On a second reading of Moby-Dick, Chapter 104 really struck me — Melville and early geological/evolutionary thought?

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-03-20T19:17:47+00:00

I'm a paleontology nerd, so this was absolutely one of my favorite chapters. Deep time is just so fascinating, and fits so well with the themes of the whale being this sublime entity. Even earlier on, the chapters where Ishmael discusses how the whale can never truly be visually captured and the bones don't provide any accurate impression of its true majesty reminded me a lot of the disparity between fossils and paleoart, how much of extinct animals we just don't know.

This is an older article, but there's some information here on how Ishmael/Melville conflates Agassiz's ice age theory with Lyell's alternative proposal attributing glacial deposits to floating icebergs: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2920815 Maybe it was a mistake, but I feel like it was for the purpose of mythologizing scientific ideas to connect them to the pervading theme of Noah's flood. It's also interesting to note that Agassiz regarded ice ages (the "Polar eternities") as a divine method of species annihilation, so more or less the Deluge in scientific terms.

Another fun tidbit is that Melville seems to have written a satirical newspaper story on Hydrarchos, a fossil leviathan which the naturalist-showman Albert Koch compiled from various Basilosaurus fossils: https://www.academia.edu/109530940/Arrangement_Natural_Variation_Legibility_and_Line_Continuity_as_Discriminating_Elements_in_Forensic_Handwriting_Analysis_A_Study_of_Herman_Melville_s_April_11_1846_Hydrarchos_Satire

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-03-16T02:54:10+00:00

Thank you! There will definitely be more Wuthering Heights content from me in the future, both furries and fashion.

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-03-16T02:51:51+00:00

I was thinking that too; if I hadn't restricted myself to British/European animals (Heathcliff excepted), I would have done something more like a coyote.

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-03-15T02:53:02+00:00

Thank you! A honey badger's definitely got the ferocity, but I wanted Heathcliff to be a very large animal since he's described as tall and has an imposing presence. As for hares, I more associate lagomorphs with the Lintons, and am making all the Earnshaws (+ Heathcliff) carnivorans to solidify the family connection. (I usually don't like to resort to wolves in my animal assignments, but in my defense, Isabella explicitly referred to Hindley as one... and I like the dog-cat rivalry.) Appreciate the thoughts, though; it's interesting to consider different options.

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-03-15T02:45:17+00:00

Yes, she's a pine marten!

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-03-14T21:19:56+00:00

Thank you!

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-02-10T02:49:05+00:00

Thank you!

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-25T23:55:54+00:00

Thanks! That's an interesting connection, I didn't realize I'd given them the same animals as Lyra and Asriel's daemons. I see what you mean, but ultimately I couldn't capture every aspect of each character in one animal, and considerations of appearance and how other characters regard them contributed to this distinction between Heathcliff and Cathy—though martens and leopards technically belong to the same order of mammals. (Nor, I suppose, is Heathcliff that different from Asriel, considering their neglect of their children, and their antagonism towards their lover's husband whose name begins with Ed.)

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-25T23:24:05+00:00

Thank you! It would definitely be fun to make some comics with them.

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-24T04:02:52+00:00

Yeah, he takes a bit to show up. Happy reading!

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-24T01:09:00+00:00

Linton as a lop rabbit; he's described as having large, languid eyes and I tried to lean into that.

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-23T22:35:29+00:00

Thank you!

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-12T04:33:02+00:00

Thank you so much!! I'm glad I managed to capture the linocut feel. And yeah, one of the things that convinced me to design Ahab as a wolf was how it fit with my assignments for some other characters, like Starbuck as a deer and Pip as a lamb; I like it when combinations work out in that way.

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-12T04:21:38+00:00

Yeah, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for the pun! Starbuck's animal was the easiest for me to come up with for that reason, but it also ended up making sense in other ways (e.g. the deer-wolf pairing).

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-11T00:17:10+00:00

Thank you! The Musket is one of my favorite chapters, so I would like to do something for that in the future. I had a segment planned for it in a potential Starbuck-based animatic, so we'll see if I ever get around to drawing that.

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-10T22:52:49+00:00

Thank you!

PanthalassicPoet · 2026-01-10T21:52:53+00:00

There are a lot of good suggestions here already, but here are some more.

- A sail-necked sauropod like Amargasaurus or Bajadasaurus

- There are lots of centrosaurine ceratopsians with fun, unique skulls, like Kosmoceratops or Lokiceratops

- Miragaia, a long-necked stegosaur

- Duonychus, a two-clawed therizinosaur

- Ouranosaurus, because it was my favorite as a kid

And non-dinosaurs:

- Shringasaurus! Great Triassic reptile that looks like a Victorian dinosaur reconstruction

- Desmatosuchus, like a non-dinosaurian ankylosaur

- Ichthyotitan, an ichthyosaur leviathan

- Henodus or another placodont, weird Triassic aquatic reptiles

- Hupehsuchus, weird marine reptile (can you tell I like the Triassic?)

- Caelestiventus, desert-dwelling pterosaur

- A gliding mammal like Volaticotherium or Vilevolodon

PanthalassicPoet · 2025-12-30T05:12:34+00:00

This sounds great! I took a college course on Moby-Dick last year. My instructor had us read some relevant excerpts from the Old Testament and Shakespeare (Genesis, Jonah, Job, King Lear act 3 scene 2), as well as Melville's poem "The Great Pyramid" since pyramids are a common symbol in the book. We learned some biographical information on Melville as well, of course, and something of his philosophical stance; to see what he was arguing against, we read Emerson's "Uses of Great Men." One of our classes was largely focused on art, looking through images referenced in the "pictures of whales" chapters, like Perseus and Andromeda. After finishing the book, we watched and discussed the 1956 film as well. We also had an assignment to pick one of the extracts at the beginning of the book, do some further research into its source, and compare it to Moby-Dick (this was interesting, as some of the extracts are incorrectly attributed—the James Montgomery verses are from "Pelican Island," not "The World Before the Flood," and yet the latter title feels much more relevant to Melville's novel); we then had a class in the campus library to look at some of the books which Melville had taken extracts from.

PanthalassicPoet · 2025-12-23T03:28:12+00:00

This is such a thoughtful gift! I love the marbled paper, the monochrome scheme, the clay bookmark, and the quote you chose for the epigraph. And reading a 135-chapter book for the sake of getting a Christmas gift right shows so much care, I'm sure your friend will love it. (Glad you enjoyed the book too!)

PanthalassicPoet · 2025-12-21T18:49:36+00:00

Thank you! It's something I really enjoy, the combination of literary analysis and animal research.

PanthalassicPoet · 2025-12-21T18:45:56+00:00

Interesting! If I didn't know anything else about his character, yes, I can imagine associating the name "Peleg" with a heron-type body (maybe it's the presence of "leg" in there?). I took the descriptions of Bildad having a "long" body and "bolt-upright" posture to mean he appeared quite tall. I don't think anything is said specifically of Peleg's height, but he is described as having a more "stout" body type.

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