The Parts of a Whale in Moby Dick

I have been thinking lately about the chapters in Moby Dick devoted to each individual part of the whale. For instance, there is an entire chapter devoted to a whale's blubber. There are others focused on various other parts of its body, including its head and tale. Those chapters were particularly frustrating to me as I struggled to get through them. I would wonder, "How does learning about the skull of a whale help me to understand this story better?" Interestingly enough, as I have thought about why Melville would choose to put these chapters in his story, I have come to understand that it is important to learn about the pieces, or components, that make up a particular thing in order to understand the thing as a whole.

For example, we have been studying digital culture this semester. However, it is impossible to understand digital culture as a whole without looking at each of the little pieces that digital culture is made up of. How could I possibly begin to understand digital culture without looking at the social media aspect of it? Or if I ignored the phenomenon of the long tail? Conversely, how am I supposed to understand digital culture as a whole if I assume that it is only made up of one of these categories? That would be similar to Ishmael focusing only on the whale's tail and ignoring the rest of the massive creature.

Ishmael, as he describes the right-whale's head, explains, "As you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different aspects, according to your point of view" (Chapter 75, Project Gutenberg electronic text). This reminds me of the process I go through every time I write a paper for class. As I look at a text through different lenses, I am able to understand it differently. Ishmael's in-depth descriptions about the parts that make up a whale show the importance of each detail of a text, no matter how trivial or difficult to distinguish from the whole it may appear at first glance.

The chapters in Moby Dick that are focused on describing different parts of a whale have reminded me of the importance at looking at the details--whether I am writing a paper for a class, learning about digital culture or other topics, or just thinking about life. Though I admit that I struggled with these chapters at first, as I followed Melville's model and looked at how that particular part fit into the story as a whole, I realized that it was teaching me to do just what I was doing-- to seek the meaning in each individual piece in order to better understand the whole.