AS SEEN ON TV: FATHER MAPPLE

FATHER MAPPLE

AS SEEN IN:

"Moby Dick"

AS PLAYED BY:

Donald Sutherland

TV DIMENSION:

Land of Remakes

STATUS:

Recastaway

CREATED BY:

Herman Melville

From the Moby Dick Study Guide:

Father Mapple, the famous preacher, was once a sailor and a harpooner, but had dedicated his life to the ministry for several years. Father Mapple enjoys a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, so Ishmael cannot suspect him of any mere stage tricks. On the front of the pulpit is the likeness of a ship's bluff bows and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's fiddle-headed beak. Ishmael wonders what the meaning could be, for the pulpit is the earth's foremost part; all the rest comes from in its rear, and the pulpit leads the world. According to Ishmael, "the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete, and the pulpit is its prow."

From the source:

Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered the scattered people to condense. ‘Starboard gangway, there! side away to larboard — larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!’

There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women’s shoes, and all was quiet again, and every eye on the preacher.

He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit’s bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.

This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog — in such tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy –

‘The ribs and terrors in the whale,

Arched over me a dismal gloom,

While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by,

And lift me deepening down to doom.

‘I saw the opening maw of hell,

With endless pains and sorrows there;

Which none but they that feel can tell —

Oh, I was plunging to despair.

‘In black distress, I called my God,

When I could scarce believe him mine,

He bowed his ear to my complaints —

No more the whale did me confine.

With speed he flew to my relief,

As on a radiant dolphin borne;

Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone

The face of my Deliverer God.

‘My song for ever shall record

That terrible, that joyful hour;

I give the glory to my God,

His all the mercy and the power.’

Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm.

BCnU!