Colin Spears

Precis

Moby Dick and Masculinity

Schillace, Brandy. "A Man's Soul And A Fish's Scale: Sex, Size And Spirit In Moby Dick." Journal Of Men, Masculinities & Spirituality 6.2 (2012): 94-105. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Jan. 2013.

            In Brandy Schillace's A Man's Soul and a Fish's Scale: Sex, Size and Spirit in Moby Dick, Schillace argues the idea of Moby Dick as a text written for the celebration or recovery of manhood.  Schillace instead argues that it is a text, instead, about the union of masculinity and femininity. She develops this claim by refuting authors who claim Moby Dick as a purely masculine text by using Moby Dick, the Bible, and Susan Stewart to explain how size relates to gender and sexuality, and she also focuses on the individual's relationship to size and domesticity.  Schillace tries to argue the sexuality of Moby Dick in order to create new discussion over this classic text. She suggests that Moby Dick is viewed too narrowly in terms of sexuality.

            Schillace attempts to refute the idea that Moby Dick is strictly a text celebrating the desire to rekindle masculinity.  She does this by examining the relationship between size and gender in the 19^th century and before.  Stewart explains the idea of the miniature as being connected to domesticity and femininity.  The miniature is a shrunk version of something much larger.  It is connected to domesticity because of the 19^th century miniature trinkets found in the homes of upper and middle class Europeans and Americans and also because of the comparison to the larger outside world which was generally considered masculine.  Schillace describes Moby Dick as a whole as miniature because it shrinks everyday life on the sea into a much smaller and more generalized version.  She also discusses how the Pequod is a miniature because it is a small version of civilization floating in the vast South Pacific, and is especially small when compared to Moby Dick who is described as immeasurably large underneath the vast waves.  Schillace also brings in verses from Job in the Old Testament where the Leviathan is described as impossible to domesticate which is ironic in that the Pequod is in fact attempting to domesticate the whales by killing them for the oil which is used for domestic purposes. By using the Pequod Schillace describes the competition between femininity and the miniature with masculinity and the gigantic.

            Schillace also looks at the individual search for self as a connection of the masculine and feminine.  She first points to the text and how Ishmael moves to smaller and smaller spaces: from the mainland to Nantucket, from Nantucket to the Pequod, and finally from the Pequod to the whaleboat.  Schillace refutes other academics who argue that Melville laments the loss of masculinity by this shrinking space by bringing up Ishmael's survival compared to the wild Ahab.  She also points to Pip as an example of the gigantic destroying the person.  She explains how the crew thinks that Pip went mad, but Ishmael believes that the ocean devoured his soul.  She uses this as evidence to the fact that Pip was destroyed by the vastness of the ocean because he had no shore by which to compare his existence.

            Brandy Schillace supports her argument of the matrimony between masculinity and femininity in Moby Dick well by using text from authors who are experts in gender and pairing them with the text. This new perspective further opens the discussion of Moby Dick because of the time period of the publishing and its close proximity to the Seneca Falls Convention which was held just three years in the same region of the United States as Melville.