ABSTRACT
This chapter explains into the trope-work of the turn, including and surrounding hieroglyphics, weavings, the "nameless yeast," tattoos, circles, and the squeeze in order to demonstrate how Ishmael/Melville creates and sustains one of the most thorough reflections on protean energy in literature. It presents some key facets regrading protean energy that become crucial for the unfolding of Holding on. The squeeze and the subsequent turn begin to articulate one facet of protean energy. The energy of the squeeze takes place in the larger context of a uterine contraction, where circles upon circles bear down, contract, and squeeze the crew who arrives at the center of a great "lake" in the ocean, sealed off by the mountainous bodies of whales. Like Menelaus, who held on to the Ancient One, squeezing him and therefore witnessing the morphing of myriad forms, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale demonstrates, grapples with, and explores protean energy.
