Rhetorical Analysis Of Melville By Herman Melville

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
Melville’s emphasis of “no mercy, and no power” indicated the contentious and malevolent nature of the sea; in addition to the potent physical and mental characteristics mentioned before. By mentioning the danger and futile nature of the landsmen's mission to conquest, Melville advised the them to surrender before the sea took real action and caused unpredictable harm. The sea’s manipulative savvy, irrepressible strength, and relentless characteristic all seemed to belittle the human kind for their weak and underdeveloped whole, for men were deemed incapable to comprehend the perplexity of the sea and powerless to prevail the extensive sea physically. Melville extended upon the belittlement of men by the sea earlier on as well with a staggering contrast in word choice. He stated that though “baby men” were pleased with their prolonged sea-discoveries and advanced technology, the potent and ruthless sea would still “insult and murder” them. By utilizing the word “baby”, Melville indicated that his audience, the ignorant men of the earth, were essentially optimistic and naive about the truth, and