Man could either sense this information or believe in it as consistent with God, but reason was necessary for the jump to the absolute proof of the divine from experience.
            The views of Montaigne also compare favorably with both Poe and Melville. In his essay "On Experience," he states that when knowledge fails us, we use experience. He used an extended metaphor of the quest for knowledge with travel, implying that travel often led to death, and that the mind was in constant search of truth until dying (Essays, 343-4). The search for truth was dangerous because of the wide expanse of falsehood. Like an ocean, it had a "hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field." He emphasized learning by doing and that active participation was needed for the acquirement of wisdom. Aristotle first made this point, as Sidney quoted, that the journey consisted of not knowing (gnosis) but doing (praxis) (Norton, 942). This emphasis on the knowledge of the self appeared repeatedly in his Essays. Montaigne thought that "[the fact that] everyone thinks he understand himself well enough, shows that nobody knows anything about himself" (Essays, 356). Melville drew attention to this throughout his career. 
            Montaigne was singular in that he actually was exposed to cannibals. His essay "On Cannibals" intricately described the virtue he found in these primitive people. Though they were simple and appeared backward, this was a misconception. The natural man of the New World only seemed savage to explorers because the civilized man had only custom as an archetype for what a man should be. For Europeans, truth equaled tradition, and travel to unfamiliar lands was the only method where they could gain the necessary perspective to acknowledge this (Essays, 108-9). The fact that the natives of Brazil and Peru for Montaigne were not "slaves" to custom but "took another course" accounted for their complexity and ability to live cohesively. Poe does not agree with this opinion, but Melville eventually did.
            Another main theme possibly responsible for the avenue taken is that the power of the language of rhetoric trumps the humdrum points set forward by logical wording. Instead of writing essays on impossible and abstract notions, these authors took a page from Sir Philip Sidney’s The Defense of Poesy and turned the main ideas of their novels into dramatic events, which would have a much more profound effect on the audience. Sidney felt, like his classical influences, that the poet was a "maker," who was above historians and philosophers because he furnished the mind with knowledge, brought forth the "good," as well as guided us along the way (Norton, 941-2). The poet did not teach "a conceit out of a matter, but [made] a matter for a conceit," or created a situation whereby lessons could be derived (Norton, 946). A quotation of Edmund Spenser from his "preface" to The Faerie Queene, "[s]o much more profitable and gra[c]ious is doctrine by ensample, then by rule" (Norton, 625). Spengemann pointed out that Poe was of the opinion that an audience identified truth in art experientially, and not via moral argument (Spengemann, 143).             
            The last and certainly most influential aspect drawn on from the renaissance for these two novelists was that of travel-writing itself. With the discovery of the new world, subsequent travel narratives began spreading like the predetermined boundaries of the Earth itself. A major idea of Bacon was that man was able to acquire knowledge only through direct experience. Therefore, an allusion to the exploration of the New World and the fruits of those adventures is implied by the subsequent excursion into the new experiences of sea voyages for the main characters. It might even be said that these authors felt that travel would again lead humanity into a new "Great Instauration," as Bacon claimed it had helped to do only a few centuries earlier.  Poe was one of the first American authors to attempt these notions from the renaissance. The connection to Melville, as well as later great American authors as Samuel Clemens and Henry James, claimed Spengemann, drew its imaginative resources not only from the case for rhetoric, but also travel-literature (Spengemann, 119). Also, a close connection appeared in the attitudes among traveling sailors and the natives that they come into contact with between such historical narratives found in Frobisher and Drake as in the fictitious narratives of Poe and Melville. Trust was hard-fought on each side, and that fear of alterity is a major obstacle in the quest for truth.            
                In spite of both Poe and Melville occasionally instituting parts of these theories into their writing, neither man fully agreed with any specific ideology of the renaissance. Like the ‘whale-heads’ of Locke and Kant in Moby-Dick, these paradoxical socially imposed dogmas must be distributed evenly, otherwise they would have been as uneven as a top-heavy student who had not eaten dinner but had read Aristotle.
"A Descent into the Maelstrom"
            In an earlier short story of Poe involving the high seas, a tale is described after-the-fact, in which the main character’s ratiocinative skills preserve his life. The events are described three years after the tragedy. An aged and experienced angler gives a narrative to the protagonist, presented in the first-person. The convention relied upon here by Poe is common to adventure stories, utilizing a type of inverted parabasis to recreate the intensity of the experiences for the audience. The reader is invited into the circumstances of the narrative to feel and think in the same situation. The address seems direct. This enhanced excitement is believed by the author to parallel the stage of enlightenment where inherent knowledge can be reached. As E.-D. Forgues puts it, "extreme peril might induce in a man…a peculiar lucidity of intellect, a miraculous power of observation" (Essays on Poe, 45). Though we are not physically there, we can experience the sense of the events because we, too, "had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag" with our storyteller. The extreme peril of the vortex forces hope to be abandoned, and gives the impression of a clearness of mind. Though this story does not belong in the genre of the Gothic, the purpose of both is the same. Stephen Mooney explains that Poe’s Gothicism provides the reader with a “heightening of sense perception, sublimity of mind; [and a] secrecy, terror of the soul” (Essays on Poe, 13). This same ecstatic mood is what allows the fisherman to make his three observations regarding the shapes and their subsequent descents, despite the danger, essentially saving his life. Daniel Hoffman referred to these three conclusions in his book, Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe, as understanding "the nature of nature," essentially the blending of the reasoning powers of the mind with the order of the world. He traced this oneness with the external world back to another renaissance humanist, Erasmus, who said, "in the presence of catastrophe imagination is replaced by observation" (Hoffman, 149). This not only explains why the journal entries are found in Pym, but also why Poe creates an uncanny tone in this piece.
            Even though the character loses his ability to sense, by being blinded, deafened, and strangled by the squall, the audience is permitted these faculties. The old man loses his powers of action and reflection, correspondingly, his sense and reason. Eventually he will regain his power to reflect, yet is not given the opportunity to act. The situation brings to mind the idea of having time to reflect but not to act, as with the prisoner in "The Pit and the Pendulum." Without the ability to actively alter his condition, the only avenue left is to incorporate the powers of the mind. The problem with this option is that a miscalculation, the folly of reason or speculation, can lead to a catastrophe. Nevertheless, the clarity brought on by the intensity of the moment makes him see and react. His decision to let go of the ringbolt, a complete circle representing a symbol of security, which his brother has savagely pilfered from him, works out for the best. He now is able to strap himself to an object descending much slower than the feather-light boat. Furthermore, his attempts to reason with his maddened brother prove futile mainly because of the crazy man’s unwillingness to sacrifice safety, again represented by the completeness of the bolt.
            The story deals with a search for truth in an unintentionally sought after way. The main character has no idea when he sets out for his daily fishing excursion what will happen to him or how his life will be subsequently changed. The man and his brothers ignore the vast power of nature, and that oversight almost brings about the demise of them all. One lesson then is man’s comparative weakness against the natural world. Poe alludes to the Mare Tenebrarum when he has his listener describe the sight of the sea. The translation, ‘sea of restraint,’ accurately explains the battle between the faculties available to man against the enigmatic workings of the outside world. It also has interior psychological explications. The membrane of consciousness represents an infinitesimally minute level of awareness in comparison with the ‘true’ self and the outward environment. The larger implication though is that to know is to go through, while to go through is to go to. For all intents and purposes, knowledge is out there but must be experienced first-hand to acquire it. To know the self is to in effect give up all preconceived notions of identity and relearn by traveling away from traditional conventions. Travel literature provided an appropriate medium for this self-discovery because of the link between these two objects, both internal and external.
            In a central paragraph to this reliance upon travel for knowledge, the aged fisherman describes the ‘unnatural curiosity’ he experiences while risking his life. During the beginning of the downward spiral, he explains the purpose for travel in general, the inherent peril involved with such an undertaking, and finally the notion that this knowledge must absolutely be experienced first-hand, otherwise negating the effect and simultaneously the knowledge itself:
I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to make, and my principal grief was that I should never be able to tell my old companions onshore about the mysteries I should see. (Poe, 64)
            As these ideas were simply introduced in this story, there was ample time for elaboration in Poe’s only work of an extended nature. The leaving of society’s protection leading to the eventual annihilation of the self with the melding with the great white figure symbolically represents the escape from convention, the dangers associated with such obstacles, and the true knowledge learned because of the process-even with death being the end result. The idea is that the mind and body would become one only in death.
            Symbolism is a crucial facet of the writing of Poe. As Eric Carlson proposes, an author’s symbolism reflects his theory on life, and his theory of literature reflects his outlook on life (Essays on Poe, 207). Working within a short fiction setting seems to allow him the capacity to focus more on allusions and metaphors than would be necessary in a longer work. Paradoxical manifestations such as black and white serve to represent truly deeper meanings and concepts such as evil and good, savagery and civilization, innocence and experience, purity and sinful, and death and life. Perhaps the most interesting part of these binary oppositions is the ambiguity each represents. It was not always black that served evil, as is typically the case, nor does white always symbolically represent good or completeness. The major example of this imagery occurs at the end of the story, when the speaker tells his listener that on the day before his tragic event he had “raven-black” hair, which had changed to the white still apparent three years later.            
            A noteworthy statement of this tale concerns whales. The speaker stated, “it happens frequently that whales come too near the stream and are overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to describe their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves” (Poe, 60). This quotation has significance, if for no other reason; because Melville would follow in much the same frame of mind as his predecessor, yet never allude to any work of Poe. It is fascinating not solely because of this seemingly obvious neglect, but because Melville makes allusions to nearly every writer he read who had an affect on him. Similar ideologies regarding self-discovery via experience are enough to link these two great authors, but Melville’s disregard might act to further strengthen their bond.             
            As noted above, the narrative is given in the past tense. The narrator serves as a storyteller in a short story. In his later and much longer work, Poe will take this role upon himself as well as the first-person perspective of Mr. Pym. This latter voice is a fictional character created by Poe in order to impose veracity for the tale. The telling of the story three years later is a significant disparity between "A Descent"and Pym, which is told through a series of journal entries fully supplied with dates, times, and places, even going so far as describing latitudes and longitudes. These descriptions not only serve the verisimilitude of the adventure, it also puts the audience much more into the action. We are, therefore, in the so-called experience. The information that the average reader would not know about certain navigational characteristics is given to him in explicit explanatory paragraphs. These include almost textbook-like entries on the sea, the animals of the environment, and especially the workings of the vessel itself.            
            While Poe would later complicate these axioms in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, his work "A Descent into the Maelstrom" provides a foundation on which to stand and identify the beginnings of a philosophy created on experiences.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
            This tale has been the source of controversy since its publishing in 1838. Opposing views have been expressed regarding the truth of Pym’s voyage, the veracity of the man himself, the nature and genre of the piece, the meaning of the representations, and many other issues. Regardless, critics have agreed on the importance of the piece for American literature. Leslie Fiedler deemed it the "archetypal American story" and Joel Porte the "ultimate romance" (Essays on Poe, 13). Harry Levin stated that Pym was the first novel to illustrate the innocence and individuation of Americans. It tried to face the darkness or abyss facing the human condition (Essays on Poe, 12). Many critics, however, opted not to classify it as a true novel. Rather than a work that could be explicated, some theorists interpreted the story as one not allowing meaning to be discovered from it. J.V. Ridgely and Iola Haverstick represent this school by calling Pym, "[n]ot mystery but mystification, not a problem for serious explication but an unsolvable puzzle, not complexity of meaning but meaningless complication. (Essays on Poe, 15) These popular analyses combined represent the dualistic nature Poe intended to create. Pym is a work combining travel-writing with romantic fiction, or more generally, history and literature (Spengemann, 150). Poe was widely believed to be a romanticist; however, his obsession with what he called the "imp of the perverse" was the wall hindering man on his way toward transcendence. He proposed a pluralist method in these two writings. Pym is a blending of truth and fiction, journal and literature, good and bad, man and nature, civilization and savagery, black and white, as well as a myriad of other binary oppositions. It is important to note that these paradoxes are mixed together and not divided from one another (Hoffman, 266). The work then implied that there was no such thing as true and false or right and wrong, instead a balance between opposites intended for the greatest benefit to its audience.
            The introductory note sets the stage for dualism from the beginning by explaining the two very different voices that will guide us through the journey. The narration shifts between the fictional Pym and the author Poe. The journal entries of Pym provide an "appearance of truth" while the prose of Poe presents the material beneath "a garb of fiction" (Poe, 661).  This notion coincides with the idea that writing after the fact is neither completely accurate nor provable. The tale is moving nonetheless because the removal of narrative authority changes the dynamic of expectation. Previously time moved from the past to the present, but now the process begins in the present and moves toward an unknown future. The journal entry represented a "direct account" of the experiences because of the vitality of emotion (Spengemann, 143-4). Therefore, the character and the audience share the same perspective.
            Poe again implied the significance of the ratiocinative mind in survival in this text.  Hoffman described this tendency in the voyages of Poe as an axiom in which "the happy characters in Poe are those who use their heads; the tormented, those who lose their minds" (Hoffman, 147). Two main characters in the story signify reason, Pym and his friend Augustus. We see evidence throughout the piece of Pym’s rationalism, through his knowledge of seamanship, geology, fauna and flora, and customs and language. As John Peck argued in his text Maritime Fiction, Pym charts every movement of the ship in terms of longitude and latitude (Peck, 100). There are also several notes of previous explorations regarding the names and locations of islands, animal life, and sea-life in general. These indicate the main character’s strength of mind. Descriptions of his weakness in body also imply that his focus is on conditioning the mind as opposed to the body.
            The proof for Augustus is much more symbolic. The word itself recalls obviously the Roman emperor of the same name, whose era is often referred to as the age of reason. It also foreshadows one of Poe’s most famous characters, the detective C. Auguste Dupin. Pym knew the son of Mr. Barnard intimately from his time with him at "Mr. E Ronald’s academy on the hill" (Poe, 663). This reference to the world of academia allows the reader to infer that both of these men are relatively intelligent. Further, Augustus is constantly needed by his father, the Captain of the Grampus, "in arranging and copying papers connected with the business of the voyage" (Poe, 682). These minute details can be construed as indicators of Augustus’ nature. Nevertheless, Augustus loses his mind in key points of the narrative, once because he is drunk and literally "beside himself" on the Ariel before the main voyage, and again after his rescue by the Penguin due to "a vague feeling of terror and despair" (Poe, 667).
            Reason and Augustus are also associated with propriety. The word or derivatives of it appear a number of times during his drunken excursion. Hoffman equates him with the customs of civilized society because he is reasonable in town, but reckless at sea (Hoffman, 275). The danger lies for him once he steps away from the safety of shore and into the vast ocean. As both characters lose the faculties of their minds due to alcohol, they also lose their respective consciousnesses. It is noteworthy that again a ringbolt is the instrument by means of which a character searches for security, as is the case with Augustus before they are simultaneously destroyed and rescued by the whaling vessel, the Penguin. The ship is interesting because it introduces positive and negative connotations. Not only is the animal it is named after usually black and white, but also for an additional deeper reason. The captain of the ship, Captain Block, who displayed "heartless atrocity" in originally not wanting to stop and offer aid to the shipwrecked men; it is the first mate, Henderson, who along with the crew, are "justly indignant" in circling around and looking for survivors.  Poe, in the fictional voice of Pym, made the assertion that their fortunate rescue was because of two things, knowledge and divine intervention (Poe, 665). Indeed, Pym will call on God in numerous dire situations.             Characters functioning without reliance upon reason suffer miserably throughout the piece. These "unhappy" characters include the crew of the Grampus. The mutineers do so twice, once concerning the brutal mutiny itself and later after Dirk Peters, Augustus, and Pym defeat the insurgents. We are introduced to the primitive on two levels in this piece, in the form of sailors and of South Pacific savages. The mutiny was synonymous with a social rebellion in which physical strength was the sole avenue to power. The mutineers prove their lack of planning when they are afterwards split into opposing factions regarding what they will do next. Initially though, it was the "horrible butchery" of the black cook, a "perfect demon" by Poe’s account, as well as his cohorts who tied, beat, and dropped overboard twenty-two sailors (Poe, 683). Later the ship had exhausted all their resources and options due to poor planning and the conflict between at-odds factions. The appearance of the apparition of Rogers is enough to frighten the mates out of the little wits they had, owing to the "singular nature" or superstition they believed. The rest of the mutineers lose their minds in the "highest pitch of nervous excitement" directly preceding the deception pulled off by Pym, the "ghost" (Poe, 701). 
            Peck insisted that for Poe one of the prevalent perversions of man was his irrational savagery. It was part of his human nature. He went so far as to assert that Peters was a manifestation of Pym’s "dark side." The differentiation between the civilized and uncivilized concerned a respect for the body, the former had it, and the latter did not (Peck, 98-100). Pym maintains his reason throughout the actual journey, even while drawing straws regarding whom to eat before again being rescued. He attributed the conditions to Parker’s lack of reason to this dark side, one concerned more with primal ideas of self-preservation and desires as opposed to established mores (Poe, 716-7).
            The cannibals are referred to as black. They view whiteness as taboo and on several occasions are frightened or intimidated merely by the color itself. Whiteness for Poe, however, represented pure transcendence or "wholeness" (Essays on Poe, 18). Obviously, Poe thought that the unsophisticated were unable to achieve any oneness with God, and therefore truth.
            Intimations of the self are also sources of terror for the cannibals. The idea that a modern individual did not have a concept of his own individuality seems absurd. Although they seem to care only for their own personal safety, especially after their assault on the Jane Guy initially went awry, in reality the natives live solely as a community. They had extreme reliance in the idea of strength in numbers, having brought approximately 10,000 natives for the attack. It is odd then that when the king, Tsalemon, observed himself in the mirror that the Captain of the Jane Guy gave to him, he appeared on the verge of madness and flops to the floor of the canoe (Poe, 743). 
            There is an extended metaphor as well between indigenous people and animals. When they are first introduced, animal and color imagery are extensive. Their skin is "jet black," they were clothed in "skins of an unknown black animal," their simple weapons were "dark," and their canoes were weighted with "black stones" (Poe, 742). Later, Pym depicted them as "wicked, hypocritical, vindictive, bloodthirsty, and fiendish" (Poe, 766). Tiger, Pym’s dog, served to foreshadow events of the narrative with his inconstancy and insanity, drawing comparisons to the animal in man Poe attempted to portray. The dog showed two sides in his actions, at times providing needed companionship or rescuing Pym, and others a demonic and unreasonable brutality due to hunger or thirst. The "self-possession" that these inferior creatures so ostentatiously display is the same that makes Pym shudder when contemplating cannibalism after the squall aboard the Grampus.
            While there are obvious cases for these primal actions in the mutineers and the inhabitants of the island Tsalal, it should be noted that Peters is only half-savage. He is part white, part Upsarokan Indian. Therefore, he represents civilization as well as simplicity in the prejudiced eyes of Poe. The virtue of his whiteness was enough to make him an involving impact on Pym, however, further expressing the importance of pluralism and balance. His strength and physical prowess are derived from his natural blood, while his ability to plan and reason help to ensure his eventual survival. 
            This idea of the natural man as a guide would be explored later in American literature, most notably Fedallah in Moby-Dick and Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Yet Poe refuses to tout the intrinsic worth of such flawed humans. His Biblical fundamentalism and ardent belief in Negro slavery are possible explanations for this opinion. He would not allow himself to escape the conception that black was "bad."
            Reason alone was not enough to deduce sensuous experience. Faith was imperative as well for Poe.  Pym proved himself a suppliant to God on a number of occasions, especially when seemingly near death. In addition to doing so before swooning aboard the Ariel, he and Peters also pray after the storm when they are unable to dive for food and fear starvation (Poe, 706). Poe wrote, "In no affairs of mere prejudice, pro or con, do we deduce inferences with entire certainty, even from the most simple data" (Poe, 667). This extra help came from something ethereal. It is crucial to note that Poe did make a distinction between faith and intuition. The former was a direct influence from God and not to be questioned; the latter, an often-fallible folly of human misconception. Hoffman explained this as an equation. Sense led to knowledge, and there were three distinct types of knowledge: perception, conception, and intuition. Therefore, the inspiration of the soul in addition to sensual and rational experience would lead to discovery of absolute truth. He also pointed out that intuition was the least likely energy in Poe to be taken literally for the truth (Hoffman, 265-6).
            The dualism of faith and reason was what allowed Pym to survive. The culmination of the voyage to self-discovery was achieved only because of this combination. Pym’s reliance upon reason undoubtedly saved him numerous times, he would never, however, have been able to return to Nantucket without having been willing to risk annihilation. The "shrouded human figure" and overwhelming white imagery at the end of the tale are thought by many critics to represent God in some form or another. Pym told of an "unnatural curiosity" and "longing to fall" despite knowing what it would meant to his existence. John Lynan described this volition as an "attempt to achieve unity and beauty beyond time and experience to the point of losing identity" (Essays on Poe, 17). It essentially represented a unification of man with God or the universe. Poe embodied the age-old desire of man to realize not only himself, but also his place in creation. Travel was necessary because society had given man a false sense of who he was.  Like Bacon, Poe strived in Pym to illustrate the need for rediscovering the foundations of wisdom. 
            In order to understand truth man must be confident in his assertion. As Radhoff implied in his study of Melville, confidence required faith. Poe stated this pluralism directly in describing the success of the market for collecting the abundance of biche de mer (Poe, 748). In a deeper sense, this intuition may be applied to the decision, or more likely, the desire to sail into the large white image. This act effectively reflects the sailing away from the self or ego (Hoffman, 265). In accomplishing this feat, the men are able to both survive and learn truth.  Nevertheless, Poe efficiently shrugs off responsibility for informing us of the "truth" in the tale with his narrative withdrawal in the concluding note. Instead of being left without a conclusion, the audience should be grateful to the author, as he has more than hinted at the implication of the work.
Typee
            This romance was Melville’s first. It was written before a plague of disillusionment that would occupy him for the rest of his literary career.  The narrator, Tommo, represented more of a Calvinist prophet than the morally humanist later characters such as Ishmael and Ahab would symbolize. This sudden change in perspective from his earlier works to his more challenging texts is distinct for a number of reasons. Thompson stated in Melville’s Quarrel with God for one the above religious cynicism. Typee signified God standing for love, while in Moby-Dick he was full of hate (Quarrel, 149). The Presbyterian God no longer symbolized love for Melville. Evidence of this was apparent in a number of different letters from our man of letters to one of his great inspirers, Nathaniel Hawthorne. He discussed that man was sovereign to himself, as Ahab so strongly agreed, reminiscent of Bacon’s famous line that "man was a God to man" (Bacon, 146). Melville somewhat adopted Bacon’s empiricist ideas, yet could not concerning himself with matters ethereal. In addition, he patronized those authors who would capitalize the "G" in God, calling it "flunkeyism." In another letter, he said that the reason in which men either feared or hated God was because "he fanc[ied] him all brain, like a watch."             While this notion of God as a malicious tyrant may be a bit of a generalization on the part of Thompson, nevertheless the ambivalence of deity was much more apparent. Another major movement in this early romance before writing his masterpiece was the focus on idealism. Later works are much more romantically realistic. Thompson cited the influence of the first two books of the Faerie Queene beginning with Mardi for this progression. Idealism was replaced with realism (also in a highly Romantic tone) to illustrate the relationship between individual and the physical and metaphysical worlds (Quarrel, 63). The environment still revolved around unlikely high sea-adventures, but Typee lacked the verisimilitude of later writings, making it a more optimistically abstract philosophical piece. One other significant contrast was that the problem with religion was dealt with corporally. Rather than the outright blasphemy of Ahab, the main targets of spite in Typee were the Christian missionaries attempting to civilize indigenous savages. These changes begin as early as Mardi, (‘mar deity’) and White-Jacket, but did not reach such intensity until Melville wrote perhaps the greatest novel in American history.
            Although Melville may have become disoriented in his worship, the major message of his writings implied the much of the same. Thompson made note that "Typee set the style and method and vision of his later novels and stories" (Quarrel, 39). The need for pluralism as opposed to absolutism was still a major focal point when dealing with morality. His opinion of primitive culture seemed to shift for the better as well. The inherent longing to know Truth was also a dominant characteristic of his protagonists. Perhaps more striking was the role of the narrator himself. Spengemann made note that both Tommo and Ishmael write after-the-fact. The narrator and the main character are not the same person, at least, not any longer. They were different because of their experiences and the knowledge that they have gathered during their travels. The distance between time and space, however, was not necessarily a positive one. Although maturation may have occurred in the young men involved in these stories, writing "some years ago-never mind how long precisely," as both Tommo and Ishmael had done, could easily have led them to generalize (Spengemann, 179). 
            A major example of this oversimplification was the view of the Typees homeland resembling so much Milton’s portrayal of Adam and Eve’s Garden of Eden in Paradise Lost (Quarrel, 53). The utopian image represented an interest in primitivism, or "natural virtue," as proclaimed in The Adventurous Muse (Spengemann, 181). These all-encompassing assertions were exactly what Poe and Melville were trying to escape from out of society. This duality also served another purpose, which was to further indicate the "traveling companion" relationship between the narrator, protagonist, and audience. We were hearing the story in two ways: as they actually happened, when they actually happened; as well as years later, along with explanatory notes from the experienced traveler, such as in the case of Ishmael recanting one of his adventures to his lounging Spanish friends in Moby-Dick. The pluralism of action and reflection was able to be actively experienced by the reader almost as vividly as the narrator’s own harrowing encounters.
            An important similarity yet to be discussed was the nature of the travelers themselves. Both Tommo and Ishmael lived amongst a radically primitive society, Tommo in the Nukuheva valley, and Ishmael aboard the Pequod. The most significant facet regarding these two characters was their unwillingness to give up the safety of their societies. Unlike Pym or Captain Ahab, neither young man was able to risk total annihilation of their preconceived notions on standards of living. A specific example of this concerning Tommo was his unwillingness, or better yet, trepidation regarding tattoos. Like Ishmael concerning Queequeg, the ink represented a death-in-life. Allowing himself to be tattooed would be the equivalent to sacrificing his society. Ahab’s willingness for annihilation may have been due to his monomaniacal tendencies; nevertheless, he was the only true traveler in the books, although he did lack the open mind that the innocents possessed.
            The title of innocent traveler may be given to both Tommo and Ishmael-they both revealed no indications of experiences before the narratives in question. To Spengemann, they were "innocent, curious, unprejudiced, adventurous, impressionable, and eager," all qualities implying no past. These characteristics would ensure that the shape of the narrator would develop out of the experiences available to the audience, and not prior convictions (Spengemann, 182-3).
            Tommo stated in the preface, "that his anxious desire to speak the unvarnished Truth will gain for him the confidence of his readers."  As Thompson suggested, Typee was a romance to be taken as truth, though written as fiction (Quarrel, 65). This statement was alarming if considered in the structure of these travel narratives. The same feat was accomplished, if accepted by the audience, as that in the preface to Pym. Melville chose to cloak his real-life experiences in the clothing of fiction, rather than risk public humiliation that he felt he would have received on account of such an extraordinary tale. Poe created the character of Pym and his fabulous story in order to imply this realness.
            The conundrum that each author appeared to be driving at lied in this vast ocean of "Imperial Truth." Melville, it can be argued, was influenced early in his career by his faith. Radhoff insisted that for Melville, reason was the ultimate judge of self-reliance. He described this philosophy as "humanist rationalism." The truth-seeker in literature deceived himself in searching for the absolutes that were non-existent, rather than actually learn to know himself (Cosmopolis, 1-4). This pluralistic viewpoint adhered closely to that of Bacon and his perspective of truth. The evidence did not seem to be there, however, to make these insinuations. The writings of Poe focus on ratiocination and rationalism, Melville’s tempestuous style strikes sentiment and the soul rather than the mind. Radhoff instead may have been better off suggesting that Melville’s early style combined the virtue of reason with his Presbyterian upbringing. He conceded that for Melville, ratiocination did not master its own sources (Cosmopolis, 174). That God, nature, and tradition were all at war with reason, and that these entities supplied a "blind spot" in which reason could not work as intended, were conceits that Melville would later attempt to elaborate on (Cosmopolis, 8-9). Therefore, another faculty must be added to it in order to ensure any semblance of truth. An insightful argument for this dualistic approach is what Radhoff defined as ‘confidence.’ Because reason alone was not enough for discovery, confidence or faith was also necessary. Something thought to be true must also be believed in as such. This act required an irrational faith, not much different than a religious devotion. That "distrust was a stage to confidence," as Radhoff wrote, may also serve to explain the emphasis on experience associated with travel for Melville (Cosmopolis, 18). This argument appeared to make more sense, especially given all of the emphasis for pluralism in the writings of Melville.
            The Typeeans appeared heavily influenced by the essay of Montaigne, "On Cannibals." High-praise was given to the indigenous residents of the Nukuheva valley throughout much of the story. Much like the Brasilians and Peruvians in the essay, these people were a kind and gentle-hearted primitive society in many ways superior to those called "civilized." The similarities between the real and fictive peoples included their lack of modern societal burdens such as institution, ego problems, the difficulties brought on by commerce, political ambition, "profound" thinking, etc. Despite prejudices, the valley truly seemed a heaven on earth. Montaigne compared the so-called savages with the ideal men in Plato’s Republic, to the classical "Golden Age," and their natural virtues bring to mind Adam and Eve before the Fall (Essays, 110). Though many of their practices were barbaric, he questioned whether the evils of Christian society did not give the measure to those of their baser counterpart.
            While the Typeeans appeared perfect natural specimens for the majority of the book, Melville exposed them near the end to be much nearer the natives of Tsalal in Pym. The discriminating notions against the virtues of unsophisticated tribes prove true, but both sets of fictional clans do have their positive characteristics. Among these good traits directly correlating Montaigne’s historical account with Poe and Melville’s tribes was the "exquisite simplicity," or more generally, inherent instinct in human beings (Typee, 216). An example of this primitivism was their theory on law. Tommo wondered how the Typeeans were able to live so harmoniously without any prior establishments. The explanation he founded for this once living with them was an intrinsic quality in man to be honest and charitable to one another. There were no laws because there was a bond of common sense connecting them. Virtue and honor were therefore principles of not just ‘enlightened’ men (the civilized), but also the men on uncultivated islands around the world. Nature provided the only law. Tommo at one point said:
[C]ivilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity; she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people . . . If truth and justice, and the better principles of our nature, cannot exit unless enforced by the statute-book, how are we to account for the social conditions of the Typees? (Typee, 271)
            The narrative voice echoed this message of Tommo, explaining, "[h]e formed the higher estimate of human nature than ever before entertained." These ideas were single-handedly laudable words for the ‘backward’ people as well as harsh criticisms of those supposedly sophisticated. Montaigne perhaps best defined this ability to live peacefully without written laws in his essay "On Experience," when he explained, "[t]here is more trouble in interpreting interpretations than in interpreting things themselves" (Essays, 349). Although this comparison applied directly to the absolute laws of a society, it has a further collaboration with the conventions and customs of said society.            
             This idea of absolute Platonic truth, which originally was thought divine by Melville, concentrated on wisdom and beauty. The disillusionment, which followed his early Romances, seemed to have impelled him to question the true nature of Truth. Question and doubt or skepticism and agnosticism became more important to human existence than any mystical affirmation, if the latter was even possible. Rather than await some special spiritual event to guide a person to enlightenment, the individuals instead must have taken responsibility upon themselves so that they would independently search for truth, as Thompson suggested (Quarrel, 63). These characters took to the high seas on account of this realization.            
              In essence, the authors themselves went on an adventure. Art was a significant form of expression for ideas. Ishmael at one point even said of its power, "[s]o omnipotent is art" (Moby-Dick, 33). Melville, like Poe before him, used the writing experience itself as a quest.
               One symbolic meaning of the whiteness these characters were engulfed in was that of a blank sheet of paper. The white exemplified a complete openness, the archetypical example of pluralism. In Maritime Fiction, Peck contended that the author used his literature to challenge other novelists wishing to view all of life from one commanding perspective (Peck, 115). Spengemann took this pluralistic proclamation further. In the Adventurous Muse, he was quoted:
Most travel-writers had assumed that knowledge comes from travel and that the narrative should report what actual travel had taught them . . . [b]ut in writing Typee, [he] discovered that the act of composition is a form of travel itself, with its own opportunities for education. (Spengemann, 182)
               The blankness of the white paper was as symbolic as the vastness of any ocean. Like the fiction of Poe before him, Typee became a fictive medium in which exploration could be undertaken, not only by the author, but also by the audience. This travel-narrative would soon become a romantic quest for knowledge, and this motif was elaborated on in Moby-Dick.            
               Other important traits first appearing in Typee that would later become well-known attributes of Melville’s fiction included the dualism of black and white and characters concentrated on fatalism. He explained that while the Typeeans saw the first white woman as a divinity, he also described the many atrocities brought to the attention of various native peoples by the white Christian missionaries visiting such remote islands. Melville showed the possibility of the opposite being true in each of these cases, the former in the description of the lovely Fayaway, the latter in the remarkable charity of their Typeean servitor, Kory-Kory.            
                The character, Toby, who Tommo escaped the ship with, was fatalistic. The basis for such a philosophy later would take a split in the form of Ahab and Stubb-two men firmly believing in destiny. Toby believed simply in what Hawthorne would label a "chain of necessity." In one instance where Tommo desired to give up his search for independence and return to the ship despite the impending consequences, his partner urged him on with "[c]‘mon my hearty, there is no other alternative . . . [w]e cannot retreat, I suggest we keep on shoving along" (Typee, 83). The impetus of dualism required Melville to create paradoxical fatalistic attitudes in the later characters. Ahab believed he had an active influence on his fate, but that destiny called him to perform his duty. Stubb, on the other hand, was along for the voyage. He felt that he had no legitimate right to interfere with the weaving of his destiny by the Fates. Although these conflicts were first introduced here, they would not be elaborated on until Melville matured as both a man and a writer.
Moby-Dick
            Melville’s masterpiece, perhaps the most well known American novel ever written, dealt extensively with the idea of moral relativism. A dramatic shift could be seen between his first romance, Typee, already mentioned as setting the tone for his later works, and this work more than a decade later. Many of the same things could be said about this text as had been said about Pym. Moby-Dick certainly combined historical travel experience (his personal background aboard whaling vessels and their crews) with romantic fiction. The descriptions given to Pym by Fiedler and Porte are also applicable to this novel (Essays, 13). Amazingly, Melville makes neither reference nor allusion to Poe’s story.
            Although neither direct nor indirect mentioning was made, nevertheless there was evidence indicating that Melville was at least familiar with the tale, and therefore may have been influenced in some part by it. Most obviously, the motif of travel is instituted in the writing as an avenue for an innocent main character to acquire experience directly with the physical world outside and the psychological world within his thin membrane of consciousness in order to realize his own identity. Although like the character Tommo in Melville’s preceding novel, Ishmael was unwilling to risk total annihilation to uncover what Radhoff deemed "Imperial Truth," he notwithstanding learned who he was. Ahab, however, in the wake of Pym’s reckless fearlessness and unnatural curiosity, did risk death and hence paid with his life as well as the lives of those dependent upon him. After all, self-identity required the closing of the eyes to death. Ishmael said that darkness might have been more the "proper element of our essences, though light [was] more congenial to our clayey part[s]" (Moby-Dick, 53). Unlike Poe, Melville may here have attempted to admonish his audience against such unnecessary undertakings. Poe indicated that traveling to and through truth personified was possible; Melville apparently disagreed.
            Other minute details did appear. One such detail, the name of a boat, the Grampus, may be discredited since it was named after a species of whale (Moby-Dick, 13). Queequeg’s grasping of a ringbolt and riding it all the way to civilization was another example (Moby-Dick, 55). This data offered superficial hints that Melville may have had Pym in mind when he wrote his great work
            The character of Ishmael was interesting and not so at the same time. Much like Huck Finn decades later, he narrated nearly an entire series of events without any actual ‘plot.’ Although he was the window for the audience into the story, it is not until Ahab (a la Tom Sawyer) took control of the narrative during "the Chase" chapters at the end of the book that anything truly happened. The narrative voice in Moby-Dick was also similar to that in Pym; neither speaker was authoritative (Peck, 115). There appeared no evidence that Pym ever even lived, and Melville was able to subvert Ishmael’s ability to articulate by setting the story years after the depicted events. It has already been discussed above that this subsequent voice is not wholly accurate. Ishmael has been labeled an innocent traveler. By scarcely mentioning any previous life experience, he was able to fill the role of a possible truth-seeker. His virginal innocence regarding whaling (and life in general), was flagrantly displayed during his interview with Captain Peleg in one of the early chapters. The experienced whaler poked fun at the young protagonist for wanting to not only learn about going "a-whaling," but also for his naive desire "to see the world." (Moby-Dick, 71) Ishmael, however, was correct in his goal of wanting to think "untraditionally and independently," and for that, he was a valid traveler. Years afterward, when Ishmael was said to have been writing these memoirs, he has matured into an experienced and educated whaler. His knowledge about whales was without question, and as proof there are a number of chapters that would seem more at home in a dictionary, encyclopedia, or zoological textbook. Much like Poe writing after-the-fact in "A Descent" or Pym, Ishmael now has the necessary information to be a good storyteller. Peck maintained that Ishmael, in this sense, was a representative of rational value (Peck, 119). This "productive sanity," as it was called in Maritime Fiction, was not much different from detail specific entries made by Pym.
            As Melville matured as an author, the impression left by having his ‘thumb on the scale’ seemed to weigh much less. His earlier travel narrative was much preachier, almost acting as an idealistic novel of manners for travelers. In this latter voyage narrative, the central environment again took place in the southern Pacific Ocean. The novel may have created an entirely new genre: romantic naturalism. Even though the setting and occurrences seemed unlikely, in spite of everything the ship acted as a glorified petri dish for its inhabitants. A mini-society was formed aboard such ships, which typically spent upwards of four years away from shores with only casual ‘gams’ providing outside communication; on these ships conventions were established as on shore. Nowhere is this more evident than in the chapter entitled "The Town Ho’s Story," where Steelkilt (eerily reminiscent of Dirk Peters), was the recipient of a traditional grudge from the first mate.
            Pluralism is a dominant theme throughout the book. The text balanced a wide-range of philosophies on a level scale, which allowed each viewpoint to act itself out naturally within the characters and their decisions. Indeed, as Peck pointed out in Maritime Fiction, the "characters in Moby-Dick do not matter. They only serve to cast an overall expression." He further elaborated on this topic a couple pages later, implying that this style denied any sense of certainty, including that supposedly of meaning itself (Peck, 108-10). A number of disparate theories emerged from the major characters in Moby-Dick. As noted above, Carlson thought that an author’s outlook on life was reflected in the writing of that author (Essays, 207). The equal distribution among the characters in the novel may have helped to display Melville’s own disillusionment concerning his experiences, knowledge, and perhaps most of all, faith. This pluralistic philosophy, according to The Adventurous Muse, illuminated American literature to the notion that absolutes did not exist. Actual experience was authoritative; therefore, it constituted its own meaning (Spengemann, 198). Spengemann here illustrated the moral relativism that was characteristic of the belief Melville portrayed in his later writings.
            Queequeg, the first secondary character that we were introduced to, who would also later be called "[Ishmael's] inseparable twin brother," represented dualism incarnate (Moby-Dick, 370). Though he was a savage prince and noble man, the ambiguity surrounding him at the beginning of the text was certainly as uncanny as any of Poe’s gothic tales. Despite the rough start at the Spouter-Inn, these two men develop a wonderful friendship and break down numerous prejudices and stereotypes in young Ishmael. Queequeg single-handedly changes Ishmael’s one-dimensional perspective regarding dark skin. Ishmael was terrified when he accidentally walked into an all black congregation, which he identified as an all "black parliament of Tophet" (Moby-Dick, 8). After spending the night in the same bed with the man, however, the two became friends joined at the hip.
            Queequeg’s favorite utensil, his pipe/tomahawk, was another physical manifestation of pluralism. It served a double-purpose: to sit and smoke with friends and to ward off attackers. Although he appeared menacing with his constant companion, the harpoon, as well as his tattoos, which Ishmael originally referred to as "stains," nevertheless Ishmael described him as genteel, honest, and perhaps most importantly, human. The simplistic nature of the savage seemed to have allowed him to be closer with the natural world. He was even able to prevent himself from dying, much to the amazement of Ishmael, who could not believe that Queequeg had control over such measures. This innate power was a combination of the mind and the spirit overpowering the physical ailments of the body. After this mysterious recovery, Ishmael rethought the tattoos covering his friend’s body. He began to believe that they represented an illegible theory on heaven and earth, as well as "a mystical theory on the art of attaining truth." This cryptic message was written in unreadable hieroglyphics by a native priest and was unable to be solved by either himself or the man who "stained" him (Moby-Dick, 479). This friendship, built on such unlikely circumstances, was one of the motivating factors leading Ishmael to question whether the point-of-view that he had heretofore taken may have been wrong. As Melville made clear in the book, Ishmael’s authority cannot be trusted as fact. Not only does he misinterpret the painting at the Spouter-Inn in the opening pages, but also he also later would fail to project any images of his own on the doubloon. Furthermore, it represented a change in Melville concerning the nature of so-called savages. Despite the hospitality originally shown to him in the Nukuheva valley, the tribesmen there turned out to have malicious intents, including cannibalism. In this instance, however, we were shown the compassion and generosity of a man from such a background.
            Captain Ahab, maybe one of the most notoriously infamous men in American literature, was fascinating to say the least. The first true description that was given of him indicated all that he was and was not, at the same time. Captain Peleg introduced him with the depiction:
I don’t know exactly what’s the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the house; a sort of sick, and yet he don’t look so. In fact, he ain’t sick; but no, he isn’t well either. Any how, young man, he won’t always see me, so I don’t suppose he will thee. He’s a queer man, Captain Ahab-so some think-but a good one. Oh, thou’lt like him well enough; no fear, no fear. He’s a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn’t speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab’s above the common; Ahab’s been in colleges, as well as ‘mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that, out of all our isle! Oh! he ain’t Captain Bildad; no, and he ain’t Captain Peleg; he’s Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king! (Moby-Dick, 79)
            This ambiguous portrayal set up the man as the culmination of a wide-range of experiences. He is frail and healthy, atheistic and pious, and savage and sophisticated; and much more, all at the same time. If the uncanny feeling one had been given from this picture, the prophet wrapped with the black handkerchief provided additional ill omens. Although Ahab may have seemed to be an unhealthy old man, his physical prowess appeared invincible from the time of the loss of his leg. Truly, before his death, the only harm that came to his body was the breaking of his ivory leg.
            Ahab’s religious belief was a topic of much debate. Ahab seemed to believe in a supernatural entity controlling the happenings in the universe. However, he also believed that he himself was the most powerful agent in his own destiny. His predestination was of his own making. He saw fate as a duty to pursue his own destiny, unlike Stubb, who was simply ‘along for the boat ride.’ Ahab was devout without a deity, unless that deity was himself. Stubb put this type of devotion best when he said, "I never yet saw Ahab kneel" (Moby-Dick, 229). Ahab may have been an "alien" inside Christendom, but was still a member of that world of faith, albeit a misplaced one (Moby-Dick, 145). Ahab was sovereign unto himself and the disillusionment he suffered over the amalgamation of free will and destiny, as well as his own sense of identity and purpose in the world, mirrored the individualization Melville himself was going through. This cynicism was best shown when Ahab asked himself, "Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?" (Moby-Dick, 537) Ahab must have believed himself invincible in order to rebel heroically at the end of the story, and suffer what he deemed the ultimate indignity, death.
            Other evidence indicated, however, that Ahab believed only that man himself was a god to man, much like Bacon. In his conversations with the carpenter, a "man-maker," and Perth, the blacksmith whom Ahab nicknamed Prometheus, this human power was expressed. 
            The relationship between savage and sophisticate, however, was evenly balanced aboard the Pequod, rather than the juxtaposition of one civilized man amongst myriad citizens of primitives. Ishmael even at one point stated that he himself was a rebellious savage in the kingdom of cannibals (Moby-Dick, 272). The profession of a whaler did not allow for much else. Ahab’s relationship with both cannibals and college men was evenly balanced. He took an immediate liking to Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo. During the cup-bearer ceremony he placed the "gentlemen and noblemen" on even terms with his three officers, Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, respectively (Moby-Dick, 164). This dichotomy illustrated Ahab’s dependence and respect for men of all makes. Ahab also took Pip under his wing after he had apparently lost his sanity during his experience overboard. He was said to have retained his body but lost his soul. Pip may not have been a cannibal, but he certainly was not an academic. Much like the old black cook, Fleece, however, these men represent the "exquisite simplicity" Montaigne awarded men without the benefit of academia. Fleece showed a great knowledge of man during his oratory to the sharks, even going as far as saying that sometimes men were more carnal than the bloodthirsty beasts. Nevertheless, there was a firm bond between Ahab and Pip, initiated by the powerful old man. Something deep down bound the two unlikely friends, much like Ishmael and Queequeg, which defied explanation. Simple madness, explained as this connection, was not a valid explanation (Moby-Dick, 516). Pip may have seen Ahab as a god, indicated by the supplicating position he was in when Ahab’s ivory leg echoed over him (Moby-Dick, 528). This reverence on Pip’s part for Ahab followed a trend throughout sailing placing the captain as a god over his ship.
            Throughout the text, it appeared that one man’s truth might have been another man’s madness. Ahab was such a dangerous character because of his obsession with moral absolutism. He believed that absolute truth or enlightenment could be achieved. What he saw as a search for truth appeared as monomania to his fellow characters and the audience. Like the unhappy characters in Poe, Melville created Ahab in order to display the destructiveness often brought upon by a monomaniacal mind. The madness of Ahab was pinpointed on Moby-Dick. All of his intellectual and spiritual abhorrence was focused in this single manifestation. The leviathan was, for him, the personification of evil. He thought that in killing the whale that ripped his leg off he could abolish not only the existence of the whale, but everything negative that it had stood for.            
            The character of the Pharsee, Fedallah, was an intriguing one. His sudden appearance during the first dropping of the boats after a whale sighting, along with the other "phantoms" he was associated with, were certainly uncanny. The gossip among the other crewmembers definitely indicated an apprehensiveness regarding the sudden apparitions. Their Asiatic aboriginalness reminded Ishmael that not only were the angels amorously involved with human women, but so too were the devils. The relationship between life and death being symbolized by substance and shadow early in the text was reiterated near the concluding scenes when Ahab was compared with the former, Fedallah with the latter (Moby-Dick, 530). As Ahab walked this divisive line between life and death, naturally his affiliation with such a man occurred. The description offered to the reader of this believed demon by the narrator was also reminiscent of the savages from Pym. His dark turbaned hair, black jacket, and black trowsers were all accessories reminding one of the natives of Tsalal. His characteristics and yellowish skin color were also compared to animal images, most notably a tiger. Like the wicked, vindictive, and fiendishly bloodthirsty nature of Poe’s savages, Fedallah and his ghouls were also devils in the flesh. The fact that Ahab relied upon the tense relationship of this devil to accomplish his wicked goal was also suggestive of another renaissance influence, that of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, who called upon one of Satan’s minions, Mephastophilis, to acquire a superhuman wealth of knowledge. The tragic ending of such an action may have been in Melville’s mind when he inserted such a similarly demonic character into his book. The message that knowledge beyond human limits, such as absolute moral standards, which were not only unobtainable, but also immensely dangerous, again showed its influence from the renaissance on the author.           
             The three commanders aboard the Pequod each represented various aspects of thinking. Starbuck, the first mate and highest-ranking officer beneath Ahab, was a devoutly religious man. His unwavering faith in God above all else, however, was still not enough to persuade Ahab to call off his blasphemous adventure. His emphasis on faith and religious superstition above all else did give him a rational outlook, considering that God’s Word was synonymous with reason, but certain events led him into hypocritical waters. He could not understand flatly obeying Ahab’s orders, yet does so himself in an ephemeral entity. This belief without proof was exactly what religion was founded on. Stubb, next in line, was a passive fatalist who cared not a wink for changing fate himself. The line, "Stubb, for one, can’t fight it," accurately portrayed his entire demeanor (Moby-Dick, 498). An indifferent nihilist, Stubb only lived for eating and sleeping, which he called his eleventh and twelfth commandments. Flask, a minor character, both literally and figuratively, was the epitome of mediocrity. His listlessness and small stature made him the lowest common denominator in the book. These three men served as paradoxes of Ahab in their compositions on account of their unfounded faith in an omnipotent presence, inability to alter their life’s outcome, and tendency toward anonymity, respectively. Each of these men held unalterable views, unlike the maturation of perspective undergone by Ishmael, a true relativist.
            
              Moby-Dick also symbolically represented Ahab’s opportunity to emancipate himself from his destiny. Nowhere was his faith in Free Will more exemplified than in the chapter entitled "The Candles." A number of signs from the divinity appeared warning Ahab and his crew to call off their demonic quest. The pious Starbuck noted during the awful squall that doom was to be found in the direction they were heading, but toward leeward (homeward), there was light (Moby-Dick, 499). An oath from the sailors after Ahab’s quarter-boat was lost, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," was a direct reference from the Bible indicating that Ahab’s kingdom was numbered, totaled, and been found wanting (Moby-Dick, 500). Despite the protestations of fear from all of the socialized sailors, Ahab and his savage minions were not thwarted. Ahab then proclaimed in a direct address to God that "[t]hy right worship [was] defiance" and that in the face of the "personified impersonal," meaning the divinity, a lone personality stood up against him, himself. At this point, another sign from above appeared, with the flames from the corpusants angrily leaping to three times their previous height (Moby-Dick, 502). The spiritual Starbuck here exclaimed as a result of these signs that God was against Ahab, illuminating the ’secret motto’ of the text, I baptize you not in the name of the father-but in that of the devil!              
              The selfish rebellion of Ahab trumped all other facets of the man’s personal life, including his family and profession, as well as the lives of his underlings. Ishmael described Ahab’s condition as the result from having his "torn body and gashed soul bled into one another, and so interfusing, made him mad" (Moby-Dick, 182-3). The combined strength of body and spirit was enough to overpower the reasoning faculties of an otherwise intelligent and sane man, transforming him into the diabolical maniac he became. This monomania was what made Ahab only "feel, feel, feel" during "The Chase" sequence at the conclusion of the book, rather than think. The feelings affected his body and soul, but without the full use of his mind, he sank. Ahab’s absolutist thinking inevitably led to his own demise. Melville perhaps intended for the destruction and failure of the Pequod to annihilate probably the most powerful object in nature to serve as a commentary on the dangers of limiting yourself to one all-encompassing perspective.            
              Several pieces of evidence in the text indicated that Melville thought that absolutism was not the philosophy to live by. Ishmael explained that nothing existed within itself (Moby-Dick, 53). This helped to explain why even the striking through of the wall, which the whale represented, would not be enough to eliminate the demons inside Ahab’s head. Starbuck, in a futile attempt to steer Ahab away from his meaningless mission, argued with Ahab that his madness was blasphemy. Ahab knew that the whale was only a mask, yet beyond that mask was what needed to be destroyed (Moby-Dick, 162). Whether or not anything was beyond was not the question, but rather that he was willing to fight and heroically perish against insurmountable odds. He felt that he had to find out for himself, and was willing to risk numerous lives in order to fulfill that need. Situations like these highlight Ahab’s unwillingness to veer from his intended goal and Melville disagreeing with that ‘madness.’ There are also descriptions of Ahab informing the audience that Ahab believed certainties were obtainable, and the narrator’s conflicting viewpoint. Ishmael told us "any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty" (Moby-Dick, 131). Melville here has his narrator inform the audience of a lack of faith in human’s ability to complete anything correctly. This incompleteness showed that Melville saw the necessity of some outside force in addition to the mortal gifts of sense and thought in order to attain any idea worth valuing. Like trying to define whether the spouts shot out by the whale were air or water, the plainest things in life defied accurate explanation and were left to approximate speculation. This skepticism, although in one part reminiscent of Bacon in that we could hypothesize if not prove or establish, nevertheless demonstrated a pluralism of earthly doubt and heavenly intuition. Contrastingly, Ahab "fondly thought, every probability the next thing to a certainty" (Moby-Dick, 198). This confidence or rather, reliance upon human resources alone was eventually what killed Ahab. As stated above, absolute truth-seekers deceived themselves, since they were searching for non-existent entities outside of themselves. It may have also mirrored the disillusionment Melville the man was experiencing. Ahab, as explained by Thompson, was an experiment of Melville to see what might happen when an individual asserted independence over dogma and God himself (Quarrel, 147).             
              Moby-Dick, the infamous antagonist, was most certainly a symbolic ‘character.’ As in the Book of Job, and myriad other places in literature, it represented an immensely powerful figure, perhaps the largest and strongest in nature. Unlike what Ahab attached to him, he was a source of both good and evil. The whiteness of the whale was a source of much argument. The ambiguity of the color white instilled both awe and fear equally. Countless chapters from both the novel and from subsequent books written on it have been written regarding the whale’s hue. Ishmael alluded to the uncanny emotions brought upon by whiteness in nature during his talks on albatrosses, polar bears, and the whale in question. He described such sightings as an "apparition to the soul," since it at the same time brought to mind the love from the visible world as well as instilling fright from the invisible spheres (Moby-Dick, 190).            
              In many ways, the whale also seemed to represent the Christian God. In the opening pages, the animal was described as "one great hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air" (Moby-Dick, 6). Like a true deity, it was apparently ubiquitous-appearing not only in different places at the same time, but also at different latitudes (or extremes). It also had to remain inexact and "unpainted;" the only "earthly way" to learn about it was to directly experience it. This dangerous adventure again required active participation, extreme amounts of courage, and a willingness to risk life and limb. The whiteness then, like for Poe, was a transcendent wholeness-a direct connection to a universal power.            
             White was also considered the color for Christianity. There are a number of religious references in the book, either alluded to or directly named. The leviathan was mentioned in such major Books as Genesis, Job, and Jonah. Several characters even drew their names from characters in the Bible, such as Bildad. His sister, Charity, represented the virtue of the same name in attempting to outfit the Pequod with a number of items potentially useful, both logical and not so. One of the harpooneers was depicted as an Ahasuerus, the mythological savage king ruling from Ethiopia to India in the Book of Esther. Even the crazy sailor Gabriel, of the ship the Jeroboam, had religious implications. Much like the angel sent down to instruct Adam in Milton’s Paradise Lost, if taken symbolically, his warnings sought to teach man not to search for knowledge beyond his mortal limitations. He admonished Ahab and his crew not to attempt to kill the monstrous Moby-Dick.            
            However, the main religious allegories focused on in the novel concerned the biblical characters of Job and Jonah.  In the Book of Job, a devout man endured a series of hardships, which tested his faith. The lesson from the ancient text was that so long as faith in God was kept, a man could endure anything. Ahab conversely took on the role of the anti-Job.  In a speech to Perth the blacksmith, Ahab pointed out that such unfounded tribulations were enough to drive a man mad. Conceivably, he had this reason in mind when he decided to take faith into his own hands, rather than submit himself to the hands of destiny. In the Book of Jonah, a man attempted to escape the duties imposed on him by the Lord out of self-pride. The sermon of Father Mapple best illustrated the connection between Ahab and Jonah. The ex-sailor turned preacher explained that although obeying God meant disobeying our own will, nevertheless faith would reward those who bowed before the Almighty. Like Jonah, Ahab was too proud. His unwillingness to kneel before any supreme power but himself inevitably would bring wrath upon himself and his idolaters. His refusal to supplicate himself before God indicated that Ahab lacked the capacity to repent, and was therefore ungrateful for his due punishment. The comparison between Ahab and Jonah was also linked with the relationship between the whalers and the mariners. The line, "[s]trong intuitions of the man assure[d] the mariners that he [could] be no innocent" worked well in the situations of both Jonah and Ahab (Moby-Dick, 42). Neither group of sailors were successfully able to stop God’s offenders, and therefore suffered eternal consequences. Although neither group fully supported the two outcasts, both sets were punished for following along too far in their sins. The spiritual invincibility that Father Mapple appeared enshrouded in during his sermon atop his pulpit was reiterated during the preceding chapters before the inevitable doomsday when Ahab sat aloft in his perch. The disconnectedness with the physical world implied in both situations was paradoxical in the cases of the two very different men. Father Mapple had come to terms with his sins and repented, while Ahab continued on his collision course with fate, ultimately to his own demise.
            Moby-Dick was another travel-narrative with a romantic idea at the base of it. Melville seemed to have intended to instruct his audience to act, think, and believe for themselves, rather than to guide them in a particular manner. The openness symbolized in each set of characters and the obliteration of any single perspective indicated that a pluralistic relativism was the philosophy to be adhered to by an individual.
Conclusion
            The new genre combining travel-narratives romantic fiction was a useful tool for both Poe and Melville to express their ideas on dualism. The wide expanse of the watery world all but eliminated the possibility of one absolute goal. The ocean provided more than one truth for all of its explorers. The discovery of the self through the direct experiences of nature was the main purpose of each text it seemed, and a solitary avenue was obviously not the successful method of approach. As Ahab’s reflection sank the more that he focused on it, so too did the idea that absoluteness could be located and defined submerge itself among a number of possibilities (Moby-Dick, 535). Essentially traveling away from society was synonymous with escaping absolute mores. Setting out on a voyage with a definitive goal was very similar to seeking truth without being amidst conventional perceptions, thoughts, and falseness. As Melville put it, "Truth, who love[d] to be centrally located, [was] again found between the two extremes" (Typee, 277). Works Cited
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