Preview

Moby Dick Paper

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1270 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Moby Dick Paper
In the year 1891, Herman Melville, of New York City, New York, passed away, saddening a wide and diverse fan base that extended across the globe. His works can be enjoyed whether your 6 or 60, relating to everyone because his books involve real people with flaws and downfall, and basic human emotion. Melville was an exceptional author, influenced greatly by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne influenced Melville in such a way, it inspired him to rewrite Moby Dick, which was later inscribed to Hawthorne as a token of Melville's admiration for his genius.
The three works, Moby Dick, Billy Budd, and Benito Cyrano, all written by Herman Melville, have unique qualities and characters that all differ greatly. Although they all take place on ships at sea, you will also notice that the protagonist characters, Captain Delano, Captain Benito Cereno, Captain Ahab, and Billy Budd, appear to have very similar qualities, all of which that are entailed in every man which are strengths and weaknesses along with desire and flaws. These subtle qualities shows Melville's signature for his distinct writing making for all these stories to be considered among the greatest works of literature.
In Benito Cyrano There were two protagonists, Captain Delano and Captain Benito Cereno. Captain Delano obvious weakness may have been his behavior aboard the ship, The San Dominick. He proved to be too good-natured, and way to easily dismissing any thought of foul play. This may have

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    AP US History Quiz Ch10

    • 1854 Words
    • 8 Pages

    7) ___E___ A) Herman Melville-novels B) George Caleb Bingham-painting C) Nathaniel Hawthorne-novels D) Walt Whitman-poetry E) Oliver Wendell Holmes-painting…

    • 1854 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Billy Budd Ap English Iii

    • 3359 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Born to Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill, on August 1, 1819, Herman Melville was the third of eight children who grew up in New York. By the mid- 1830s, Melville had already started writing, but unfortunately, his family had financial problems, and he had to take a job as a cabin boy on a merchant ship that set sail in June 1839. In January of 1841, he sailed again on a whaler named Acushnet and embarked on an excursion to the South Seas; and later the same year he enrolled on an Australian whaler, Lucy Ann, which anchored Tahiti. These two locations are where he found his inspiration for his first novel, Typee (1846), and his second novel Omoo (1847), which both describe Melville’s somewhat romanticized version of his experiences on these islands. Over the next decade, Melville wrote seven more novels…

    • 3359 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. In this video, we immediately learn of an obsessed captain who wants revenge. Why does he want revenge and against whom or what? The captain wants revenge again Moby Dick who is a great white whale that took the captain’s leg.…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener”. The Riverside Anthology of Short Fiction: Conventions and Innovation. Ed. Dean Baldwin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. 191-217.…

    • 1405 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eng 3 Moby Dick

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages

    5. Why did Melville choose to write about whaling? Why was the industry significant? He chose to write about whaling because, in that time, it was such a popular and care-free industry- meaning that there weren’t any restrictions on whale and hunting and what not. During the 1800s, the whaling industry was at the height of its era In New England- supplying the world with oil for street lamps, lanterns, and all kinds of machinery. Whale oil was the oil of commerce.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    3.06 Moby Dick

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages

    7. When Melville was writing Moby Dick, he met an established writer known as Nathaniel Hawthorne.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory 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
  • Good Essays

    Herman Melville comes closer to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s cynicism not Henry James. Melville thinks that Hawthorne shows you the loveliness and infatuation of life then later on frightens you with the ideas of sin, evil and guilt. James says that all that Hawthorne’s work is dark and mysterious, and simply that, nothing more, which I think is incorrect. There are plenty of reasons why Melville understands the message and pessimism behind Hawthorne’s writing that James does not see.…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bartleby the Scrivener

    • 1362 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In Bartleby the Scrivener, a lawyer on Wall Street who is in need of additional copyists hires a man named Bartleby, who is quiet, reserved, and mysterious. After a few days of doing an extraordinary job of copying, Bartleby is asked to compare a copy sheet, to which he replies, "I would prefer not to." The lawyer is surprised at the employee 's response but does nothing in retaliation. Several days later when asked to do something "perfectly reasonable" Bartleby again replies, "I would prefer not to." The lawyer goes into his office one Sunday morning and is surprised that Bartleby is there. He realizes that Bartleby has been living in his office. Back at work the next week thereafter, the attorney questions Bartleby about his past. He doesn 't learn anything. Bartleby quits doing any work, claiming poor eyesight, but he won 't leave the office. He continues to live in the office, and prefers not to leave or to start working again. Out of frustration and to be rid of Bartleby, who neither works nor pays rent, the lawyer relocates his office. He is soon called upon by his old landlord to get Bartleby out of his building. Upon his visit, the attorney tries to reason with Bartleby, but Bartleby prefers not to do anything. The lawyer leaves and a few days later learns that Bartleby has been taken to the Tombs. He goes to visit Bartleby in jail, who will not eat, and a few visits later, the lawyer finds Bartleby lying in the prison yard, curled up in a fetal position. Bartleby had died, apparently from starvation. Questions remain: Why did Bartleby always prefer not to? Why can 't he make friends or communicate? What is the cause for his rebellion? On another note, why does the lawyer show so much charity and sympathy towards Bartleby?…

    • 1362 Words
    • 6 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

    Nathaniel Hawthorn and Herman Melville developed a friendship despite their differences as they both saw a dark side to human existence, and they sought to record this aspect of human nature in their works.…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Great Gatsby-Santiago

    • 1109 Words
    • 5 Pages

    This may be true in all cases, but it is clearly predominant in Ernest Hemingway 's Old Man and the Sea. It is evident that Hemingway modeled the main character, Santiago after his own person, and that the desires, the mentality, and the lifestyle of the old man are identical to Hemingway 's.…

    • 1109 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    "Bartleby the Scrivener," is one of the most complicated stories Melville has ever written, perhaps by any American writer of that period. It id a deep and symbolic work, its make you think of every little detail differently. It makes you realize that a little detail actually make a difference and give a meaning to the story analysis.…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Hemingway’s literature he creates very real characters. Characters that are not caricatures but characters that have strengths and weaknesses. Frederic Henry, the protagonist in A Farewell To Arms, is a very flawed person yet he shows courage and bravery by putting himself in the front lines of the First World War. What separates Frederic Henry from other characters in literature are his very human character traits.…

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays