NCHS AP English Language

Biblical Ships - Lindsay Miller and E. Rew

The two ships with biblical names that I found in MOBY DICK were RACHEL and JEROBOAM. How does the usage of thse names improve upon the novel? The use of the name RACHEL is very clever. The crew and captain of the Rachel are searching for the captain's lost son. His one and only son was lost on a harpoon boat trying ot bring Moby Dick down. This parallels to the tale of Rachel who lost seven of her sons before one finally survived. Furthermore, even though she is deceased when this occurs, said son is lost again, sold into slavery and presumed dead for years. Therefore, this relates to the novel because Rachel lost many of her sons as Captain Boomer lost his son.
The ship the JEROBOAM also correlates its biblical name to its purpose in the novel. The JEROBOAM has a mutinous crew that only listens to the prophet, Gabriel. They refuse to listen to their captain and are idolly worshipping Gabriel as their "god" rather than the captian of the ship. In the hierarchy of a whale boat, the captain is at the top just like in the hierarchy of heaven, God is at the top. Therefore, the captain is like the crew's god. However, the JEROBOAM's crew did not worship their captain god but idolly worshipped a man who came aboard and pronounced himself as the archengel, Gabriel. This relates to the bible because Jeroboam was a King of the ten tribes of Israel who built to golden calves as shrines and told the people to only worship there and not at Jerusalem. This relates to Moby Dick because by telling the people to worship only at his shrines this was like Gabriel telling the crew of the Jeroboam to worship him and throw thier captain overboard.

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 1:43 PM