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c h a p t e r t w o pilgrimage and prophecy In the prevIous chapter, we have reviewed the biblical paradigms of theodicy and eschatology that offered a potential rationale for the existence of evil and human suffering that Melville explored in Moby-Dick. yet the novel also draws extensively on its immediate religious, historical, and cultural contexts. certain key features in the religious landscape of antebellum america are thus evoked in the novel, especially in Ishmael’s early experience of seeking a whaling vessel in new bedford and nantucket—an experience constituting a seriocomic pilgrimage through a landscape fraught with eschatological perils and prophetic warnings. as attested by the mock theatrical billing in the novel’s first chapter, which placed Ishmael’s voyage in the time between a “Grand contested Election for Presidency of the United States” (the harrison–van buren contest of november 1840) and a “bloody battle In afghanIstan” (the battle of Kabul in January 1842), Moby-Dick was largely set in the first year of Melville’s own whaling voyage on the Acushnet, when he sailed from fairhaven,Massachusetts,on 3 January 1841.his novel accordingly reflects, both directly and indirectly, many of the essential religious and cultural features of the era, especially the saturation of contemporary american culture by evangelical christianity and the bible.1 The first half of the nineteenth century in america saw a sustained resurgence of evangelical christianity, in what has been called the second great awakening—a protracted period of revivalism that began near the start of the century, reached a peak of cultural diffusion in the 1830s, and flowered again in the 1850s. as alexis de tocqueville asserted in his study of american democracy: “there is no country in the world where the christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in  Pilgrimage and Prophecy america.”In a recent comprehensive survey of american theology from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, Mark a. noll has traced the synthesis of evangelical protestantism, republican political ideology, and commonsense moral philosophy that characterized the era.such a synthesis implied a close alliance between theological and political ideals of virtue and liberty (and their obverse, tyranny and corruption), together with a confidence in reading the mind of the creator. christianity, in short, was deeply enmeshed in the very fabric of the nation’s cultural, political, social, and moral life. Indeed, as tocqueville noted, “It must never be forgotten that religion gave birth to anglo-american society. In the united states, religion is therefore mingled with all the habits of the nation and all the feelings of patriotism, whence it derives a peculiar force.”2 extending the authority of protestant christianity that began with the puritan colonization of new england, the clerical guardians of the nation and their allies promoted religion as a necessary moral counterweight to the consuming energies of democratic nation-building and the ideology of economic individualism. as a covenanted nation, america must lead the way in confronting a host of intractable social ills such as poverty, crime, delinquency, prostitution, illiteracy, disease, intemperance, and (for the northern states) the conspicuous national sin of slavery. a new “benevolent empire”accordingly emerged, dedicated to the promulgation of christian morality and sustained by a network of institutions and voluntary organizations dedicated to foreign and home missions, religious education, criminal justice, mental and physical health, temperance, antislavery, and a variety of other reforms, aided by the wide dissemination of scripture and other religious literature. The evangelical fervor behind this benevolent empire was geared toward the eradication of a comprehensive roster of evils through a lively appreciation of god’s saving word and grace, all in a quest for moral perfection. It is perhaps only in such an environment that we can understand a mission as ambitious as ahab’s in its single-minded apocalyptic determination to destroy an embodiment of universal evil in the shape of the white whale.3 a distinctive feature of the contemporary american religious scene that would strongly influence Melville’s whaling novel was the widespread manifestation of millennial and apocalyptic expectations, based on the prophecies of christ’s second coming. contemporary theology was divided in opinion between whether this event would be pre- or postmillennial, and contemporary national and international events were often scrutinized for tell-tale “signs of the times”(Matt.16:3).despite some conservative misgivings, most americans embraced a hopeful expectation [18.226.187.199] Project MUSE (2024-04-25...

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