"Never get out of the boat"

Ok so these guys, Tyler and Jack, walk into a bar and shout to the barman "Hey, Dick! Give us two Essex' and a side of whale, sperm whale."

The bars packed, so the barman is a little slow in getting them their order. They get a little impatient and start making a fuss. Dick, the barman, shouts back at them due to their continued ruckus making, "Jesus, calm it down, Chase and Pollard! You'd think you were about to end up eating each other!"

The bar goes silent. Tyler vanishes all of a sudden and Jack gets up in Dick's face, "Listen here, Moby Dick. First rule about Cannibal Club is 'Never talk about Cannibal Club.'"

Dick goes pale in the face for a moment before grinning and pushing Jack and Tyler's order onto the floor, "Well that ship has already sailed. Guess I just sunk it."

Don't get the joke? Well, I didn't understand how Fight Club and In the Heart of the Sea went together either at first (I just threw in Moby Dick for shiggles so disregard that). As it’s sometimes easier to think of something in terms of something else, let us look at their connection as the “Lost Boy” connection. While this is one of many, it is one that brings about very interesting concepts and metaphors in both the book and the movie. First, let’s analyze Fight Club.

Everyone knows that Peter Pan lives in Neverland, the second star to the right and straight on til morning, and that no one ever grows up there. Fairies and mermaids are real, Indians celebrate their culture with pride and no fear of persecution…every fantasy comes to fruition. It’s a real utopia for all children and for anyone who refuses to grow older. What does Peter Pan have to do with Fight Club you ask? I shall tell you! In Fight Club, Jack ends up living with a man named Tyler. Now see, Tyler has this old, rundown house that he lives in. Everything leaks, the water is disgusting, the floors are treacherous, no one is around for miles…and it holds a power over both Tyler and Jack. It becomes their sanctuary. Here, they have no cares and don’t have to think about the outside world. Their house is their Neverland, and they are the lost boys who inhabit it. They are the boys who have never grown up and who constantly and subconsciously search for their place in the world around them. Tyler releases his hold on adulthood by renouncing thinghood: “The things you own end up owning you,” (Fight Club). This obsession with the material takes Jack a while to let go of, it was an obsession for the longest time while he went about his day simply because he had to and not because he wanted to. He was essentially a thing himself and thusly, was practicing what Sartre calls “bad faith.” It took discovering his own Neverland and discovering his need for emotional release for him to let go and embrace life the way that the lost boys in Peter Pan do. “Let’s stop being perfect and evolve,” Tyler says (Fight Club). He wants to evolve into his true self, to stop trying to be perfect all the time and just live. Which is what Jack both wants and needs (evidenced by the fact that Tyler IS Jack).

I don’t know if I’ve ever had a Neverland. I mean, sure. I know what it’s like to live life as a thing, an automaton, never doing things for yourself but always because you either have to or other people expect it of you. Unfortunately, I’m still there. However, it is through quotes like Tyler’s about the need to evolve instead of being perfect, like Emerson’s about life not being an apology, like Rilke’s “Hiersein ist herrlich” that my want to cease thinghood emerges. I know I’ll never be like Tyler or Jack and completely let go of the need for perfection and the subconscious pull to do things for others instead of yourself, I don’t think myself or my chronic depression would allow that. However, I’m keeping my eye on the horizon and hoping that someday, I can let go and find a Neverland that enables me to let go of this depression.

Which, in a way, is what Pollard does In the Heart of the Sea; he overcomes his forced “survival mode” and forgives both himself and the crew. He finds strength and integrity but most of all, he integrates his experience into who and what he is by even forgiving the whale. He transcends thinghood by getting on a boat again, by living out his life by his own means. He lets the incident go as much as he can, though he does fast on the anniversary of the sinking. Chase on the other hand, does not let it go. In fact, he profits from the tragedy and sensationalizes it (Phillbrick 205). He lets the tragedy rule him and never gets on a boat again. He never escapes his survivor mode and remains a lost boy for the rest of his days. Unlike Pollard who left behind his days as a lost boy yet still found his Neverland status by accepting what happened as a tragic accident and moving on with life. Whereas Chase, along with never letting it go, does not accept what happened as an accident and tries to place the blame on someone or something to excuse it and to escape his role in the tragedy. "Chase began to wonder what "unaccountable destiny or design" had been at work. It almost seemed as if something--could it have been God?--had possessed the beast for its own strange, unfathomable purpose. Whatever or whoever might be behind it, Chase was convinced that "anything but chance" had sunk the Esssex," (89).

In the story of In the Heart of the Sea, Pollard and Chase’s status as lost boys parallels their feelings to the aftermath of the sinking and their troubling memories. Letting go of something is perhaps one of the hardest things to do, especially a memory, which is how Pollard is able to escape being a lost boy and become found. I don’t think I could ever let go of my troubling memories, especially the ones concerning my father. I don’t think I could ever let go of the fear, the hurt, the hatred, and the dejection; I don’t think I could ever let go of my feelings of inadequacy from his leaving. However, unlike Chase, I’m not going to let my troubling memories rule me and I’m going to continue to believe in “hiersein ist herrlich” if it’s the last thing I do.