Sairam, 1

Sairam

Mrs.Keating

Advanced Placement English Language and Composition

20 May 2011

God’s tool: Nature

Cultures around the world from the islands of the eastern Pacific to the main lands of the

Americas worship the natural elements as a way of appeasing the higher powers that they believe

in. Regardless of how one looks at it, Nature is but a tool used by God for punishing and for

rewarding the actions of man. Two hundred years ago, the Essex set out from the harbor of

Nantucket with a band of sailors whose voyage became one of the worst tragedies known to the

world. In fact, everything that could have possibly gone wrong during this voyage did go wrong.

There are then two questions that present themselves. Was the crew of the Essex deserving of this

punishment and was this tragedy really God’s doing. The answers to these questions make

themselves clear in numerous ways.

The tragedy of the Essex was an example set by God for the whaling world. The

Nantucketers were worthy of this punishment in more ways than one. Firstly, the people of

Nantucket, the whalers of this “whaling nation,” as Emerson called it, slowly became heartless

over the centuries of remorseless killing. Originally, the people of Nantucket were Quakers whose

basic principal was nonviolence. They believed that evil could be conquered through nonviolence.

Being part of such a sect of Christians, it was immensely hypocritical of the Nantucketers to

attack a whale. These people who participated in the “brutal business of whaling,” (Philbrick, 65)

killed these creatures of God mercilessly. According to the Jewish Book of Proverbs, one of

the "six things the Lord hateth, and the seventh His soul detesteth," was “hands that shed innocent

blood.” The Nantucketers did not just shed blood, their ships were bathed and caked in blood

every time they killed a whale. In fact the brutality of the killing is heart wrenching:
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“The harpoon did not kill the whale. It was simply the means by which a whaleboat crew attached itself to its

prey…If the whale was proving too spirited, the mate would hobble it by taking up a boat-spade and hacking away at

the tendons in the tail. Then he’d take up the eleven- to tweve-foot-long killing lance, its petal-shaped blade designed

for piercing a whale’s vital organs. But finding ‘the life’ of a giant swimming mammal encased in a thick layer of

blubber was not easy. Sometimes the mate would be forced to stab it as many as fifteen times, probing for a group of

coiled arteries in the vicinity of the lungs with a violent churning motion that soon surrounded the whaleboat in a

rushing river of bright red blood.” (Philbrick, 53 – 54)

What compounded this hypocrisy was the fact that Nantucket made whaling its occupation.

In 1983, Babara J. Logue published an article in the Social Science History which outlined the

decline of the whaling industry of Nantucket. The cause of this decline, she wrote, was the

complete obliteration of the sperm whale population in the Atlantic. Worse was the fact that after

“practically wiping out the whale population,” (Philbrick, 6) of the Atlantic, the whalers of

Nantucket moved onto new waters to find a better catch. It is no surprise then that this island on

which “a blood lust and pride that bound every mother, father and child in a clannish commitment

to the hunt,” (Philbrick, 13) was chosen by God to make an example; to show to the people the

consequences of murdering cold bloodedly a creation of God.

This careless attitude towards creations of God continued in other places as well. For

example, when the crew of the Essex stoped at one of the Galapagos Islands for food and water,

one of the men of the Essex whale ship, Thomas Chappel, played a prank. During the height of

the dry season, on the morning of October 22nd, Chappel set fire to a small underbrush without

considering even slightly, the consequences of his action. The fire soon “burned out of control,”

(Philbrick, 75) trapping the hunters momentarily but most importantly sealing the graves of the

other animals on the island and wreaking havoc. As the hunters escaped and found their way back

to their boats, glad to be alive, one man realized the outcome of the recent events. The young

cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson “believed that the fire killed thousands upon thousands of tortoises,

birds, lizards and snakes,” (Philbrick, 76) and he was right. The Charles Island of the Galapagos
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was one of the first to lose its tortoise population and the crew of the whale

ship Essex “contributed to the eradication of a species.” (Philbrick, 76)

But, helpless species were not the only creatures that these Nantucketers eradicated. They

also wiped out the neighboring clan of Wamponoags. As more people came into the island, they

brought with them foreign diseases against which the primitive Indians could not contend. As a

result, the Nantucketers reduced the “Large Wampanoag population to a handful.” (Philbrick, 8) It

seems as if everything that was presented to the Nantucketers, they had to ruin. Aside from

essentially wiping out the neighboring Indians, they also destroyed their once fertile soil. Greedy

and wanting to make a larger profit, the Nantucketers “threatened to transform the island into a

wind blown wasteland.” (Philbrick, 5) What is worse is the fact that after raining such

devastation, the whalers without a hint of repentance or culpability went on to find another whale

to kill. This is most definitely a reason for God to unleash his wrath upon these barbaric men.

The Epistle of Galatians outlines that people that commit the sin of greed “shall not inherit

the Kingdom of God.” (Heath, 5:19-21) This qualifies all the people of Nantucket for an express

trip to hell. Philbrick explains that “the first step toward the future began with Macy’s decision to

save a little money in beef and hard-tack.” (Philbrick, 20) Despite being Quakers and supposedly

having denounced worldly things, the religion “didn’t keep them from pursuing profits with a

lethal enthusiasm.” (Philbrick, 19) Quakerism was not the only religion in which greed is such a

terrible sin. According to Lambet Dolphin, Islam too believes that actions of greed are sinful and

such a sin was, without doubt, an offence punishable by death in all customs. (Dolphin)

Pride is regarded as one of the seven deadly sins and the Nantucketers would have most

definitely burned in the Ninth Circle of Dante’s hell for it. Their pride echoed in their ignorance as

well. To them “new information [that] didn’t come from the lips of another Nantucketer, it was

suspect.” (Philbrick, 99) In fact, according to Philbrick, “only a Nantucketer… possessed the

necessary combination of arrogance, ignorance and xenophobia to shun a beckoning island.”

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(Philbrick, 100) Their refusal to accept other people’s ideas was the cause of their downfall; their

pride just came back to bite them. Actually, Captain David Porter, captain of the Bounty in passing

around Cape Horn said, “I would advise those bound into the Pacific, never to attempt the passage

of Cape Horn, if they can get there by another route.” (Philbrick, 62) The Nantucketers never

heeded this warning. On top of this, every time they had approached the storm, they would just go

into instead of turning around. In their heads, they envisioned themselves as unbeatable. Nature

was never a problem and God was never a worry. But little did they know that they were about to

face both of them at their worst.

The first storm that they encounter, they did not take any precautions against. They were so

conceited that they dismissed it as “an inconsequential gust,” (Philbrick, 39) and decided that

“they would ride it out.” (Philbrick, 39) By the time the realized that what was coming for them

was not a cloud but an squall, it was too late. Despite knowing the futility of their actions, the

proud Nanutcketers who believed that nothing could hurt them, turned around, only to get hit by

the storm in mid turn. God’s wrath had only begun. The second storm they took a little more

seriously and yet they were too full of themselves to realize the power of it and blundered into it.

Such self infatuation and pride was punished by God, and it was done so not leniently at all.

Their society revolved around this barbaric job to such an extent that you were looked

down upon if you were not a whaler. In fact men were not considered attractive by women if they

were not whalers. It is rumored that there was a society of young women on the island who

“pledged to marry only men who had killed a whale”(Philbrick, 13). Boatsteerers, who were very

athletic and made led a lucrative life were particularly in demand in the world of women. Aside

from young women bubbling with hormones, young children were also infatuated with the whale.

To these little blank slates, whaling was the only acceptable and shameless occupation and this

imprinting of young Nantucketers “began at the earliest age.”(Philbrick, 13 There is a story in

which a nine year old boy, pretending to be a whaler, tried to harpoon a harmless cat with a fork. )
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(William Macey's Scrap bucket)The insanity of the society's beliefs on what was acceptable in the

city can only be described as “an obsession with the whale.” The fact that almost everyone on the

island spoke as if they were on a whale ship is an illustration of this. Joseph Sansom explains

how, “every child [could] tell which way the wind blows, and any old woman in the street

[would] talk of cruising about, hailing an old messmate, or making one bring to, as familiarly as

the captain of a whale ship, just arrived from the northwest coast, will describe dimension to a

landlubber by the span of his jibboom, of the length of the main stay.” (Philbrick, 125) With

people that were infatuated with such a terrible occupation, it is no wonder that these people were

picked to be made an example of by God.

God is, in most cultures, a benevolent force who tries to help the people. He or she tries to

put people in situations from which they can learn and change themselves so that they make better

themselves. There are many stories derived from myths around the world in which this is

illustrated. A very famous story in Indian mythology does an excellent job of showing this. A

pigeon chased by a vicious vulture seeks asylum with a King. The vulture feels cheated of his

food and tells the King that he is being unfair by granting the pigeon’s safety. The King, know for

his generosity, proposes to give the vulture anything in return for the pigeon. The vulture asks for

the pigeon’s weight in King’s meat. The King, bound by his word, places the pigeon on one side

of scale and starts cutting, and placing parts of his flesh on the other. To his surprise the scale does

not equalize so he sits on the other side and magically the scale equalizes. The King offers himself

as food for the vulture when the two birds reveal their true form. They were gods who were

testing the faith of their subject. Impressed by his high morals, the Gods reward him with a happy

life. (Veeraswamy)

The lesson to be learned from this story is that God is always testing people’s faith and it is

no different in the case of the Nantucketers. They were tested by their God too. There were

numerous other opportunities for the Nantucketers in terms of work. They could have traveled to
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Boston to find a job in the city or they could have traveled to the mainland and taken up the most

common occupation on the mainland; farming. Despite having these easy to accept options and

more, the Nantucketers decided to stick with a brutal and terrible line of work. Also, not only

were they tested and tempted with other better opportunities, they were also warned numerous

times. For example, plenty of their whale ships were attacked by whales, trapped by storms, and

shipwrecked mysteriously. For example the whale ship Dana was attacked by a whale and was

ship wreaked and the people on the Essex were aware of the tale of the Dana. Ignoring all of

these fair and clear warnings, these people continued to relentlessly murder the whales of the seas.

As a people that are supposed to be pacifists, the Quaker community of Nantucket, failed itself

and its religion. Does this faithless action of theirs not deserve punishment? Is it right for

hundreds of years of insolence and defiance to go unpunished? No, and that is why God made an

example of these people, these hypocrites. He puts them in such a terrible position that people that

hear this story will be afraid to go out whaling and hopefully put the tradition out of style.

Aside from the hundreds of years of defiance, the Nantucketers had more punishable

crimes against God. To them, God was almost nonexistent. The church, a place of worship in

most communities, was a place of social engagements to the people of Nantucket. While there

were some people who went to the Church to practice their religion, most of the uncouth

youngsters used the church as a place to find a viable sexual partner. Nantucketer Charles

Murphey describes the purpose of the long Quaker meetings as seen by him: “To sit with eager

eyes directed/ On all the beauty there collected/ And gaze with wonder while sessions/ On all the

various forms and fashions.” (Murphey, 18) A veritable place that demanded respect was, by these

foul people, turned into a commonly whorehouse, for lack of a better term. These people violated

the house of God himself and as such God is most definitely justified in punishing the

Nantucketers.

Every morning we pledge to the flag the United States is “one nation under God,
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indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." This nation has always been under god and for most

of the time, liberty and justice has been available to one and all regardless of race, ethnicity, or

sex. In a country where equality was such a grand theme, such wonderful principles were belittled

by the people of Nantucket. To the people of Nantucket, everyone who came from outside their

community was not the same as them. They were always better than everyone. From the life of

the little boy, Thomas Nickerson, we understand the difficulties of a person who was an outsider.

He explains that even though “[He] might play with [the other children], go to sea with them, …

deep down he understood that no matter how hard he might try, he was, at best, only a

coof.”(Philbrick, 11) According to Merriam’s Dectionary, a coof is defined as “a stupid person.”

To the people of this small island, Nantucket was everything and its people were better and more

important than everyone else in the world. All of the other people were treated with inequality.

While everyone was welcome in the town, not everyone was seen through the same lens. This

discrimination was clearly apparent through all ages. Green hands, people that immigrated to the

island had worse jobs, worse pays and terrible chances at getting a job. In fact, since whaling was

such a revered occupation, it was difficult for the Green Hands to find themselves on a whale

ship. This injustice was definitely to be punished by God, under whose eyes, this nation was to be

run.

The discrimination was not limited to the island. On the ship, actually, it was all the more

pronounced. To pick a man that came from off the island, the crew of the ship made a careful

assessment:

Green hands were typically subjected to what one man remembered as “a sort of examination” by both the

shipowner and the captain. Recalled another, “We were catechized, in brief, concerning our nativity and previous

occupation, and the build and physical points of each were looked to, not forgetting the eyes, for a sharp-sighted man

was a jewel in the estimation of the genuine whaling captain.” Some green hands were so naive and poorly educated

that they insisted on the longest lay possible, erroneously thinking that the higher number meant higher pay. The
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owners were all to willing to grant their wishes” (Philbrick, 23).

This assessment, as ridiculous as it is, is not the end of the discrimination. On the ship

itself, the green hands slept in less comfortable places than did the Nantucketers. Black green

hands were in an especially miserable position as they were forced to sleep in the forecastle. In

fact the blacks on board got the shortest end of the stick. They received the food that was “a grade

below the miserable fare that [was] served to the boatsteerers and young Nantucketers in the

steerage.” (Philbrick, 146) As a result the blacks on board the ship were “in all probability, in

poorer health that the whites even before the sailed on the Essex.” (Philbrick, 146) God made

everyone equal and the religion of Quakerism states that “a part of God’s spirit … dwells in every

human soul”. In such a country, it is sinful to an extreme degree to discriminate in such terrible

ways and as a people that discriminated intensely, the Nantucketers were deserving of what they

got.

Looking at all of these acts of brutality, discrimination, greed, and excessive pride, the

people of Nantucket are quite comparable to the devil himself. In fact, in 1589, Peter Binsfeld

paired each of the deadly sins with each of the fallen angels. Pride specifically was attached to

Lucifer, the devil that we know of today. (Hodder) The ship itself, after the murdering of a whale

looked like a hell hole:

“At night the deck of the Essex looked like something out of Dante’s Inferno…There is a murderous

appearance about the blood-stained decks, and the huge masses of flesh and blubber lying here and there, and a

ferocity in the looks of the men, heightened by the red, fierce glare of the fire” (Philbrick, 57).

The ship was in multiple places referred to as an “infernal” place where temperatures soared.

Such a place which entertained a hellish atmosphere is definitely a place that should be attacked

by God. The destruction of this ship was completely justified.

Why these people were attacked is now clear, but was it really God that brought bout these

disasters? It could have been chance of fate but what evidence points specifically towards God?
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There is evidence throughout the book which shows that God was the principle cause of this

tragedy. Certain events in this story happen in such a manner that they are just too good to be the

work of chance or fate. I believe that God alone possesses the power to run such an incredibly

well planned tragedy.

Aside from America, around the world sins like greed and pride were punishable by worse

than death. In Dante’s Inferno the proud were left to burn in the ninth and worst circle of hell

along side the devil, Lucifer, himself. According to the Garuda Purana, a sacred book kept by the

Hindu religion, people that are greedy, like the Nantucketers, are to be left in a tub of blood

sucking animals like leeches and similarly, pride and arrogance is to be punished by leaving the

sinners handcuffed and hanging over a fire. (Chaturvedi) Compared to all of these punishments,

the punishment received by the crew of the Essex was a breeze. This shows the forgiving and

moderate nature of God who had to have had a hand in this occurrence.

Despite the fact that the christian God is forgiving like other Gods, He must keep His

people faithful and he uses plenty of ways to do that. One of them is to make an example of

people. For example, this is not the first time that God has used Nature to punish. The story of

Noah and the Arc is extremely well know around the world and there He uses Nature to punish

the crimes of mankind. It was a method of purging the bad and infected people and the case of the

Nantucketers is similar and the only aspect which is different is that instead of wiping out all of

the people of Nantucket, God chooses to make an example of a single ship in such a way that no

one would ever question his authority or doubt his existence. (The New English Bible)

Another element that points to God's involvement in this story is that the ship was a good

ship. On the island of Nantucket, she had a reputation as “a lucky ship (Philbrick, 2)” and on top

of that she was known to be a “happy vessel (Philbrick, 3).” Despite all that, she went down. The

crew was not bad and that ship was impeccable, under provisioned, but impeccable. In fact she

was built “almost entirely of white oak, one of the toughest and strongest of woods”(Philbrick,
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87), and yet the was taken down by Nature, a tool of God. The sinking of a powerful ship as

opposed to a weak one compounds the power of God’s message.

In addition to that, just before the ship sailed, a comet lit the skies of Nantucket. In the

nautical community the “appearance of a comet was interpreted as a sign that something unusual

was about to happen. (Philbrick, 4)” Can you really believe that the comet's coming and the going

down of the ship was really a coincidence? Very unlikely and in addition, is it not in the nature of

all Gods to give their people one last warning. The hand of God is an undeniable force in this

matter.

This vessel was attacked against so many odds. In fact, everything terrible that could go

wrong did go wrong; almost like they were being guided towards a terrible end. This ship's

terrible tale was known far and wide. It was an example to other seamen, a warning marking the

sea as “a force of terrifying unpredictability. (Philbrick, 4)” Is it then really possible for chance

and nature to come together in such an attack? Does it not make more sense if God had done this

because God's purpose in doing this was to set and example and this tragedy does that really well.

Also, how can one explain the fact that the youngest, most innocent person survives to tell

the tale? Throughout history, in myths and literature alike, innocence and youth have always been

compared to purity. For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the little girl Pearl

is innocent and incorruptible which is why her questions are the ones that hurt Dimesdale the

most.(Hawthorne) It’s a well known fact that God favors the innocent and the pure at heart so it

makes perfect sense then that God was the guiding hand behind the survival of the little boy.

God is a clever existence. He is believed to have created the whole universe and it is easily

explained that He made this tragedy come about but what puts God’s signature on this is the

ironies of the story. The simple nuances that cleverly came to pass as part of this tale show that

God was the perpetrator of this event and these small things make themselves observable

throughout the story. Consider for example the fact that the sailors of the Essex were not killed
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when their ship went down. The eighty foot whale, which sank the ship with ease left the sailors

alive and well enough to sustain themselves for the time being. What the odds of that happening?

Also how is it that specifically at that moment, Owen Chase, one of the most aggressive whalers

on board the whale ship freezes up. If he had made up his mind and attacked the whale, the ship

could have been saved. But he froze in lieu of some inconsequential excuse. Such behavior which

was “a highly uncharacteristic display of caution” (Philbrick, 82), for a first mate. How can this

sudden change in mindset be explained? Without a life changing event or divine providence such

a swift change is impossible since Chase does not experience a life changing event, it must be

Divine Providence that powered the change.

Consider also this, why was a whale used? God could have just as easily used the waves or

the storms or lightening to destroy the feeble ship, but he used the whale. Why? In the Leviathan,

God releases the first creatures into the waters and they are whales. “And God said, Let the waters

bring forth abundantly the movig creature that have life…And God created the great whales, and

every living creature that moveth”(Hobbes, 128). The whale is not only a powerful animal in

christian mythology but the whale is considered a powerful source of power in the oceans in

numerous other cultures around the world. For example the Chinese believe that yu-kiang, a

gigantic whale is the ruler of the world. According to the Alaskan goddess Sedna who was the

goddess of the sea, the whale was the most magnificent subject of the ocean. The whale is clearly

a symbol of power and given God’s need to send a message, it makes perfect sense that a whale

was used to complete the task. ("Whale Mythology around the World”)

If you have not already begun to believe that God was indeed the force behind this attack,

then consider the attack once more. Consider now the whale and it’s behavior. The whale was,

“even by the colossal standards of a sperm whale,” (Philbrick, 86) a huge creature. It was

extremely rare to have sighted such a massive creature and it was even more rare for a whale ship

to have been struck by one. More unusual was the fact that the ship was struck by the whale’s
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head which “has never been heard of amongst the oldest and most experienced whalers.” (Chase,

35) In fact it seemed as if the attack on the ship was a premeditated and planned attack by the

whale. According the Chase, the attacks were “calculated to do [them] the most injury, by being

made ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock.” (Philbrick, 89)

This planned attack could not be attributed to the intelligence of the whale because intelligence is

an evolutionary trait and evolution, as Darwin proposed, was a slow and gradual process.

(Darwin) In fact, I believe that such a sentiment attack on the ship cannot be explained in any

other way except for Divine Providence.

The handiwork of God is not only seen in the controlling of the whale but also in the irony

of the situation. Over the course of one voyage, “the hunters had become the prey”(Philbrick,

116). After the initial attack, they were attacked more by whales. To the weathered seamen, “it

seemed…as if fate was wholly relentless in pursuing [them] with such a cruel complication of

disasters”(Philbrick, 116). The sinking of the Essex was “like a whale dying in slow motion

flurry”(Philbrick, 94), and the oil of whale that had “only a few weeks before had been their

fortune, their obsession, was now their torment”(Philbrick, 95). Such a perfectly planned purely

coincidental happening is impossible. God’s personal interest in this ship’s future is the only way

to explain the perfect irony of the situation.

According to Lily de Silva, an authority figure on Buddhism, Nature and God have a parent

child relationship. She says that, “God is like a powerful hand which eases Nature to do its work”

(de Silva). The world today takes the forces of Nature for granted and the power of God, to us, is

non existent but the tale of the Essex whale ship it a brilliant teacher which nulls our beliefs. God

was the puppeteer behind the tragedy that was the destruction of the Essex and his tool in writing

this destructive play was Nature. The reasons for God to pick this ship were simple and straight

forward. The Nantucketers did everything that they were not supposed to. They were not pacifists,

they did not respect the nature around them, they were proud, arrogant and greed, their lives
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revolved around the brutal compassionless killing of helpless animal and over all they were

sinners who need to be punished. So, God, instead of punishing them by killing them all, makes

an example of one of them and what better vessel to pick than the lucky and happy ship that was

really well known around town. The coincidences that come to pass in this tragedy are too good to

be coincidences. There is not other way to explain them other than use God as a major player in

this play and I believe that He was a huge influence the tragedy of the Essex. We as human

beings, have a spiritual duty towards the man upstairs and we must not take him for granted.

While He is a patient, kind and loving God, it is well within his prowess to destroy us all in

anyway he chooses. So we must, not out of fear, but out of loyalty, remain good people and

remember that God rewards benevolence and punishes malevolence.

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13. The New English Bible; New Testament. [New York]: Oxford UP, 1961. Print.
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<http://www.worldtrans.org/creators/whale/myths0.html>.