MELVILLE'S GAM WITH POE IN "MOBY-DICK": BULKINGTON AND PYM

Abstract

Bulkington exemplar in Moby-Dick (1851) who guides Pequod on its passage out to sea. To explain his role as guiding spirit to define key element in allegory of Ishmael's psychological development, one whereby Melville acknowledges Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838) while contrasting his own vision. Interpretations have identified Bulkington with the original of Harry Bolton, whose death on whaling cruise was described in Redburn or with Melville's cousin Thomas Wilson Melvill, veteran of four whaling voyages;1 with Henry Chatillon, western guide of Francis Parkman;2 with Thomas Hart Benton;3 with Billy Budd;4 with Hawthorne and Thomas Jefferson;5 and, most instructively, with Poe.6 character that has been shown to resemble Poe in Confidence-Man slender, haggard and untanned, shatter-brain with raven curls,7 whereas Ishmael says that Bulkington stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and chest like coffer-dam. I have seldom seen such brawn in man. His face was deeply brown and burnt.8 What connects this brawny sailor to Poe that he has just come off Grampus, name of Pym's ship in Pym. There no external evidence that Melville had read Pym,9 but internal evidence striking and precise. Several critics have pointed out many similarities between Pym and Moby-Dick, without considering Bulkington or contrasting in detail visions of books.10 Bulkington leaves Grampus for Pequod, choice or progression. Ishmael says Grampus is regarded as premonitory of advance of great sperm whale (p. 124). Likewise, while acknowledging augur of Poe, Melville implies that Pym premonitory of advance o? Moby-Dick. With different ship, he conveys his philosophical relationship to Hawthorne, Christian: Ishmael transported by the Moss, evoking Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse, but only as far as Nantucket, where the little Moss came snugly to anchor (p. 63). By then, Ishmael has already rejected Christianity and wed pagan, Queequeg. It true that Bulkington resembles brawny thinker who seeks Truth in Hawthorne's The Intelligence Office and that Melville identifies this figure with Hawthorne in his review, written while he was composing Moby-Dick,11 but at that time Melville had not finished reading Man of Mosses, was just coming to understand his vision and considered him at first impression a seeker, not finder yet. His later judgment expressed

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