Uncle Remus or Herman Melville & 9/11

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 4:52 PM -0500 11/7/02, Gordon Fitch wrote:
>Carrol Cox:
>>  A year ago I proposed the tarbaby as an image of the possible fate of
>>  the U.S. War on Terror. I did not know that Edward Said and others had
>>  already proposed (as mentioned in the current issue of the LRB) a more
>>  powerful analogy: 9/11 and its perpetrators as the Moby Dick, U.S.
>>  imperialism as Ahab. "America [has embarked] unchecked on another heroic
>>  venture: a worldwide geological survey for whatever still has the power
>>  to cross or terrify her, followed by massive excavations and
>>  uprootings." May that heroic venture be as disastrous as was Ahab's.
>
>What boat d'ye think you're on, Ishmael?

Remember that Ishmael survives, buoyed by Queequeg's coffin and 
rescued by the Rachel, which came in search of its lost 
sailor-children.  It's everyone else on the Pequod who goes down with 
Ahab.

No shortage of Ishmaels in the USA today; it's the real-world 
counterpart of the Rachel that is missing, making the analogy 
incomplete.
-- 
Yoshie

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