When the hurly-burly’s done

Power Moby-Dick, the Online Annotation.

That is all.

It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these, and for that I apologize.  Life’s happened, as have paper-grading, progress report-writing, and Back to School Night.  But here are some highlights from the past few nights of Am Lit I bloggery.

A few students were a little weirded out by the play-like chapters in the late 30s.  Moby-Dick is such a bizarre book that for me, as a reader, it would be surprising if Melville didn’t get all multigenre.  But then I think about how surprising it must’ve been for Melville’s contemporaries to read something like this, which flits between straight narrative, nonfiction, drama, and direct address.

ALSO:

Arturo wonders about motivation:

I also think that the people who went whaling had to be crazy, and especially the harpooners. Its just craziness to row a tiny boat to a whale and then stab it and then go on that “Nantucket sleighride,” which could end up in your death.

 Erin goes green (to which I say “right on!”):

On page 172 I came across a quote that I really enjoyed. It is Ishmael speaking/thinking and he says, “For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of a man’s blood was spilled for it.” He is very right when he is implying that we should not take for granted the luxuries that we have. Often, the public does not know what was sacrificed in order for them to enjoy the things that they use on a daily basis. This is especially prevelant in our world today. Americans are using up so many resources and not realizing what the effect is having on the earth. For example, oil or paper. We use so much of it but don’t realize that trees are being killed or that oil is a non-renewable resource. I like that Ishmael decided to throw in a lesson of common sense into the chapter.

Kanako gets medieval on us:

I found it interesting how Ishmael calls Queequeg’s sword hitting the loom and altering the overall pattern “chance”. This reminded me of Fortuna, the goddess of fortune in Roman mythology and personification of luck. I was introduced to this goddess when I read Dante’s Inferno last year in my Medieval Lit class. Fortuna holds in her hand the Wheel of Fortune, which arbitrarily determines what fortune or misfortune would come to individuals. The Wheel of Fortune is symbolic of the endless changes in life from prosperity to disaster, over which people have absolutely no control to prevent misfortune from coming to him or to keep the fortune he has now from leaving him. The discussion of the Loom of Time and chance must have reminded me of Fortuna; Ishmael’s emotional and psychological ups and downs, as well as the physical ups and downs of the plot, that we have seen from earlier on in the book are also related to the Wheel of Fortune, since Ishmael (or anyone else on the ship for that matter) doesn’t have any control on what is going happen next on the whaling voyage.

Valerie has a Broadway moment:

With all this singing I felt a sense of togetherness and a possible melting pot sort theme but I just feel as though everything is going to change as the men get more involved in hunting whales. How real was their singing anyway? I’m sure I am imagining it differently than it would be because it is in a play format and all I can see are some dressed up guys dancing in syncronization singing.

Nicole brings a lot of thought to her blog posts.  She might not like Moby-Dick, but she’s an excellent model for where these things need to go:

Why is it we think of nature, but we don’t consider ourselves apart of it? We are nature. We are evolutionary products of life. Nature raised humans to be what they are now. In that sense, we are simple harvests to her lifetime. So when I say that Moby is challenging humans and that represents nature challenging humans, I’m connecting us to ourselves in a way. We are not better than the idea of life. Therefore, battling Moby is battling human indecency and stupidity.  To go against another member of life in a cruel way is despicable. To go against that same member with ignorant confidence is asking for termination.

What I’m looking for with these student blogs is reader reponse with the beginnings of analysis.  They’re meant to be fodder for the Big Semester Papers, so they definitely need to be textually based, but they are also informal, meaning that the personal can insert itself into the posts as well.  I’m hoping that as the semester goes on more of my students become bloggers, not just homework-writers, but we’ll see.  Taylor’s on her way, too:

Lastly, chapter 37 reminded me a lot of the sunsets in cape cod. Probably at least 10 years my family and i would take vacations to cape cod. Generally we wound rent houses that were in walking or biking distance from a beach. After eating dinner my siblings and i would race to the beaches and watch the sun set. These sunsets were some of the most beautiful sights i’ve ever seen. When youre sitting there just watching the sunset a lot can go through your mind. Or nothing at all can go through your mind. It is a great feeling to me of relaxation and calmness. Knowing that no matter how bad my day could have been or could be in the future i know that i can look out my window, or if i’m lucky sit on a beach and slowly watch the sunset. i can relax and take in every second of it. I know that tomorrow there’s going to be another sunset, and the next day, and the next day. There will always be a sunset that i can look forward to.

Meanwhile, there also was a lot of writing about “The Whiteness of the Whale.”  Some students loved the chapter; others couldn’t even get through it.  But no matter the reaction, almost all had something to say about it.

Hayden uses it as an inroad to a discussion of symbolism:

It seems that many cultures have seen the color white as being a sign of good such as christianity with the white tunic that is worn by priests. In many cultures the color white is seen in a good sense. However, in other cultures such as the Incas the color white is somewhat dreaded because it means snowy mountian peaks for them. The color white seems to have taken on a darker meaning with Moby Dick. It seems that this whale is a symbol itself of danger and death.

James, meanwhile, sees the chapter as more of an indirect characterization of Ishmael:

It is the whiteness of Moby-Dick that terrifies Ishmael. He thinks that the color white increases to terror of anything. Ishmael explains that white symbolizes purity, the absence of anything. He says that nature covers everything up with bright colors, but white is the truth beneath it all. This deep analysis of the simple color white shows Ishmael’s description and obscurity. Only he would go on a tangent about the color white.

Oh, and we read a bit of Emerson.  “We” includes Shan:

Although the ideas that Emerson portrays are morals that people should live by, it’s not that easy. People just can’t pack up their things and take a train to any place they want to go. It’s hard for people to experience new things or do what they love if they don’t have the means or the opportunities of getting there. Not everyone has the freedoms and luxuries that others may have.

And Dale:

It is important to go out of ones community to find the way other people live, in order to find out what one really wants their life to be like. Exploring new horizons is nescessary in order to truely know what to do in ones life and where to be. When one has one idea of what life can be, they have no choice. When one travels and sees how humans interact in different environments, then one has a choice of which environment they care to live in.

Anne compares Moby-Dick to Big Fish (and, I think, she ought to read The Things They Carried, which gets at the same ideas about truth and storytelling):

In class a few days ago we talked about whether this book is the one Ishmael was writing…I really like having Ishmael as a narrator because it’s fun hearing a story from someone who doesn’t always tell the truth. And, when a story is good, I don’t think it matters whether it’s true or not.

James was one of several who brought up the Bulkington issue:

 Ishmael cannot believe after four years on a ship whaling, that a man would crave another dangerous voyage. He talks about all the safety a port should bring a mariner. Ishmael’s great description of comfort, hearthstone, supper, blankets and friends made me too question Bulkinton’s sanity.

And Valerie neatly sums up the importance of reading each others’ blogs:

Ahab seems more scary than I imagined him to be. I thought he would just be a guy on the boat and hide out depressed all the time. I didn’t even notice when he was described that his pegleg is a part of a whale until I was reading some other blog posts. That makes him have even more of an evil feeling that he’s half human, half the enemy. Soon we’ll see how Ahab runs the ship and if he is really as bad as he seems.

The point of doing this, of course, is to share information about what we’ve read, expand on some class discussions, etc.  Hopefully this is helping everyone understand Moby-Dick a little better.

The first go-round of Honors Am Lit I blog entries is underway.   Here are a few to check out:

Amanda noticed some irony:

One thing that Queequeg said that stood out to me had to do with his opinion of the “civilized” world. He had heard from a number of ships of the amazing religion of Christianity and the people in the other parts of the world. However, when he entered them, he saw that they were nothing better, if not worse, then the cannibals on his island. He said, “We cannibals must help these Christians.” I found this unbelievably ironic considering most people’s first impression of him.

Speaking of religion, I knew it was a good idea to have the class read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” before this part of Moby-Dick.  Erin caught the contrast:

One of the quotes mentioned in this section that really sparked a thought in me was when one of the captains said, “It’s an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that he’s bound to hell” (77). This reminded me so much of the article that we read called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. The whole thing was basically a lecture saying that you were bound to go to Hell unless you somehow proved to God that you were worthy of staying. It gave no hope to anyone that was not part of that religion, so it tried threatening readers into converting. The captain would definitely not have liked to read “Sinners” because I think he would have greatly disagreed.

There’s definitely a huge point of contrast between the religion of Jonathan Edwards and the more, shall we say, generous Christianity of Melville’s contemporaries.  Father Mapple formalizes it; Ishmael practices it.  It will be interesting to try and figure out where that difference comes from.

One last thing.  Hayden noticed a wee bit of foreshadowing:

The quote “A Coffin my Inn-keeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel; and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too!” really shows that the theme of death is following Ishmael and this upcoming voyage is going to be full of it.

Buckle up, shipmates.

Yeah, I hate ‘em too.  If you read, like I do, a couple dozen teachers’ blogs, you’ll find that for the past week or so, everyone’s been writing about heading back to school and what that means for them. 

So I was reading Will Richardson’s back-to-school post (and if you’re a teacher and you’re not reading Will’s blog regularly, you’re missing out on a TON, not least of which is some insight into what it’s like to be one of those people who present to your entire district on the first day of school when all you want to do is get into your classroom and put stuff up on the walls) and came across this comment from Christian Long:

I wish every speaker/consultant that was blessed enough to have a paying, ticket-holding, captive audience would slam on the brakes when it comes to “here’s how it can be used in your classroom on Monday!” approach…

…and shift entirely to the “What matters to you deeply? What are your passions? What do you what do you want to learn — deeply learn — as a human being, not just as a teacher? And how wide a circle of friends/colleagues do you want on that journey?”

Christian, I think, nailed it.  Without knowing what’s important to you as a person, it’s almost impossible to figure out what to do in a classroom.  Especially if, like me, you’re teaching some courses you’ve never taught before.

So this summer I reread Moby-Dick as a human being.  I wanted to find the emotional hooks, get caught up in the story, care about the characters, and learn something about a vanished way of life.  I wasn’t searching for themes, essay topics, or any of that kind of stuff.  I read as a reader, which is what I expect my students to do.

Okay, yeah, but let’s get beyond that.  Moby-Dick’s a pretty good book, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of my existence.  And if I’m going to be a decent teacher at some point in my career, I’m going to have to be more of a complete person.  So I’m going to have to learn a lot of big things–big things about how adults work, about how younger people work, about the environment and natural processes, about philosophy, religion, and a ton of other things as well. 

And how to learn them?  Well, I guess that’s the biggest thing I need to learn.  Books help, yes, but what about talking to people?  Reading blogs and newspapers?  Watching films?  Getting outside with open ears and eyes?  Cooking?  Messing up?

The best new-to-me curriculum, so far, is the one for English 300: Culture and Identity.  In that class, students are trying to figure out what “culture” is, what their various heritages give to them in terms of world-view and opportunity, and how that plays out for their teenage identities and adult futures.  I think this is the class that’s going to come closest to somehow cracking open a little bit of what we like to call the Human Condition.  It’s also the class for which I’m least prepared, so I’ll be taking that journey along with them.  Should be a ride, at the very least.