Moby-Dick: Satire 3 key examples

Melville’s use of humor emphasizes the many ironies present in society, with the examples he gives providing a satirical commentary on the many hypocrisies of man. The use of rhetorical questions is an effective way of Melville presenting his argument, ultimately forcing readers to engage their own faculties of reason in a way that demonstrates the logic that guides his own conclusion. 

There is also perhaps a further silent implication in this passage, reflected in Melville’s emphasis on the suggested indictment of Stubb for eating the whale “by its own light” (that is, by the light of lamps that burn whale oil). Here, the reference to the light is important, as it possibly winks at the fact that people reading Moby-Dick when it first came out probably read it by the light of a sperm oil lamp. Melville’s use of logos thus effectively forces readers to dissect their own instincts towards judgement by exposing their own hypocrisies.

Passages such as those found in “Schools and Schoolmasters” (a chapter detailing the domestic politics within schools of whales) exemplify this. There is a satirical edge, for example, in the description of the kind of courting that goes on in the whale world, with Ishmael describing the carnage that can come from the “unprincipled young rakes” and “young Lotharios” that may be bold enough to “invade the sanctity of domestic bliss”—or, in other words, steal another whale’s lady. Ishmael describes the ensuing scenes with a rye tone:

As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. 

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Ishmael’s tone blends the triviality of the politics of dating with the high esteem and grandeur of great love in a way that satirizes human relationships too. The noting of how these romantic jealousies can end in deadly battle hints at the often primal and self-indulgent motives that can escalate into great tragedies. Indeed, such an idea is evident in the tragedy of the Pequod, which is ultimately driven by Ahab’s reckless and self-centered desire for revenge.

Furthermore, the references to civil American institutions when describing the whales highlight the way in which modern society may use such systems and glossy institutions to hide its true nature. Describing the forty-barrel-full schools, Ishmael writes:

Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness, tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though, and when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about in quest of settlements, that is, harems.

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Here, Ishmael’s comparison of these schools of whales to young reckless college boys uses humor to emphasize the satirical implications. The reflection that these young disreputable whales soon grow out of their roguish ways and settle into polite society (by joining harems) is intentionally playful in the way it depicts the maturing of young men. The use of concepts such as insurance and university to describe the whales is significant in its undercutting of the systems that are usually held up as proud symbols of the advancement of human civilization. Through these comparisons, Melville exposes the disorderliness and essential humanity that lies beneath these institutions, a humanity that indeed is not so dissimilar from the behavior of wild animals. By anthropomorphising the whales, Melville thus emphasizes how civil society is dictated by the very same instincts that guide the animal world.

Through this metaphor, Ishmael explains how if a whale is loose it is fair game. But if someone else is “fast” to a whale (that is, attached with their harpoon), you must respect their ownership. Ishmael emphasizes the comprehensiveness and absoluteness of these rules in an intentionally comic way. He explains a case debated in court, for example, where one party chases and harpoons a whale, but then abandons their line in order to save their lives. When another party then shortly thereafter kills the whale in front of the first party, the harpoons and lines rightfully transfer to their ownership, with the whale having “acquired a property in those articles” for itself. When claimed by another, these articles thus transfer to their ownership, too. Through this example, Ishmael highlights some of the potential injustices of the principle while also describing it in a way that is intentionally absurd, with the idea that a whale can acquire property for itself, for example, seeming intentionally satirical. 

Furthermore, Ishmael goes on to explain how these rules may be applied to the whole of human jurisprudence, using "Fast-Fish" and "Loose-Fish" as a metaphor to describe other worldly affairs:

Is it not a saying in every one’s mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law? [...] What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? [...] What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?

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Here, Melville powerfully portrays how the whole of contemporary politics and global power dynamics is dictated by this very same notion of property, a notion that is as primitive as laying claim to something because you have put a stick in it. Ishmael’s examples, which encompass Russian serfs, Republican slaves, and the colonization of America itself, clearly seek to make a point about contemporary politics and the injustices of slavery and colonialism. The reminder that possession is half or even the whole of the law “regardless of how the thing came into possession” is a clear invocation of the bloody and unjust ways in which things often come to be one’s "property." The final address to readers, which reminds them that they are “but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too,” highlights man’s own vulnerability to this system, in which their own lives may just as easily be laid claim to. Through this metaphor, Melville thus satirizes contemporary notions of property, showing how modern civilization is really much more primitive than it may think itself to be.