...American Literature Book Report Moby-Dick Herman Melville Moby-Dick by Herman Melville is about a boy named Ishmael and a Captain named Ahab, as they set off on a journey to catch a white whale. “There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.” This is one of the quotes in the book that really stick out. It can be applicable to a lot of people throughout the ages. Moby-Dick is very much a classic as it was written awhile back. Herman Melville set the time around the same time he published Moby-Dick in Pittsfield, Massachusetts around 1850. Ishmael, the narrator, does have experience as a sailor but this is the first time he goes whaling. While staying at a whaler's inn he meets Queequeg, a harpooner from the south and also a cannibal. After a while the two men become friends and begin looking for work on a whaling vessel together. In Nantucket, they end up getting a job on a boat called the Pequod. The captain of the Pequod is Ahab, who has recently lost a leg in a fight against Moby Dick. The Pequod sets out and as the ship reaches warmer and calmer waters, Ahab makes his entrance to the rest of the crew. He tells them his intention to kill Moby Dick, the great white whale that took his leg. Ahab sees Moby Dick as a main symbol of evil. As motivation...
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...Moby Dick: A Judgment of Ahab’s Character Everyone is responsible for their own actions; moreover, fate is just a scapegoat if something goes wrong. Captain Ahab, a character in the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville, is a victim of his own negligent actions. As a result, he faces an unfortunate death from the fury of the white whale. Ahab places all of his hate on the whale, whom is later referred to as Moby Dick, because he lost a leg to him. In his eyes, Moby Dick represents all of the hatred and evil in the world, and that he must go and destroy it. Yet, he is fully responsible for his own death due to the fact that he overlooked the warning signs that Nature and God provided for him, lacked communication between him and his shipmates, and preferred to be isolated from the crew in order to fuel his monomaniac conscience to put Moby Dick to his death. Because Ahab is the captain of the ship, he assumed that he ultimately had higher authority than God. God, in his mind, was in the wrong, by letting Moby Dick “dismember” (Melville 161) him; leading into Captain Ahab’s growing fixation with the beast. While being infatuated with Moby Dick, he is forced to ignore the obvious signs from Nature that were telling him to change his plans if he desired to live. However, Ahab chose to ignore the warning signs that were thrown at him throughout the novel. One omen that Ahab chose to pay no heed to was when the Pequod “was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck it directly ahead”...
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...Respect for Nature: An Eco-critical Read of Moby-Dick Abstract There are many conflicting ideas concerning Moby-Dick. One of the major themes in Moby-Dick is alienation between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Melville in Moby-Dick deals with the fight between man and nature, specifically speaking, the fight between Captain Ahab together with the crew on the whaling ship Pequod and the white whale Moby Dick. The book is an allegorical tragedy. Melville forewarned that if man relentlessly exploited and challenged nature like Captain Ahab, nature would punish us human beings. Man’s conquest and control on nature will leads to crisis. The harmonious relationship in ecosystem should be built. Human beings should respect nature and take proper advantage of nature, which could help avoid the ruin of the entire human beings. Introduction Moby-Dick, one of the greatest symbolic novels, is the masterpiece of Herman Melville. It displays the severe struggle between man and nature in American literature. And also there are many conflicting ideas concerning it. Moby-Dick is a vivid description of man’s encroachment on nature. The novel is generally regarded as an encyclopedia of many things: cetology, history, philosophy, religion and so on. Because of this, many reviews on this book from different points of view appear, such as from the point of view of psychology to reveal man’s psychic confusion as Ahab’s monomaniac syndrome; of the problems of identity...
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...proved to be a genius of his own, with his many works such as Moby Dick, Billy Bud, and Bartleby. Three distinct themes could be seen throughout most of his literature; whales and the whaling industry, commentary on the universe and human destiny, and ideas about God and nature. Moby Dick is an incredible work by Melville most often referred to as an epic, a tragedy, a novel, an exposition on the whaling, and a spiritual autobiography. It is often overlooked that a deeper, more symbolic, meaning may have been the driving force behind Moby Dick. Herman Melville was born on August 1, 1819, to Allan and Maria Melville. He was the third of eight children in the Melville family. He was generally described as silent and slow; his mother thought him to be a very dull child. In 1832 Melville suffered tragedy when his father died. Finishing school when he was fifteen, Melville took service as cabin boy aboard the St. Lawrence. After returning to his home in New York for some time after serving as cabin boy, Melville took berth as an ordinary seaman aboard a whaling ship called the Acushnet. After approximately four and a half years as a seaman on various ships, he set down, again in New York, to write of his experiences. Within six years he had published five books. Shortly thereafter Melville was married and moved his family to a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was at this location where Moby Dick was written. Moby Dick was first published in 1851. Melville continued to write...
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...the others had taken out oaths of violence and revenge" (194). "Moby-Dick was ubiquitous; that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same instance of time" (197). "Moby-Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal" (198). “Every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent” (199). “All evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick” (200). Most sailors view Moby-Dick as a deity. Many rumors support this belief including, "Moby-Dick was ubiquitous; that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same instance of time" (197), and, "Moby-Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal" (198). They believe that he was so powerful he can be everywhere at once. He had control over his actions and he was intelligent and he knew he was killing men and did it on purpose, “Every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent” (199). Sailors, especially Captain Ahab, believed that Moby-Dick was an evil monster, saying, "I learned the history of that murderous monster against who I and all the others had taken out oaths of violence and revenge" (194). Captain Ahab saw Moby-Dick as the ultimate evil, “All evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick”...
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...Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Limits of Knowledge As Ishmael tries, in the opening pages of Moby-Dick, to offer a simple collection of literary excerpts mentioning whales, he discovers that, throughout history, the whale has taken on an incredible multiplicity of meanings. Over the course of the novel, he makes use of nearly every discipline known to man in his attempts to understand the essential nature of the whale. Each of these systems of knowledge, however, including art, taxonomy, and phrenology, fails to give an adequate account. The multiplicity of approaches that Ishmael takes, coupled with his compulsive need to assert his authority as a narrator and the frequent references to the limits of observation (men cannot see the depths of the ocean, for example), suggest that human knowledge is always limited and insufficient. When it comes to Moby Dick himself, this limitation takes on allegorical significance. The ways of Moby Dick, like those of the Christian God, are unknowable to man, and thus trying to interpret them, as Ahab does, is inevitably futile and often fatal. The Deceptiveness of Fate In addition to highlighting many portentous or foreshadowing events, Ishmael’s narrative contains many references to fate, creating the impression that the Pequod’s doom is inevitable. Many of the sailors believe in prophecies, and some even claim the ability to foretell the...
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...I believe Frederick Douglass would find Melville’s chapter 42 of Moby Dick, titled “The Whiteness of the Whale,” most compelling. Moby Dick’s whiteness may symbolize nobility, virtue, fear, and racial superiority. We learn that most men fear Moby Dick, and Ishmael focuses on the fear his color creates amongst them. This all correlates with the fear of the unknown and fear of the white man. I say this because of Ahab’s relationship with the whale. Moby Dick took away his leg, which is a representation of his inability to fully assimilate into society, just as slaves had a hard time becoming equal citizens. Ahab’s missing leg can parallel to the missing rights of slaves that white man has taken away. Also I found the way Melville speaks about...
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...In the novel Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, a microcosm lives in the Pequod. Throughout the story, the microcosm is apparent in the control and superiority of Captain Ahab, friendship, religion, and the struggles of good and evil. The Pequod symbolizes the views, actions, thoughts, and the various types of people in the world. Ahab’s power and authority show that he is the leader in this small world. He conjures allegiance and fear out of the crew. Dagoo, Tashtego, and Queequeg are the minorities on the ship(for obvious reasons) and represent the minorities of the world. They band together when one is in danger. Starbuck is very religious and portrays the devout of the world. His faith and reverence keep him sane during the long journey. The rest of the crew depicts the average people of the world. They show how gullible and vulnerable we can be sometimes. To win over the crew, Ahab uses his knowledge of human nature to coax them into helping him with his vengeance. The first thing he does is nails the gold doubloon to the mast and promises it to the first man to see Moby Dick. By doing so, he makes them remember what their reward will be when they see the whale. Next he gives them rum to reach the gluttonous side of man. This shows that we are weak and give in to pleasure. After that he cuts his palm, squeezes the blood out, drips it in the rum and tells them to drink it. This shows Ahab trying to get to the religious aspect of man by having them drink his blood...
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...most well renown and analyzed classics, Moby Dick. Throughout this novel, Melville alludes to various themes and personal beliefs through the literary devices he incorporates and embeds in his characters trials and tribulations. Melville's encapsulation of an adventurous tone and the biblical allusion of King Ahab, leads one to believe he wrote Moby Dick to depict that a man's desire for inner peace will cause him to chose life-threatening ways actions. From page one, Melville embodies and utilizes tone to help foster the characterization of Ishmael, the main character. This is immediately witnessed in the first line of the novel, "Call me Ishmael." While this line is brief, it is extremely significant to the story and serves as the foundation to the tone. Melville uses this time period, in which whaling was illustrated as a heroic craft, to provide a feeling of angst and excitement to the diction of Ishmael's first three words, thus...
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...Moby-Dick is one of the most controversial and entertaining books known. Along with the book the themes are also extremely entertaining. Herman Melville is the outstanding mind behind this masterpiece. Herman Melville included the powerful theme of defiance, the worshipping theme of duty, and sorrowful theme of death. This book showed both respect for nature along with respect-less people. Throughout Mr. Melville showed his great mind along with his writing skills. Defiance is one of the numerous major themes of this book. One of the most defiant of all of the characters is Ahab. Ahab want to be so much more of a person than what he really and truly is (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). This fact that he can not be drives him crazy throughout the...
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...and he had potent figures in his ancestry. When Herman was eleven years old, his father became mentally deranged and soon died because of it. (Herbert 244-245) After the death of his father, Herman made many attempts to sustain himself and his family. He worked in a bank, briefly studied engineering, and even became a teacher for a short while. Afterwards, he went on a trip to Liverpool, on board the St. Lawrence (Hillway 31-37). Then, he became a sailor aboard the whaling ship, the Acushnet, in 1841 (Herbert 245). Melville’s adventures at sea truly inspired him to write Moby Dick. On August 4, 1847, Herman Melville married Elizabeth Shaw. They had four children: Malcolm, Stanwix, Elizabeth, and Frances. The family moved to Arrowhead, a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Here he met and befriended Nathaniel Hawthorne, another famous author of the time. Moby-Dick was dedicated to him. (Merriman)After Moby-Dick, or...
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...Religion is one of the earliest themes that emerged in Moby Dick. There are a numerous amount of religions that are each shown with equal respect towards in the novel. It is unusual for a novel to do something like putting Christians and pagans on the same level. As it is a contrast to what America was like during the time the book was written. In addition, the novel also uses a great deal of biblical symbolism in the names and allegorical roles of the characters. Moby Dick can be interpreted as a reflection of Melville’s religious philosophy. Using his characters as symbolism and allegories allows him to show his opinion on religion. One of the clearest symbols being the whale, Moby Dick. The whale is "not only ubiquitous, but immortal,"(Melville, 179) and it can be interpreted as a symbol of God or a servant of God. Ahab chases the whale in an attempt to defy God. This can suggest that Melville believes that things will not end well for those who attempt to defy God, hence why in the book Ahab and the crew die. In chapter 9, the only “clergy man”, Father Maple tells us “The story of Jonah”. It tells that God makes us do things we do know want to do for our own good. "The things God wants us to do are hard for us to do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists."(Melville, 40). This can be interpreted that throughout...
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...Ahab • The Character of Ahab Ahab is the captain of the Pequod's. Long before his first appearance, there is an air of mystery about him. When the narrator Ishmael inquires about the captain, he is told that Ahab is a man of few words but deep meaning. From this we can see clearly that Ahab is a complicated character. When Ahab speaks, others will easily listen to him and be moved by his powerful persuasion. When the time he gathers the crewmen and requests their support in the purpose for the voyage: to hunt down and kill the White Whale, he asks a series of questions that call for collective responses, and then the crewmen are increasingly excited. In the end, all of the crewmen except for the first mate, Starbuck, are all in the monomaniacal goal of pursuing the White Whale. • Ahab vs. Moby-Dick When the first mate, Starbuck, accuses Ahab of blasphemy for seeking revenge against the White Whale, Ahab doesn’t consider it a vice. He once says that he would “strike the sun if it insulted me.” Ahab wants to take control of the nature. To him, the White Whale is the evil force which is his true enemy, and he believes that the evil force wants to injure him, to limit his role in the world. Ahab refuses to submit to any higher power. He does not worship or even acknowledge the superiority of forces beyond himself. Ahab is ungodly but god-like; perhaps he even wants to be God. • Ahab’s Fate But we can see a different side of...
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...A person, who is over zealous in their ambitions to achieve a certain goal, may in the end find themselves further away from where they started. Within Herman Melville’s, Moby Dick, the reader is able to understand this when they follow Ahab’s journey through his past experiences with the white whale, as well as the ones he is about to face. Ahab had once been on a whaling journey through the world’s oceans, when he came upon a whale like no other, a white whale. The fact that this whale was white; a color that shows great power, as well as rarity, drew Ahab into a hunt for that white whale, Moby Dick. This whale, however, seemed to be more brilliant than the others, and not only was it able to escape, but it took one of Ahab’s legs as a souvenir. Since that very day, Ahab has seen his fate as being the one who would kill this whale, and finally extract his revenge on that beast. That is when the Pequod takes of on its long journey around the world, in search of this magnificent whale. Within Ahab’s hunt for the great whale, he is faced with his obsession over killing the whale, that he does not even sleep at night, as well as his drive to get revenge on a whale that took of his leg, and within his fury, Ahab does not take the cosmic signs that are shown to him as anything but a mere joke that can be shrugged...
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...American Literature November 20th, 2012 Perception: The True Meaning of Identity The works published by Whitman, Edwards, and Melville continue to astonish literary critiques today. It amazes me how three writers with such unique qualities all seem to stitch together the same ideas about the “American Identity.” Whitman chooses to see sex as an empowerment on our human race. While Edwards argues that God’s love inspires a fruitful outlook on a trivial life, Melville has no spiritual views and instead ignites his own reasoning to form his perceptions. Whitman’s theory of an American identity rests on an interpretation of sexual reproduction within our humanity. Children of Adam gives our lives true purpose and sheds light on the importance of love and procreation. After reading his poetry, it resurrected a thought I had during our class discussions. We live an endless paradox where life cannot hope to exist without death, good without evil, day without night, and so on. “The oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh daughters, The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through” (p.2208). Compared to our vast universe, a human being may seem insignificant, yet we hold the key to restoration and preservation of our societal life cycle. Whitman’s poems paralleled the bible when he referred to God’s love for Adam and Eve that was so great, it drove to their creation for his Garden of...
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