The Sermons, Epistles, and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets - Essay Example

In the Book of Jonah, Jonah is used to demonstrate not so much the nature of the central character in Jonah as it is to illustrate the central character of Yahweh or God. Yet, in so doing, the faults of mankind are effectively illustrated because they are contrasted directly with the perfection of God. In the Book of Jonah, Jonah's anger at God's forgiveness towards Nineveh is clearly displayed: "But it displeased Jonah greatly, and he was angry. And he prayed to Jehovah, and said, Ah now, Jehovah, was not this what I said when I was yet in mine own country"(Kent 422). Jonah's reaction is held in stark contrast with the demeanor of God who, "And God saw their works, how they turned from their evil way; and God relented of the evil which he said he would do to them, and did it not" (Kent 422). This is a key point vis--vis Melville's use of the Book of Jonah as a literary device because he leaves this clear counterpoint out of the thread of his text and plot. For Melville, the story of Jonah ends with Jonah's deliverance from the belly of the whale: "...and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breaching up toward the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land'" (Melville 58). At this point in the Book of Jonah the tale loses all relevance for Melville because it has served its purpose; but what purpose The original story can be succinctly divided into two parts with two essential lessons for man: 1) Yahweh command and Jonah disobeys to his everlasting shame and punishment, 2) Yahweh commands and Jonah obeys much to his chagrin, and in both instances Jonah's faults are made apparent and offered up to mankind as object lessons regarding both the authority and benevolence of Yahweh. In fact, Jonah continues in the Book of Jonah to command God, even following his deliverance from the belly of the whale to command God in a manner that meets his expectations: Therefore, O Jehovah, take now, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. And Jehovah said, Doest thou well to be angry Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat down before the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it, until he might see what would become of the city. And Jehovah God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head. (Kent 422) Again, Melville's use of the Book of Jonah is completely devoid of this portion of the tale because, for him, it bears little relevance or use to the true imperative of the Book of Jonah. Above it can be seen that Jonah is, in fact, anything but ultimately repentant; indeed, he is still arrogant and demanding as evidenced by his denouncement of God's mercy towards Nineveh and his command for Yahweh to take his life. He follows this arrogant command by sitting outside the city to ensure that God destroys and punishes Nineveh according to his wishes. The biblical tool within the Book of Jonah is that comparative device used to ensure that man's ways are correctly seen as inferior and lacking in wisdom compared to God's all-knowing and beneficent ways. Melville has no use of such a black and white, compare and contrast strategy and finds it too simplistic. In addition to other literary devices and themes, such as foreshadowing and conceit, Melville employs the Book of Jonah not as an object lesson for mankind's arrogance and inferiority to God, but as a model of deliverance based on his own explorations. For Melville, the Book of Jonah is, as is the original, also a two-part object lesson in theology: "Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson..." (Melville 50). However, thereafter, his thematic use of Jonah diverges completely from the biblical version. While the tales start out the same: "But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah. And he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare and embarked to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah" (Kent 419) and alternatively, "With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign...He skulks about the wharves of Joppa and seeks a ship that's bound for Tarshish" (Melville 51). The biblical version is intent on establishing the character of Yahweh while Melville is interested in the character of Jonah. Melville is intent on describing the two-fold process of transgression and deliverance not through the blatant use of an object lesson as the biblical version does, but through an intricate character mapping of Jonah himself. Whereas the biblical version of Jonah brushes over the sensibilities of Jonah, Melville expounds upon them as being central to the transmission of the message: The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his birth his tormented eyes roll around the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more and more appalls him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. "Oh! So my conscious hangs in me!" he groans... "but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!" (Melville 54) Clearly Jonah is not only troubled but tortured by his willful disobedience of God's will. Yet, Melville makes it very plain that Jonah is not simply willfully disobedient as a child but is troubled by thoughts of his own capabilities and innate strength to carry out the commands of God. These are not merely the authoritative remonstrations found in the bible but deeply philosophical self-questioning which highlights man's character more than it does God's. Jonah is so disturbed by his own weakness to carry out God's commands that his inner torture, for Melville, is plain for all to see: "So disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck" (Melville 52). This is not the one-dimensional character of Job portrayed in the biblical original. Melville is constructing a portrait of a personality years before Freud made that a psychological tool roundly abused by pseudo-scientists and writers alike. Melville has taken the Book of Jonah and made of it not a biblical representation of Yahweh's greatness but rather, a biblical assertion of man's innate goodness and self-will. Melville's distinction, and it is important, is that it was not God who first forgave Jonah for his transgressions but man: "...when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him and seek by other means to save the ship" (Melville 56). The counter-point here between Melville's Book of Jonah and the biblical Book of Jonah is that man is actually all-forgiving and is but forced to do things against his nature according to the will of God. This is apparent in God's demand that Jonah approach Nineveh which is the stimulus to the entire tale and in God's forcing the sailors to toss a man overboard against their will and better nature in order that Jonah's self-will be completely sublimated to that of God's. This version is not complementary of the traditional concept of God and is a version Melville effectively masks within his version of Jonah. Melville describes a God who is both demanding and infinitely more simplistic than mankind and human nature. While Melville's Jonah suffers from self-doubt and a conscience regarding his actions on earth: "...at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it; so after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep" (Melville 54). Such musing and self-loathing is the product of a complicated man and certainly imply deep thoughts regarding the nature of oneself and one's place in the universe. Jonah's thought processes are indicative of the human condition for Melville and a direct refutation of the blank character of the original Jonah who is only delivered after he rejects any sort of self-contemplation or deep thought: "When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Jehovah; And my prayer came in to thee, into thy holy temple. They who regard vain gods forsake their own mercy, But I will sacrifice to thee with loud thanksgiving, I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is Jehovah's" (Kent 421). This denouncement of deep philosophical thought or consideration is almost as appalling to Melville as the whiteness of the whale which is also devoid of any characterizing attributes: "...the great principle of light, forever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge..."(Melville 244). Melville believes that when Jonah, in the Book of Jonah, says his soul fainted within himself, that this is an allegorical representation of his complete denouncement of self-doubt, questioning, and intellectual consideration of the condition of things, or as the original Jonah puts it, the consideration of "vain gods" (Kent 421). In other words, Melville takes this to mean he will no longer think for himself and ceases to practice or possess free will. To Melville, man's free will is the human condition and he compares God's will as being reminiscent of the whiteness of the whale that, without the character of men to play upon, is essentially colorless and without merit, or "colorless in itself" (Melville 244). Melville's incisive use of Jonah is to illustrate this thematic statement regarding God's will, the human condition, and the character of man. Melville believes innately in not only the goodness of man but in both the frailty and the necessity of the human condition which, as he puts it, is both dependent upon God's will for enlightenment but also independent from it: "...is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows..."(Melville 243). Melville is saying that mankind, as epitomized in Jonah, should actively pursue deep thought as it is only through the active participation of man, in tandem with the interaction of God, that beauty, or color, arises, and deliverance can be achieved. Melville confirms this philosophical statement not in his textual assertions of the Book of Jonah but in his interpretive use of the story, his characterization of Jonah, and his thematic structure. For Melville embodies the rest of the Book of Jonah in the character of Father Mapple who comes to completely supplicate himself to the will of God as the original Jonah: "I have striven to be Thine, more than this world's, or mine own" (Melville 59). Yet, it is through thematic sleight of hand that Melville makes his statement. The close of the chapter containing his version of Jonah is accomplished with the laity departing; in essence turning away from this demand of blind sublimation, and, more importantly, portrays Ishmael turning to Queequeg, a pagan cannibal who is nothing but anchored in the physical world of nature in the following chapter, "A Bosom Friend" (Melville 60). Ultimately, it is through Queequeg's worldly preparation for his own death that Ishmael is saved in the form of Queequeg's coffin and not, illuminatingly so, due to the blank supplications of Father Mapple and the biblical Jonah. Works Cited Kent, Charles Foster. The Sermons, Epistles and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets: From the Beginning of the Assyrian Period to the End of the Maccabean Struggle. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1910. Questia. 11 Dec. 2005 . Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2004. Read More