Preview

Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: Techniques Used to Explore Complex Themes

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
933 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: Techniques Used to Explore Complex Themes
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, first published in 1851.[2] It is considered to be one of the Great American Novels. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg, which now drives Ahab to take revenge.
In Moby-Dick, Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and metaphor to explore numerous complex themes. Through the journey of the main characters, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God are all examined, as the main characters speculate upon their personal beliefs and their places in the universe. The narrator's reflections, along with his descriptions of a sailor's life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the narrative along with Shakespearean literary devices, such as stage directions, extended soliloquies, and asides. The book portrays destructive obsession and monomania, as well as the assumption of anthropomorphism.
Moby-Dick has been classified as American Romanticism. It was first published by Richard Bentley in London on October 18, 1851, in an expurgated three-volume edition titled The Whale, and weeks later as a single volume, by New York City publisher Harper and Brothers as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale on November 14, 1851. The book initially received mixed reviews, but is now considered part of the Western canon,[3] and at the center of the canon of American novels.
Moby-Dick was published in 1851 during what has been called the American Renaissance, which saw the publication of Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) as well as Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854), and the first edition of Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855).
Two actual events

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    4. The narrator states that Moby Dick symbolizes three different meanings for three different characters. List the characters and the meaning which Moby Dick symbolizes for each of them. Captain Ahab symbolizes King Ahab from the `bible; the whale is symbol of God or the Devil.…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    It starts bumping onto their shit and about 2 men had died because the power of the whale was the power of 10 elephants and it had many run ins with other ships. The struggle against Moby Dick lasts three days. On the first day, Ahab spies the whale himself, and the whaling boats row after it. Moby Dick attacks Ahab's boat, causing it to sink, but Ahab survives the ordeal when he reaches Stubb's boat. Despite this first failed attempt at defeating the whale, Ahab pursues him for a second day. On the second day of the chase, roughly the same defeat occurs. This time Moby Dick breaks Ahab's ivory leg, while Fedallah dies when he becomes entangled in the harpoon line and is drowned. After this second attack, Starbuck chastises Ahab, telling him that his pursuit is impious and blasphemous. Ahab declares that the chase against Moby Dick is immutably decreed, and pursues it for a third day. On the third day of the attack against Moby Dick, Starbuck panics for ceding to Ahab's demands, while Ahab tells Starbuck that "some ships sail from their ports and ever afterwards are missing," seemingly admitting the futility of his…

    • 1849 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through showing this inner conflict within Captain Vere, Melville demonstrates one the major themes of this work. Throughout Billy Budd, we see the struggle of whether to obey the law. This is hinted upon early in the book when the narrator tells us of the “Great Mutiny” which had recently passed. This conflict was of seamen who revolted against their seniors. We see this again when Billy Budd is visited by an afterguard who asks for Billy to join an uprising. Billy is quick to decline, knowing that it is much better to obey the law than to appose…

    • 345 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eng 3 Moby Dick

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages

    4. The narrator states that Moby Dick symbolizes three different meanings for three different characters. List the characters and the meaning which Moby Dick symbolizes for each of them.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sue Monk Kidd

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The American literature period was considered to be born around the time of the Mayflower (estimated 1630s) and is still growing throughout the present time. As America…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The state of American literature in 1700, consisting of only about 250 published works, reflects the pressing religious, security, and cultural concerns of colonial life. Printing press operated in New York. The most prolific author of the period was Cotton Mather.…

    • 1554 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For example in Moby Dick it states, “...expecting the whale to come toward the smaller boat where Ahab is waiting with a harpoon.” This shows that Moby Dick is more of a fictional story due to the use of weaponry because a harpoon is portrayed as a fictional weapon. Another difference between Moby Dick and Blackfish is that in Moby Dick they went to get revenge on a whale before there was a death that had occurred as opposed to Blackfish where they went to get another whale after a death occurred. For example in Moby Dick it says how the captain had only lost a leg before they went to get revenge but in Blackfish they had lost a life from a whale before they went to get another whale. These are the differences between Moby Dick and…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Moby Dick Passage Analysis

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The story of the Essex’s begins in an innkeeper's house. This is where the great journey will start and then end it. In one night the story of Moby Dick will be told, from the great adventures, to its turmoils, to the never ending pain but in the end truth will rings out.…

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    application of analogy, I couldn’t help, but draw the conclusion that Melville intended for the…

    • 981 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ahab is considered “Emerson’s transcendental philosopher turned satanic” (qtd Mahmoudi 155) while Bulkington is portrayed as a formidably strong man who prefers the open sea over the land, solitude over companionship, and intellectual freedom over dogma. Through Bulkington’s character, Melville concludes that it is possible to engage in a harmless Transcendentalist quest for free thought. When Bulkington is first introduced in the chapter titled “The Spouter Inn,” he said to be someone who “held somewhat aloof” (Melville 29), already portrayed as someone who is self-reliant. As stated previously, throughout Moby Dick there is the “symbolic opposition of land and sea” (qtd Romero), that the sea is symbolically the realm of the Transcendentalist, which Bulkington is constantly drawn towards. Bulkington epitomizes the Transcendentalist as he shuns conformity, security, and orthodoxy for the desire to gain knowledge and explore the unknown. Although Bulkington is also fated to die at sea with the crew of the Pequod, Ishmael considers his death much more noble, as it is during the search to find the full truth, and declare that the sea will transform Bulkington into a god, as he will be the god over himself obtaining ultimate self-reliance (Melville…

    • 1817 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis: Brit Melville employed personification and contrasting diction to exemplify the unbalanced relationship between the sea and the human race, which established that the sea would forever be unfathomable to landsmen and the landsmen would forever live at it’s mercy; thus warning those ignorant men that the dream of conquering the sea shall remain a dream. Melville portrayed the sea as a godly and omnipotent being, so immensely powerful that “no mercy, no power but its own controls it”. The word “own” embedded here implied that the sea obtained a mind of it’s own, a mind capable of acknowledging emotions and of dictating a brilliant race. By affirming the intellectual and humanistic characters of the sea, Melville informed the citizens clinging onto solid ground that they were far from being qualified for the battle against…

    • 426 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    the St. Lawrence voyage, is said to be largely based on Melville 's life as a crew member of the…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    * Herman Millville: Moby Dick: was not written for your head; it was written for your heart.…

    • 2291 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When Melville published his short story in 1853, the city of New York was booming in business and commerce, so it is largely inductively probable that Melville wrote his story with the idea of making a statement about this young metropolis. This claim is furthered as the story was originally written with the subtitle of “A Story of Wall Street” (The Melville Log). The importance and the implications of Wall Street being the setting for this story, is that at that time in American history, the country was hitting a new industrial “boom”, migrating many people from rural areas to cities. Many Americans were trying make their share in the new wealth by being a part of this fast paced lifestyle. But while this was happening, many had not realized that their own humanity and identity was being stripped from them. For example, in Bartleby, the Scrivener, the Manhattan Lawyer and his four scriveners spend nearly every day, from morning until evening, doing work together, yet they hardly know anything about one another. An example of this is when the narrator asks Bartleby, who symbolizes humanity, questions about himself: “’Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?’ ’I would prefer not to.’ ‘Will you tell me anything about yourself?’ ‘I would prefer not to.’” (15). These disparities in interactions are especially seen when this work by Melville is compared to other ones by him, like Moby Dick, where the protagonist, Ishmael, voyages throughout the seas with a crew of whale hunters, and learns about the personal lives of almost all of his fellow crew members. This office setting is starkly different, as the narrator knows almost nothing about his employees’ personal lives; and is exactly what Melville was trying to say about work in New York offices at…

    • 1502 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This leads to a further breakdown of representation provided by Aristotle who claims that, "representations differ from one another in three ways: in object, manner and means. The ‘object' is that which is represented; the ‘manner' is the way in which it is represented; the ‘means' is the material that is used" (13). In other words, without these three items together, representation presents difficulties examining particular ideas and their roots. For example, Moby Dick by Herman Melville explores the limits of knowledge, deceptiveness of fate, surface and depths, the Pequod and Moby Dick itself. These symbols, also known as objects, provide themes represented throughout the novel to gain understanding of the author's outlook on life and more specifically, the life of Ishmael, the main character. Melville uses…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays