It's important to remember that Melville and Digital Underground are storytellers at heart. The phallus is both an object of worship as well as narrative device to the extent that both are intent on telling a whale of a tale. It should also be noted that that in terms of classical dream interpretation, the whale is a symbol of snot. When children are reprimanded for picking their noses, their parents or teachers attempt to embarrass them by asking if they have caught a whale. And in the famous "Humpty Dance" video, Humpty Hump's overly large nose has a whale like capacity for mucus. The nose lays like a dark cloud over the rest of the video, to the extent that it threatens to unleash its contents on his crowd of admirers.
Etching of Joseph O. Eaton's portrait of Herman Melville
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