Doing Time with Captain Ahab

Moby-Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville was published on November 14, 1851, which makes the book 173 years old. Such a rascal of a novel, to be sure. To celebrate, here’s a quick story.

Last year, for Halloween, I spent the night before rustling up a likeness of Captain Ahab.

I had given one of my classes some sections from Moby-Dick to read as an assignment, and since I had been growing out a very nice beard, I thought I’d cut a fine sailor, if not the captain of a whaling boat. It turns out a classroom is much like shipping out to sea with a crew of full of characters and temperaments that all must heave-ho along the way.  My costume also gave me a chance to give a reading quiz on Moby-Dick in character!  After teaching for twenty-years, doing something new and different felt good, like returning to sea after a long time away.

The heart of my costume was my old trusty peacoat that I’ve had since I was sixteen. Of course, I needed the obligatory stripes and captain’s hat, which I found on Amazon. The hat was especially nice, because I bought sometihng genuine rather than costume quality.

Of course, I had to make some props too. The day before, I spent time drawing a large whale on white paper and piecing together cardboard to make a sturdy backing for it. At home, the night before Halloween, I faced the task of making a harpoon. I never thought I’d pull off something that looked so real, but between the cardboard and paint, tubing and rope, and my favorite, hot glue, the harpoon was born.

And then I needed Ahab’s peg leg. For this little trick, I folded some cardboard and wrapped it around my leg, keeping it in place with some Velcro. Painted white, of course, because his leg was not wooden, but rather ivory. According to the story, it was fashioned from a sperm whale’s jawbone, and no real Ahab costume could be complete without that peg leg, an object that lays Ahab’s obsession with Moby Dick before everyone on board the ship like an open book. He wants revenge on the whale that took his leg.

Sure enough, I had the costume. Was I a bit obsessive? I might say I was driven. Task oriented, for sure. But there was also something in Ahab that became part of me while making the costume, more so than expected. I think maybe that costume was my white whale, and the obsession, that was everything I did to bring that costume to reality from the great sea of possibilities.

Or maybe it was just a costume.

Anyway, a very happy birthday to Moby-Dick by Herman Melville!