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"Ego Te Baptizo": The Typology Of Baptism In Moby-Dick, Kathryn Mogk

Global Tides

This paper examines baptismal imagery and themes in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick through the ancient exegetical practice of typology. This method of reading sees events, characters, and rituals as "types" or foreshadows of Christ's life, linking apparently disparate stories as an interdependent group. Melville simultaneously draws upon the typological associations of baptism and subverts them. Baptism appears in the novel as the washing away of sins, initiation into a new identity and community, second birth, initiation into mysteries, consecration for a holy purpose, and death and resurrection. However, Melville's baptisms are reversed, incomplete, or uncertain. The characters are not baptized into …