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Moby Dick Rhetorical Analysis

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On October 18, 1851, Herman Melville published one of America's 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 …show more content…
During a conversation both Queequeg and Ishmael share with Elijah, a stranger they met before boarding the Pequod, Melville uses Elijah to draw a parallel between Captain Ahab and King Ahab through his warning to both sailors, "...the ineffable heaven bless ye: I'm sorry I stopped ye." Elijah tells both of them about Captain Ahab's frightening whaling past and the dangers that would ensue the voyage as a result of his quest for the white whale. This alludes to the prophecy made by the Prophet Elijah to King Ahab in the Old Testament, who warned him of what his greed and ambition for Naboth's Vineyard would induce. In both literary pieces, the prophecies came true; Captain Ahab and King Ahab are ruined as a result of the risks they are willing to take in order to seek

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