On the one hand I can’t help but thinking “MELVILLE, whhhy do we need to know the difference between the Right Whale’s head and the Sperm Whale’s head?!”, but on the other hand while I barely made it through reading about the Sperm Whale head’s description I rather enjoyed his continued visual analogies of the Right Whale’s head.
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| In case you were wondering, the Right Whale is for realz, and outrageous looking. |
First favorite: “And in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale, with the swarming brood, might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny” (265).
Thank you Melville for calling the woman in the shoes’ children a brood and her progeny… I loved it, and hence forward when referencing to this nursery rhyme I will describe it as such. But really I mean, why so comfortable in this whale’s mouth? I don’t think the old woman in the shoe would much prefer the ocean to land. Also, think of the fights for fish that would go on in his mouth!
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| In case you don't remember the nursery rhyme. How sad the old lady looks, in the rain, and living in a smelly shoe! |
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| According to my research I think this is the pigmy version of the Right Whale (so smaller)... it doesn't look that homely to me. |
UM ALSO, Melville, I can’t stop quoting you: “ But if this whale be a king, he is a very sulking looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower lip! What huge sulk and pout is there!” (265). YES, I do believe that it would most certainly have occurred to me that his lower lip was too much sulk and pout to be a king! You are hilarious sometimes, and it’s only in these moments that I wake up and say “he just made an excellent point about that whale!”.
And then finally I think, “where do you come up with this stories?”: was there that much evidence of the Peruvian coast in that whale’s markings or is this just providing an example of how happy an imagination a whaler must have while at sea for three years: “Probably the mother during an important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes caused the beach to gape” (265). How shocking was this sight? Did this Right Whale look so abnormal that we are now looking to the yawn during pregnancy where things may go array that the fetus might come out looking like any shocking sight the mother beheld? (Footnote).
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| You know, for dramatic purposes :) ... near a coast after an earthquake. |
Ok Melville, you got me, sometimes whale descriptions can be very amusing.
Ok first of all... I loved your pictures. I had forgotten about the nursery rhyme of the old woman in the shoe until I read it from Melville. I admit I laughed and tried to picture a shoe and an old lady sweeping dust out of an old shoe, while her chilen' run around her, all sitting atop a whale tongue. It was quite an odd picture in my head I can tell you. And I agree after looking at some of the pictures the descriptions Melville gives make more sense, as well as being comical. I suppose they were boring the first time I read them, but then again maybe it's like an inside joke- you have to have seen some of the things Melville describes to really get his descriptions.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite quote from "Holes" is, "I feel so sorry for the old woman who lived in a shoe. It must've smelt real bad." Those kids' playground popularity is not going to get much of a boost from moving into a whale's mouth.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting the picture of the right whale and what a whale it is. Your take on the them, especially with including the pictures really helped make the words come to life in a sense. I presume most readers thought the section to be boring like me, but after taking a moment to think about it on more than a surface level and with your pictures really makes those sections interesting and realistic.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures do help, and I'd agree with Margeux: the descriptions are almost like an inside joke.
ReplyDeleteBased on the discussions in class that baleen whales (Right, Humpback, Blue, etc) have very much a different appearance than the more familiar toothed whales and porpoises (Orca, sperm, Beluga, dolphin, etc), this sheds light on the fact that these animals can be mythologized. An animal that is massive in size, alien in appearance and mysterious in habits, especially in this time period, might be justifiably likened to a "leviathan" ...that is until Melville shows us so much of the majestic and peaceful side of the whales.
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