Father Mapple

Last updated
Father Mapple
Moby-Dick character
Created by Herman Melville
In-universe information
GenderMale
OccupationMinister
NationalityAmerican

Father Mapple is a fictional character in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick (1851). A former whaler, he has become a preacher in the New Bedford Whaleman's Chapel. Ishmael, the narrator of the novel, hears Mapple's sermon on the subject of Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale but did not turn against God.

Contents

The sermon presents themes which concerned Melville and run through the rest of the novel. Father Mapple believes, as Captain Ahab does, that truth is clear to see, and that human beings must pursue it in spite of all obstacles. Ishmael, on the other hand, finds that truth has many forms and is difficult to see or understand. [1]

Background

Models for the character

Enoch Mudge, a Methodist minister who was the chaplain of the New Bedford Seamen's Bethel, and Father E.T. Taylor, pastor of the Seamen's Bethel in Boston's North End and another Methodist, served as models for Father Mapple. [2] Before his own whaling voyage, Melville heard Mudge preach at the Seamen's Bethel. Mudge was a contributor to Sailor's Magazine, which in December 1840 printed a series of sermons on Jonah. [3] Father Taylor was a well-known preacher whose admirers included Emerson and Whitman. [4] Both Taylor and Mapple fused Biblical imagery and colloquial language to deliver "anecdotal sermons to rough sailor congregations while perched theatrically on an elevated pulpit decorated with ship gear and backed by a wall painting of a seascape." The rope ladder is Melville's own amplification. [5]

Models for the sermon

As David S. Reynolds explains, Melville was keenly aware of the popular literature and oratory of his time. Father Mapple's sermon is inspired by the more imaginative style of sermon that was becoming very popular in the United States. [5] In addition, Reynolds argues, that Father Mapple would choose Jonah for a topic is in keeping with a 19th-century tradition of retellings of the biblical account in sermon form; Reynolds cites examples from as early as 1829. Such sermons employed nautical metaphors and colloquialisms, "producing a mixture of the imaginative and the sacred that directly anticipated Father Mapple's salty sermon". [6]

Father Mapple's sermon

In chapters 7-9, Ishmael, a sailor about to sail for Nantucket where he will embark on a whaling voyage with Captain Ahab on the Pequod , goes to the Whaleman's Chapel in New Bedford. Father Mapple appears and climbs a rope ladder to his pulpit, which is the form of a ship's prow: [7] "Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's fiddle-headed beak." [8]

Father Mapple addresses the parishioners as "Shipmates" [8] and leads them in a whaling hymn:

The ribs and terrors in the whale
Arched over me a dismal gloom,
While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by,
And lift me deepening down to doom.
...
In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints-
No more the whale did me confine.
With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin borne;
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God. [8]
...

Mapple then takes as his text "And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." The lesson, he says, is a "two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God." [8]

Jonah, Mapple begins, refuses God's commandment to go to the city of Nineveh and prophesy against rampant sin but instead tries to flee by taking passage on a ship. The sailors know from merely looking at him that Jonah is some sort of fugitive:

"Jack, he's robbed a widow;" or, "Joe, do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom." [8]

But the Lord raises a great storm, and after Jonah confesses to the sailors that his disobedience is the cause, Jonah is "taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea." Instantly an "oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea is still." Yet the storm follows Jonah, and he drops "seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him". [8] Jonah prays unto the Lord:

But observe his prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just ... And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. [8]

Mapple returns to the "two-stranded lesson":

Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press upon me ... And now how gladly would I ... listen, while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things ... Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God ... This, shipmates, this is that other lesson ... Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! [8]

Style

Father Mapple speaks the language of Biblical prophets, scholar Nathalia Wright observes. In addition to the twelve quotations from the book of Jonah which appear in the first part of his sermon, he uses Biblical idioms such as "cast him forth", and "spake unto the fish." [9] The interjection of "woe" in the penultimate paragraph derives from the prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. The paragraph with "woes" is followed by a paragraph with "delights": the structure of the two paragraphs is parallel, though the content is antithetical. Besides the structure, the phraseology also echoes the prophets. [10]

The psalm

"The ribs [lower-alpha 1] and terrors in the whale,
Arched [lower-alpha 2] over me a dismal gloom [lower-alpha 3] ,
While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by,
And left me deepening down to doom [lower-alpha 4] .

"I saw the opening maw [lower-alpha 5] of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there;
Which none but they that feel can tell--
Oh, I was plunging [lower-alpha 6] to despair.

"In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints--
No more the whale did me confine [lower-alpha 7] .

"With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin [lower-alpha 8] borne [lower-alpha 9] ;
Awful, yet [lower-alpha 10] bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.

"My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;
I give the glory to my God [lower-alpha 11] ,
His all the [lower-alpha 12] mercy and the power."

—The hymn in "The Sermon" (Ch.9) with David Battenfeld's commentary on the changes from the source. [11]

2 Death, and the terrors of the grave,
Spread over me their dismal shade;
While floods of high temptations rose,
And made my sinking soul afraid.

3 I saw the opening gates of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there,
Which none but they that feel, can tell;
While I was hurried to despair.

4 In my distress I call'd my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine;
He bow'd his ear to my complaints;
Then did his grace appear divine.

5 With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a cherub's wings he rode:
Awful and bright as lightning shone
The face of my deliv'rer, God.

8 My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;
And give the glory to the Lord,
Due to his mercy and his pow'r.

— Psalm 18:2-5 & 8, in The Psalms and Hymns... of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in North America (Philadelphia 1854) [12]

An example of Melville's appropriation and development of religious material for his own thematic purposes is the hymn in Father Mapple's sermon, which draws upon Psalm 18 in the version of The Psalms and Hymns... of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in North America (compare quoteboxes). Melville's changes and revisions transform the generalized theme of the Psalm into something that bears specific correspondence to the story of Jonah. While some of the changes are purely stylistic improvements, the whole exercise demonstrates the author's "ability to keep within the framework of his source while substituting particularized relevant material." [13] While adhering to the meter and rhyme scheme of the original, the second stanza (the hymn's first stanza), is almost completely rewritten to reflect Jonah's situation as stated in the King James Version of the Book of Jonah, especially 2:3: "For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me." Unpredictable is the rejection of the word "flood," which appears in the Jonah story as well as in the Psalm. [14] Three stanzas from the Psalm are omitted, probably because their subject matter is not apt for the Jonah story. [13]

Thematic significance in the novel

Father Mapple's sermon addresses questions that fascinated Melville and tensions that run through the rest of the novel, since Father Mapple believes, as does Ahab, that truth is clear to see, and that human beings must pursue it in spite of all obstacles; Ishmael on the other hand finds that truth has many forms and is difficult to see or understand. [1] Reynolds notes that Father Mapple, who changes the common metaphor of God as a ship's pilot and makes himself "the pilot of the living God", confirms "man's capacities as a truth seeker". [15]

John Bryant argues that this sermon of Jonah's duty to deliver God's "appalling message" of destruction to the people of Nineveh parallels Melville's duty to "confront his own readers with the blasphemy yet logic of Ahab's anger and defiance". [2] Nathalia Wright emphasizes Melville's general use of Biblical rhetoric and tone, and that his "prophetic strain" is most distinct in Father Mapple's sermon. Melville has Mapple use "the most familiar linguistic device of the Hebrew prophets", such as the repeated ejaculation "Woefullness of time", "outer darkness", "the blackness of darkness", and "the quick and the dead". [16]

In adaptations

Notes

  1. ↑ Substitution for "Death" makes natural the substitution in the next line.
  2. ↑ Substitution for "Spread" prepared by the preceding substitution.
  3. ↑ Rhyme change enables alliteration and assonance of the stanza's final line.
  4. ↑ Added assonance and alliteration.
  5. ↑ Substitution to sustain the whale imagery.
  6. ↑ Changes heighten the emotional quality and substitute a more vividly specific image.
  7. ↑ Keeping the rhyme in a most skilful revision.
  8. ↑ Ingenious substitution for "a cherub's wings."
  9. ↑ Eliminates the partial rhyme of "rode" while establishing another partial rhyme with "shone."
  10. ↑ Substitution for "and," necessary because of the change in meaning of "awful" from the older "filling with awe" to the more modern sense of "terrible" that Melville usually gives it.
  11. ↑ Substitution for "Lord" loses the rhyme with "record."
  12. ↑ Revision to get rid of the awkward trochaic foot.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herman Melville</span> American writer and poet (1819–1891)

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival, and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonah</span> Quranic and Biblical prophet

Jonah or Jonas, son of Amittai, is a prophet in the Hebrew Bible from Gath-hepher of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BCE. Jonah is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, which details his reluctance in delivering God's judgement on the city of Nineveh. Subsequently he returns to the divine mission after he is swallowed by a large sea creature and then released.

<i>Moby-Dick</i> 1851 novel by Herman Melville

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a Great American Novel was established only in the 20th century, after the 1919 centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.

Ishmael (<i>Moby-Dick</i>) Fictional character from the novel Moby-Dick

Ishmael is a character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), which opens with the line, "Call me Ishmael." He is the first person narrator in much of the book. Because Ishmael plays a minor role in the plot, early critics of Moby-Dick assumed that Captain Ahab was the protagonist. Many either confused Ishmael with Melville or overlooked the role he played. Later critics distinguished Ishmael from Melville, and some saw his mystic and speculative consciousness as the novel's central force rather than Captain Ahab's monomaniacal force of will.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mocha Dick</span> Sperm whale that inspired the novel Moby Dick

Mocha Dick was a male sperm whale that lived in the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off the central coast of Chile. American explorer and author Jeremiah N. Reynolds published his account, "Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal" in 1839 in The Knickerbocker. Mocha Dick was an albino and partially inspired Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick.

<i>Pequod</i> (<i>Moby-Dick</i>) Fictional ship from the novel Moby-Dick

Pequod is a fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship that appears in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by American author Herman Melville. Pequod and her crew, commanded by Captain Ahab, are central to the story, which, after the initial chapters, takes place almost entirely aboard the ship during a three-year whaling expedition in the Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific oceans. Most of the characters in the novel are part of Pequod's crew.

<i>Moby Dick</i> (1956 film) 1956 film by John Huston

Moby Dick is a 1956 color film adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Huston and Ray Bradbury. The film stars Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart and Leo Genn.

Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick is an animated Japanese television series, based on Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. However, this adaptation used futuristic outer space as the setting, with "whales" being large abandoned spaceships instead. It aired from 1997 to 1999, albeit with a suspension of new episodes from November 1997 to October 1998. The series ran for 26 episodes, which have been released on DVD in the US by ADV Films, spread across six discs.

<i>Moby Dick</i> (musical)

Moby Dick is a musical with a book by Robert Longden, and music and lyrics by Longden and Hereward Kaye, first staged in 1990. The plot follows the anarchic and nubile girls of St. Godley's Academy for Young Ladies who, determined to save the institution from bankruptcy, decide to stage Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel in the school's swimming pool. The musical is a mixture of high camp, music hall-style smut, and wild anachronism overflowing with double entendres; the lead role of headmistress/Captain Ahab is portrayed by a man in drag.

Moby-Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville that describes the voyage of the whaleship Pequod, led by Captain Ahab, who leads his crew on a hunt for the whale Moby Dick. There have been a number of adaptations of Moby-Dick in various media.

<i>Moby Dick</i> (1930 film) 1930 film

Moby Dick is a 1930 American pre-Code film from Warner Bros., directed by Lloyd Bacon, and starring John Barrymore, Joan Bennett and Walter Lang. The film is a sound remake of the 1926 silent movie, The Sea Beast, which also starred Barrymore. It is the first film adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby Dick that includes a soundtrack.

<i>Moby-Dick</i> (opera) Opera by Jake Heggie

Moby-Dick is an American opera in two acts, with music by Jake Heggie and libretto by Gene Scheer, adapted from Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The opera received its premiere at Dallas Opera in Dallas, Texas, on 30 April 2010. Heggie dedicated the opera to Stephen Sondheim.

<i>Moby Dick</i> (2010 film) 2010 film by Trey Stokes

Moby Dick is a 2010 film adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The film is an Asylum production, and stars Barry Bostwick as Captain Ahab. It also stars Renee O'Connor, Michael B. Teh, and Adam Grimes and is directed by Trey Stokes.

Moby Dick is a Canadian-German television miniseries based on Herman Melville's 1851 novel of the same name, produced by Tele München Gruppe, with Gate Film, In association with RTH/ORF. Starring William Hurt as Captain Ahab, it was directed by Mike Barker with a screenplay by Nigel Williams. The cast also includes Ethan Hawke as Starbuck, Charlie Cox as Ishmael, Eddie Marsan as Stubb, Gillian Anderson as Ahab's wife, Elizabeth and Donald Sutherland as Father Mapple.

<i>Moby Dick</i> (1998 miniseries) American TV series or program

Moby Dick is a 1998 American television miniseries based on Herman Melville's 1851 novel of the same name. It was filmed in Australia in 1997 and first released in the United States in 1998. The miniseries consisted of two episodes, each running two hours with commercials on March 15 and 16 of 1998 on the USA Network. This is Gregory Peck's final on-screen role.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Captain Ahab</span> Fictional character from the novel Moby-Dick

Captain Ahab is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). He is the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship Pequod. On a previous voyage, the white whale Moby Dick bit off Ahab's leg, and he now wears a prosthetic leg made out of whalebone. The whaling voyage of the Pequod ends up as a hunt for revenge on the whale, as Ahab forces the crew members to support his fanatical mission. When Moby Dick is finally sighted, Ahab's hatred robs him of all caution, and the whale drags him to his death beneath the sea and sinks the Pequod.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moby Dick (whale)</span> Fictional whale, namesake of the novel Moby-Dick

Moby Dick is a sperm whale who is the main antagonist in Herman Melville's 1851 novel of the same name. Melville based the whale partially on a real albino whale of that period called Mocha Dick.

Bulkington is a character in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. Bulkington is referred to only by his last name and appears only twice, briefly in Chapter 3, "The Spouter Inn", and then in Chapter 23, "The Lee Shore", a short chapter of several hundred words devoted entirely to him.

Pip, short for Pippin, is the African-American cabin-boy on the whaling-ship Pequod in Herman Melville's 1851 novel, Moby-Dick. When Pip falls overboard he is left stranded in the sea, and rescued only by chance and becomes "mad." The book's narrator, Ishmael, however, thinks that this "madness" gives Pip the power to see the world as it is. Pip is first described as "insignificant," but is the only member of the crew to awaken feelings of humanity in Ahab, the ship's monomaniacal captain.

References

  1. 1 2 "Moby-Dick: Herman Melville, Chapters 1–9". SparkNotes . Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  2. 1 2 Bryant & Springer (2007), p. xii.
  3. ↑ Heflin (2004), p. 41.
  4. ↑ Reynolds (2011), p. 20.
  5. 1 2 Reynolds (2011), p. 28.
  6. ↑ Reynolds (2011), p. 29.
  7. ↑ "Major Symbols in Moby-Dick". CliffsNotes. 2014. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Chapter 8, "The Pulpit"
  9. ↑ Wright (1949), 147
  10. ↑ Wright (1949), 147-148
  11. ↑ Battenfield (1955), 395-6
  12. ↑ Battenfeld (1955)
  13. 1 2 Battenfeld (1955), 396
  14. ↑ Battenfeld (1955), 395
  15. ↑ Reynolds (2011), p. 30.
  16. ↑ "Biblical Allusion in Melville's Prose," American Literature 12.2 (1940): 185–199.
  17. ↑ Duelund, Theis (9 September 2013). "Moby Dick Beaches Itself on L.A.'s Shores: 5 Ways to Cram for the Book How to read Melville's classic without actually reading it". Los Angeles . Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  18. ↑ Kerman & Brusso 2014, p. 421.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.