The eye of the whale: Moby-Dick

Another often-overlooked aspect of "Moby-Dick" is Melville's humor. Reading chapter about the whale's head - actually two heads, because following some odd nautical superstition Ahab went after a right whale so that he could have the head of a right whale and head of a sperm whale hanging above the boat. Whether this superstition is real or not, it does allow Melville to have a little fun, comparing the two heads, and then examining them, ghastly though they may be dangling above the crew, with a close inspection. He makes particular note of the eyes - much smaller proportionally than you would expect from a head so large, and also placed squarely on the side of the head, giving the what two distinct views of the world, left and right, but making it difficult - or so Melville imagines - for the whale to assemble an accurate picture of his surroundings. Of course others - horses, most fish, e.g, - have the same anatomical oddity, but, as Melville notes, it's stranger in the whale because of he enormous size of the head, the vast space between the two eyes - you wonder how they could be part of the same creature's perceptual apparatus. One thing Melville didn't know, and we do today, is that whales seem to "sing" to one another. Imagine what Melville would have concocted out of that bit of information, had he only known! This section of the book contains one of Melville's great, Thoreauvian observations: why do we seek to "expand" the mind? Subtilize it!