Interpretations observed, in Moby-Dick’s “The Doubloon”: understanding proximities of meaning and power

Abstract Moby-Dick gives much attention to activities of interpretation, and not only those of Ishmael and Ahab. Characters seek to understand and explain themselves and other persons, circumstances, creatures, natural phenomena, and expressive objects such as texts and images. In Chapter 99, “The Doubloon,” nine persons ponder the coin Ahab has affixed on the Pequod’s mainmast to reward whoever first sights the White Whale. They interpret the coin’s iconography and texts for their equatorial meanings and as emblematic of power: natural, economic, geopolitical, and local power serving Ahab’s purpose. Melville anticipates late modern interests in how meaning and power become entangled. After reviewing some interpretive paradigms, this essay reads Melville as exploring—hermeneutically and critically, through narrative discourse—some “proximities” of meaning and power, without reducing either one to the other.