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Studies in American Fiction 105 strivings and mutual ability to stand up under suffering both sense cosmic and moral chaos, the emptiness of being. In short, both are touched by a nihilistic vision in which existence is seen as chaotic, absurd, meaningless, and destructive of man’s hopes. Thus to Macbeth, life is a tale “Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing” (V, v, 27-28), while, to Dewey Dell it is a “wild and outraged earth” that leaves her no time to mourn, the dis­ orientation once experienced in a nightmare in which she had been unable even to “think what I was” (p. 115). Finally, it is significant that Macbeth's and Dewey Dell’s regrets both concern women who are themselves similar. Like Lady Macbeth, Addie Bundren is a fierce and dominating woman. And like her too, her desire to have her way contributes to tragedy and suffering. “THE CASSOCK” CHAPTER IN MOBY—DICK AND THE THEME OF LITERARY CREATIVITY John Stark Kent State University A sly, amusing chapter in Moby-Dick, “The Cassock,” has become one of the most baffling enigmas in that book. Howard Vincent rightly calls it “perhaps the most amazing [chapter] in an amazing book.” 1 Many readers have laughed at its humor, a few have been confused by its description of the strange, ambiguous object lying on the deck, and hardly any have convincingly interpreted its mysteries. In spite of its difficulties and its length-one page, which makes it the shortest chapter in this long book— “The Cassock” nevertheless conveys a good deal of meaning. Specifically, this chapter tells about a major step in Ishmael’s maturation into a person able to narrate a masterpiece like Moby-Dick. This matura­ tion becomes clearer if one considers Ishmael to be the creator of “The Cassock” and of the rest of the novel. “The Cassock,” in con­ junction with the chapter that precedes it and the one that follows it, presents a parable of the artist. The religious references have caused some of the confusion about this chapter. Strangely, the bawdiness in “The Cassock” has not prevented some critics from arguing that religion is its main theme. However, Robert Schulman correctly identifies the most common meaning of the phallic references in Melville’s work; common sense 106 Notes and a strong literary tradition suggest that they symbolize creativity. He believes incorrectly, though, that these references in “The Cassock” contribute to the “satire of religion.” 2 It makes more sense to reverse the emphasis and argue that the religious theme is part of the theme of creativity. The satire of religion and of its potential stifling of the imagination reinforce the praise in this chapter of full life and creativity. Analyzing one of this chapter’s supposed religious images, which critics have not sufficiently illuminated, will reveal why “The Cassock” contains much more than a satiric statement about religion. The phallus, although Ishmael mockingly describes it as a religious object, performs the more important function of symbolizing a potentially creative personality type. At this point one should apply Schulman’s generalization that Melville’s phallic humor asserts “the . . . value of an integral, socially deficient, creative self” (p. 179). That is, the phallus’ religious aspects are subordinate to its function as a symbol of creativity. To summarize Ishmael’s attitudes in this chapter, he mentions some religious con­ notations of this object in order to juxtapose religion and the force he considers to be its enemy, creativity, and to denigrate the former while extolling the latter. In order to understand the adversary relation between religion and creativity in this chapter, one can begin by checking the allusion to a phallic idol in I Kings 15, which Ishmael refers to in “The Cassock.” Significantly, this chapter immediately precedes the biblical account of Ahab. It describes Asa, a King of Judah who removed idols and male prostitutes from his kingdom and became angry at his mother because she made a phallic idol. Asa represents conventional, orthodox religion and thus he abhors creativity and its symbol. In the thirty-eighth year of Asa’s reign a very different king, Ahab, began to rule over...

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