In the Heart of the Sea

Goodness! I can't believe how much I enjoyed the book, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick. I suppose I had never thought much into the whole notion of hunting whales. The idea now is frightening to me!!! I couldn't put this book down! I even read bits of it to my friends; they were just as interested as I! There is just something about the idea of getting into a little boat and riding the waves while simultaneously poking at a sixty ton whale...It just screams: DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! How can one NOT be interested?!!

One of the most interesting aspects of the Nantucket community is that they were strong believers in their Quaker faith. Despite the Quaker's non-violent tendencies, the Nantucketers of the Essex killed whales, killed each other, AND to top if off, ATE each other!!! I will discuss this more later. The important fact to take note is that the Quakers saw nothing wrong with killing the whales, even though it was violence and may have gone "against" their beliefs. Philbrick wrote: "Nantucketers saw no contradiction between their livelihood and their religion. God Himself had granted them dominion over the fishes of the sea (9)." I think this is a big deal!!! God gave them all dominion, power, ruling over the fishes of the sea, including whales. Interesting. Here's that domination, conquering, controlling power theme that we keep stumbling upon. Philbrick continues by stating: "No matter how much the inhabitants might try to hide it, there was a savagery about this island, a bloodlust and pride that bound every mother, father, and child in a clannish commitment to the hunt (13)." Gosh, this is crazy! A bloodlust and pride that bound every mother, father, and child?!! From this excerpt it would seem that they were not a religious people at all. However, we know differently. This idea of bloodlust that bound all the people together makes me think of what I stated in a previous blog. I was mentioning conformity and how it can't be strained from our blood. I think that this bloodlust goes right along with it. Philbrick evens says, no matter how hard they try tried to hide it, they couldn't.

Another very interesting observation would be the relationships between the men and the women on the island. The men would be gone for weeks, months, YEARS, at a time! The women ran the island. I think that this is a fascinating idea. Way before their time the women of Nantucket were doing things that were probably unheard of in other parts of the country. Philbrick mentions that it was the women that ran the businesses and kept everything going while the men were away, while simultaneously raising their family and taking care of their own households. Hello, Superwoman of today...soccer mom+career woman....Good grief! Not to mention they were raising their families and running their households by themselves!!! For even years at a time!!! Who can do it all, all the time? It must have been hard but I suppose they were accustomed to the situation. And it almost seems like they wanted it to be these way! Did the women want power and control for themselves? I think maybe...We also know that women wanted to be married to men who killed whales:"There was rumored to be a secret society of young women on the island whose members pledged to marry only men who had already killed a whale (13)." Wow. Can you just imagine that today? A guy goes up to a girl and asks for a date...Boy, would he be shocked if she told him no date until he killed a whale!!! Talk about trying to impress someone!!! This brings us to another very interesting topic: masculinity.

In class we were asked what shadows of masculinity could be seen in the text. We discussed that Manhood for the men of the Essex, or probably for any of the men at that time, had to be proven over and over again. An interesting point that was made in class was that only men could been seen as masculine through the eyes of other men. We once again get this strong idea of the conquistador, especially in the conquest or conquering of a whale. Like the men in The Conquest of New Spain, the men of the Essex thought that what they were doing was right. They could be seen as heroes, not only in the eyes of their families back home on the island, but in the eyes of each other as well. I see the men of the Essex as conquistadors of the sea. They were manly. They were rugged. They were power going against multiple powers: the sea and the whales. On page 50, Philbrick talks of how the men readied themselves for the kill: "While each mate or captain had his own style, they all coaxed and cajoled their crews with words that evoked the savagery, excitement, and the almost erotic bloodlust associated with pursuing one of the largest mammals on the planet." AGAIN! The word: bloodlust! There really is something about this domination over something so much larger and powerful than man. It seems almost as if this proves a man's worthiness for his manhood. If that makes any sense. Another great example of this idea of power equating to manhood can be seen in this quote: "Chase reveled in the risk and danger of whaling. "The profession is one of great ambition," he would boast in his narrative, "and full of honorable excitement: a tame man is never known amongst them (79)."" God bless the tame man, poor guy! I'm sure he, the "tame" man, was looked down upon in the Nantucket community.

The proving of one's worth and manhood seemed to be in constant motion. We read about it throughout the book. If someone wasn't doing well at a specific job they would be booted to a different job, one with less significance and therefore, one lacking in the need of manhood, thus signifying they were not manly enough to handle the job. Ouch. Kind of harsh, if you ask me. We see this within the crew but the showing of manhood between the captain and the first mate is perhaps, the most intense situation. Philbrick wrote: "Pollard's behavior, after both the knockdown and the whale attack, indicates that he lacked the resolve to overrule his two younger and less experienced officers. In his deference to others, Pollard was conducting himself less like a captain and more like the veteran mate described by the Nantucketer William H. Macy: "[H]e had no lungs to blow his own trumpet, and sometimes distrusted his own powers, though generally found equal to any emergency after it arose..."...Shipowners hoped to combine a 'fishy', hard-driving captain with an approachable and steady mate. But in the labor-starved frenzy of Nantucket in 1819, the Essex had ended up with a captain who had the instincts and soul of a mate, and a mate who had the ambition and fire of a captain (101)." It almost seems to me as if they were saying that Pollard wasn't as manly as Chase. The captain?!! Ironically, as time played out both men switched their personalities. As he got older, Chase lost grip of his sanity because of the horrible things that happened through this experience. It seems so strange that throughout the affair he was stoic, in control, and calm, basically the picture of masculinity. Pollard, on the other hand, shows more integrity in the end. He may not have appeared as the picture of masculinity, but in his later years he does. Every year on the anniversary of the event, Pollard would fast and atone. Knowing this, I think his character shows how masculine he really was.

The men of the Essex went through some of the most unfathomable events. Not only did their boat sink, but they endured starvation and thirst, and eventually the killing and eating of each other in order to survive. When all seems lost how does one continue to go on? The men turned to their faith. I found this passage especially important: "Having already endured so much, Chase reasoned, they owed it to one another to cling as tenaciously to life as possible: "I reasoned with them, and told them that we would not die sooner by keeping our hopes." But it was more than a question of loyalty to one another. As far as Chase was concerned, God was also involved in this struggle for survival. "[T]he dreadful sacrifices and privations we [had] endured were to preserve us from death," he assured them, "and were not to be put in competition with the price which we set upon our lives." In addition to saying it would be "unmanly to repine a what neither admitted of alleviation nor cure," Chase insisted that "it was our solemn duty to recognize in our calamities an overruling divinity, by whose mercy we might be suddenly snatched from peril, and to rely upon him alone, 'Who tempers the wind to shorn lamb,'"Although they had seen little evidence of the Lord's mercy in the last two months, Chase insisted that they "bear up against all evils...and not weakly distrust the providence of the Almighty, by giving ourselves up to despair (169)." Chase demanded that the men depend on the good Lord. They were also to keep hope alive so that they would all survive. To give up would be the exact opposite of masculinity.

In class we discussed the idea of cannibalism and how if affected the men. At what point does survival go beyond beliefs? How did the men view their suffering? First of all, let me say that I cannot even begin to understand what those men went through. I'm not really sure if there is a point were survival goes beyond beliefs. I think that people who are truly rooted in their faith would hold firm and choose their faith over life. I know that when it comes to my faith and my beliefs I would have to choose them over life. I know that seems easier like...you say that now but what if you were in the situation? I think it just depends on the person. To answer the second question of how the men saw their suffering, I think that they saw it in a very Puritanical light. Like Mary Rowlandson they saw their suffering as a privilege from God to test the worthy. The experience even led some men to find God. Philbrick stated: "While searching the crevices and caves for water, they discovered the remains of the eight unidentified castaways, whose fate they feared would soon be their own. The skeletons lay side by side as if the people had decided to lie down and quietly die together. For Chappel, who had been once the wildest and least responsible of the Essex's crew, it was a sight that helped change his life. From that day forward, he would look to God. "I found religion not only useful," he later wrote, "but absolutely necessary to enable me to bear up under these severe trials (195)."" I think that this is the wonderful thing about faith: how it can enable people to go through the most horrific situations and still find peace.

I'm sure that none of the men that survived the Essex were ever quite the same again. What they went through cannot be truly understood unless one has gone through it. Hopefully none of us ever do. This book was full of the theme of power. It could be seen everywhere: the men killing the whales, the women running the island, the men on the ship showing their dominance and superior masculinity over others, and in the end the conquering of each other's lives. This bloodlust for power over whale, human, and situation has not disappeared. I think it is still here.