Contact: Marla Holt, Director
MHolt@acs.carleton.edu
(507) 646-4183

Oct. 11, 1999
Sp15

Carleton Student Wins $1,000 for Prize-Winning Essay

Norton Scholar's Prize Awarded to Senior Josh Ratner

Carleton College senior Josh Ratner won $1,000 for writing a playfully engaged essay titled "The Whiteness of the Whale, the Keellessness of the Coffin in Moby Dick." He is one of four runners-up for the 1999 Norton Scholar's Prize For Excellence in Undergraduate Literary Scholarship.

An English major from Amherst, Mass., Ratner wrote the essay based on Herman Melville's novel in a burst of inspiration the night before it was due as an assignment for an introductory American Literature course. His paper focused on the symbolism of the keelless boat the crew built as a coffin for a shipmate who was about to die. Linking keellessness to ambiguity in meaning and openness to interpretation, Ratner demonstrated the presence of this quality throughout the book by using the metaphor of a keelless boat to compare the ship's captain Ahab (whom Ratner decided was strongly keeled) with Ishmael, the narrator (who was keelless), and ultimately to praise Melville's own flexible (and keelless) narrative technique in Moby Dick.

Associate Professor of English Michael Kowalewski was immediately impressed with the paper, noticing in Ratner's writing a special kind of engagement with the text.

"It takes a certain kind of reader to get completely involved in Moby Dick," he said. "You have to be interested in detail. Josh really got into it-he began to live, sleep, eat, and drink it. That was the right mindset to do something really interesting."

Three prominent scholars apparently agreed, as the judges for the prize found Ratner's piece to "exceed most submitted essays in clarity of expression, originality and persuasiveness."

Ratner relied almost solely on his own creative analysis to write the paper, although he did read some secondary criticism before revising it for submission. Kowalewski commended the Norton prize selection committee for seeking such original thought, rather than application of theory or secondary criticism.

Ratner's plans for the prize money are fitting and frugal. He has considered putting the total sum in the bank and using the accrued interest to buy a book each month. He may also buy a high-quality pen, to replace a favorite he lost recently. Ratner insists the pen must be somewhere on the Carleton campus, and still looks for it wherever he goes. "It's my white whale," he commented, referring to Ahab's similar obsession in Moby Dick.

Although winning this prize has made him think more seriously about facing the challenge of graduate school, Ratner said he won't enroll right away. After graduation he plans to go to South America to learn to speak Spanish. Ratner is considering teaching high school English, and believes Spanish will be an invaluable tool.

Speaking the language isn't Ratner's only motivation to head south, though. "I'd like to learn the language of dance," he said. "I'm hoping to pick up a new rhythm to my speech-the rhythm of salsa."

Ratner intends to work his fascination with rhythm into another serious essay project. He plans to write a short paper on Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins for a class this winter, and expand it into an independent study project in the spring. His goal is to compare the meter of Hopkins' poetry to the rhythm of performance poetry and hip-hop music. Could this be another prize-winning essay? "Maybe," said Ratner, laughing.--by Jocelyn Christensen '00

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