Teaching Melville and style: a catalogue of selected rhetorical devices

Style, Spring, 2003 by Brett Zimmerman

DIAZEUGMA: one subject with many verbs:

But the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer between his jaws; and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again, and went down.

(Moby-Dick 6: 257)

Here the single subject, whale, is never repeated before the verbs following the first, rushed. Clearly, ellipsis is used with this device, and the combined use of ellipsis and diazeugma is a splendid way to emphasize action and to help ensure a swift narrative pace.

ENCOMIUM: praise of a person or thing by extolling inherent qualities:

"And now, ye mates, I do appoint ye three cup-bearers to my three pagan kinsmen there--yon three most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers."

(Moby-Dick 6: 166)

In his speech in "The Quarter-Deck," charismatic Ahab uses the appeal to pathos (emotions) to persuade his crew to take up his cause; here he also uses flattery in calling his harpooneers valiant gentlemen and noblemen. The phrases "honorable gentlemen" and "valiant harpooneers" are eulogistic epithets. This language is emotionally charged; it is designed to arouse passion. This use of flattery (cf. comprobatic) is also part of Ahab's ethical appeal--specifically, his sense of good will toward his audience (eunoia).

EPIPHONEMA: an epigrammatic or sententious statement that summarizes and concludes a passage of prose or poetry or a speech; a moral note expressing the disapproval or admiration of the writer, narrator, or speaker:

So the blind slave obeyed its blinder lord; but, in obedience, slew him. So the creator was killed by the creature. So the bell was too heavy for the tower. So that bell's main weakness was where man's blood had flawed it. And so pride went before the fall.

("The Bell-Tower" 9: 187)

Some rhetors--Dupriez and Espy, for example--insist that the epiphonema must be an exclamation; others disagree.

Fenton discusses briefly the final paragraph of "The Bell-Tower," suggesting that the moralistic note would have pleased his pious readership and the associate editor of the magazine that first published the tale (Putnam's): "Perhaps Melville had him in mind when he ended 'The Bell-Tower' on that trite and superfluous paragraph, complete with an evangelistic last sentence [...]" (231). Indeed, scholars have detested the ending; they object to a writer spelling out the moral of the story when even a half-asleep reader can figure out, through the biblical allusions and action--the imperfect bell crashing to the ground and the earthquake that finally topples the tower--that Bannadonna has been impious and apparently punished by God.

Running throughout Melville's works are biblical allusions and themes of theological importance, but it is not like Melville to moralize heavy-handedly. What moral themes are contained within his works are left for the reader to discern, normally. It is not like Melville to state the moral of the story the way Hawthorne typically might (see the conclusion of "The Birthmark," for instance). Although Melville may have ended the tale on a pious note to please audience and/or editors (who liked morally edifying literature), Melville's use of epiphonema at the end of "The Bell-Tower," coupled with similar themes covered already by Hawthorne, suggests his indebtedness to Hawthorne for creative inspiration. That is, "The Bell-Tower" may represent Melville's attempt to imitate Hawthornesque themes and even certain stylistic/rhetorical features.