A Refleversical Analysis Of Moy Dick And Moby Dick

At the end of the novel Ishmael is no longer the naïve man he once was, as he informs the reader, "a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard"#. The beliefs he possesses at the point of his rescue by "The Rachel" seem reminiscent of transcendentalism, an idea that was prominent in 1836 and one that inspired not only Melville himself but also Henry Thoreau.

    One might say we are presented with two fish stories in looking at Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, a marlin in the former and a whale in the latter.  However, both of these animals are symbolic of the struggle their hunters face to find dignity and meaning in the face of a nihilistic universe in Hemingway and a fatalistic one in Melville.  While both men will be unable to conquer the forces of the universe against them, neither will either man be conquered by them because of their refusal to yield to these insurmountable forces.  However, Santiago gains a measure of peace and understanding about existence from his struggles, while Ahab leaves the

In Chapter 36, Ahab finally chooses to reveal the true purpose of this whaling voyage: To hunt down and kill Moby Dick. He does so through a grandiose speech in which he rallies almost the entire crew to his cause through a number of persuasive techniques. Ahab begins his speech by asking the crew a few basic questions about whaling. These questions lay out the basic purpose of this voyage: To hunt whales. In doing so, Ahab is laying the groundwork to convince the crew to hunt down a very specific whale: Moby Dick. In addition, the call-and-response used in this portion of the speech unifies and excites the crew, thereby making them more open to what Ahab is about to say. Immediately following this, Ahab reveals his desire to kill the White Whale and offers an ounce of gold to the first man to spot it. This use of bribery piques the interest of the crew and offers an

This excerpt confirms the idea that Ahab has spent his life obsessing over killing whales particularly Moby Dick. He admits that he has become a “demon” in his yearning for vengeance of his lost limb.

A vengeful man, a native, and a man seeking enlightenment board a whaling vessel; this isn’t a joke, this is the United States of America throughout history and the members of the Pequod. Moby Dick is not just a tale about a whaling venture gone awry, it is a metaphor for what America was and is. The Pequod represents the country and government, while the 30 crew members (Melville 430; ch. 126) represents the United State citizens. This would have not been possible to consider in Melville’s time, but it is a true testament to literature being a living text. Melville wasn’t only writing about America in the 1800’s, he was writing about the natures of humanity, and the future of our society.

As if this whale has some sort of overruling power that they are actually unaware of and that have only heard from stories. However Ahab interprets this whale to be nothing less than evil based off of his leg being scavenged by Moby Dick previously, so his mission is solely for revenge.

In the novel, Ahab seemed to have applied the same philosophy in his operations. Though little is known about Ahab’s family life, the captain’s actions are highly driven by his personal affairs. Starbuck advised Ahab to abandon his selfish pursuits and stick to the orders of the ship owners; that of collecting profitable amounts of whale oil. The captain fiercely objected Starbuck’s instructions, even threatening to shoot him. Ahab disregarded friendships and instructed his sailors to kill Moby Dick.

(391 Melville) Here, Ishmael breaks his usual detached observancy and boldly distinguishes himself from Ahab’s mission and those whom Ahab has recruited to aid him.     Ishmael further distinguishes himself from the rest of the crew by being the sole non-exploiter of whales in general.   Melville makes it clear early on that Ishmael initially chooses to ship on the Pequod for the experience value of whaling.   Whereas Ishmael is terrified by the white

Starbuck and Ahab’s differing religious views show why Ahab has such an obsession with killing Moby Dick. When introducing the Pequod’s mates, Ishmael describes Starbuck as “a Quaker by descent” (101) and “uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence” (102). Christianity has been a part of Starbuck’s life for generations, and like his religious beliefs dictate, he kills whales because whaling is his job, not because he takes pleasure in

His most famous book, Moby Dick, features the observant narrator, Ishmael, aboard the Pequot, a ship captained by the menacing one-legged Captain Ahab. Having lost his limb in a previous voyage to an enormous sperm whale named Moby Dick, Ahab scans the seven seas in manic search of revenge against the giant. Queequeg, Ishmael’s menacing best friend, and the rest of the crew are subjected to extreme jeopardy and later death due to Ahab’s monomaniacal disregard for bad omens and danger. The whale slices the boat clean in half and none survive to tells of its greatness except Ishmael.

Ishmael reproduces the cenotaphs graphically, framed and with their distinct typographies, encouraging the reader to consider them artifacts, real objects from real life. They appear to be what Alter calls in the Preface to his Partial Magic “an artwork mirroring itself as it mirrors reality” (Alter xi). The meticulously recreated “artistic” objects serve as instances of metafiction, calling attention to their status as artistic objects, problematizing the relationship between the fiction they are embedded in and the reality they invoke. The same goes for Father Mapple’s telling of the Biblical story of Job, who is swallowed by a giant whale, in Chapter 9, “The Sermon.” The cenotaphs incite Ishmael’s musings on death since he, a sailor himself, can relate to the situation he is observing. The lines that he reads “refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave (Melville 45), foreshadowing a possible grim future he will face. Such metafictional inserts appear throughout Moby Dick and mirror Ishmael’s state of mind or premonitions, which trouble a character obsessed with finding symbolism everywhere. Chapter 3 offers another moment of ekphrasis, when Ishmael first enters the Spouter-Inn and describes a blackened “boggy, soggy, squitchy picture” (ibid.

In the novel, A Moby Dick, Pip is a young African American boy, who has almost no power on the Pequod. Pip only makes a handful of appearances in the novel, which leads the reader to ask: why does Melville include him in this novel? Pip normally serves as an entertainer for the crew and cleans up the ship. However, after being left in the ocean for hours, he forms a special bond with Ahab. Through their time spent together Pip positively affects Captain Ahab, which is why he is included in the novel.

Melville believes that mankind are the only truly divine beings in the universe and that they must all look to each other, and not God, for comfort and support. Queequeg and Ishmael’s relationship is a significant point in the story because it is such an ironic and strange friendship between and cannibalistic savage that has a good heart, and a philosophical white man like Ishmael looking to find his own truth at sea. Their relationship is so strong that they are inseparable until death and they represent Melville’s first argument of the true nature of man. In the cook’s sermon to the sharks, if the sharks are taken as an analogy of mankind, he is saying humans’ hearts all have a shark nature within them but if one governs that nature, then that person will become an angel like and pure. The cook after being ordered by Stubb to tell the sharks to stop their racket says that he doesn’t “blame [them] so much for;

While Ahab was still the obedient captain he once was, he was one of the most successful and higher rewarding captains. Unexpectedly, in the midst of a whaling, Ahab and his crew encountered the whale he now refers to as “Moby Dick” or “the white whale.” The crew initiated in capturing the whale, but this whale was different. Rather than capturing the whale, the whale captured Ahab and though Ahab escaped, he did not escape entirely. Moby Dick had dismembered and consumed half of one of Ahab’s legs. Ever since this incident, Ahab’s one and only desire or, as stated in the text, “...his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought” has been to kill Moby Dick; which soon turns him obsessive (Melville). Ahab would not let anyone or anything stop him from achieving his goal, “...’I’ll chase him ‘round Good Hope, and ‘round the Horn, and ‘round the Norway Maelstrom, and ‘round

Similar to Ahab, the Samuel Enderbys’ captain has donated a limb to Moby-Dick, but unlike the Pequod’s leader, the Englishman wants to keep away from the White Whale, arguing, “ain’t one limb enough? What should I do without this other arm? … He’s best left alone” (368). The one-armed captain, head of a ship named for a wealthy British merchants, describes his experience to the one-legged monomaniac, who is overly excited, but the Englishman does not approach the experience as a spiritual battle like Ahab. Interrupting the captain, Ahab exclaims his highlights of his effect on the whale, claiming credit for the harpoons and scars decorating that wild beast. The Samuel Enderby’s captain continues “good-humoredly” (365). The Englishman did not know that he had lost his arm to the Moby-Dick for some time after the attack, but when he found out the identity of his opponent, he forfeited two chances to repeat his attempt at capturing oil from the White Whale. To the Englishman’s sage like attitude, Moby-Dick was nothing more than a remarkably profitable catch, while to