Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

206revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to follow” (137; emphasis mine). This chapter ispresented as the beginning of the narrative, yet it only comes to supplement the previous chaptersand thus to postpone further the beginning. This chapter is indispensable to the comprehension ofstoryline. It gives the illusion that there will be a beginning, but it only clarifies the system ofsigns that the whole narrative is dealing with. This spatial and temporal conjunction of the signsdelays the unfolding of the question of the “origin” and question the possibility of understandingthe nature of the Sperm Whale: “the Sperm Whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete in anyliterature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an unwritten life” (139).The presentation of the system of cetology resembles the re-presentation of the WhiteWhale’s movementa movement that also parallels the text’s folding and unfolding. Both corpusand corpse deny any definition and delay any final denouement. Even the epilogue, with itsdeclaration that “the drama is over,” is only another supplement in the chain of signification. Theepilogue is in fact the actual narrative prologue. This circular movement, very central to Derrida’stheory of deconstruction, structures Moby-Dick. This economy of circularity may be said to benarrative pedestal upon which reposes the three chapters that constitute “The Chase.” Those threechapters, the center of the narrative, are about trauma, which is of course but another version of amissed encounter. Ishmael wants to leave his cetological system open, leaving it to posterity:“God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draughtnay, but thedraught of draught” (149). This cetological system is but a displacement of the sign system, adisplacement that goes beyond the scientific or literary sign systems. This chapter explains thatany taxonomic attempt to define the whale is doomed to fail. Although Moby Dick belongs to thefamily of Sperm Whales, it is different from them in many respects (whiteness, size,