Analysis Of ' Moby Dick '

Published in 1851, the story of Moby-Dick is not just the tale of one mans search for control over nature, but also the story of friendship, alienation, fate and religion that become intertwined amidst the tragedy that occurs upon the doomed Pequod. The crew itself are an amalgamation of cultures, from the cannibal Queequeg, to Starbuck, "a native of Nantucket." The Pequod can thus be seen as a microcosm for immigrants and whaling within America. In Moby-Dick Herman Melville examines both the exploitation of whaling and the reality of being born outside of America.

    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 the beginning of the novel, the whale has the reputation for being the “Largest sea monster”. Moby Dick looks at whales culturally, scientifically and traditionally. The author particularly wants this tale to have a sense of mystery. The whale is large, white, kills or injures men and cannot be seized or killed. Ahab identifies with the whale spiritually and intellectually. “The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them” (41. 180). For more everyday men, the whale is a sign of sustenance. The whale itself means nothing. The natives worship it as a god; for others it means income, and in a spiritual moment, Ishmael even sees the whale as a symbol of his serenity. Melville makes it distinctive that it is ourselves who create our symbols. Moby Dick is the root of Ahab’s obsession and a key

Although Washington could not describe himself as a revolutionist, his present state of external conflict forged him into the figure engraved in our minds today. Herman Melville (1819-1891), author of the literary classic Moby Dick, possessed much experience that contributed to the setting and message of his writing. Although Melville never became a midshipman, or naval sailor, he can attribute a great deal of influence for writing to his life while at sea. Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor tells the story of a young mariner and his induction on the H.M.S. Bellipotent. From unstable relationships to cabin revolt, Billy, the main character, faces a series of conflicts that ultimately creates varying images of him in the differing minds of those around him. In view of all of this, Melville, in Billy Budd, Sailor, communicates to readers the theme that “conflict, internal or external, exists as the framework of destiny,” through Billy's initial reaction to the crew as a result of enlistment on the Bellipotent, the rumor of mutiny, and his

Captain Ahab always had the desire to go after Moby Dick. His obsession grew even deeper when the great white whale took his leg. He spent several years trying to go after the whale. By being the captain of the ship, he had crew members come along on his journey to help slay the whale. His passion grew deeper each day as he lived amongst the ship and set sails to complete his mission.

The 1850’s were a sort of renaissance for religion in America. The Church of Latter-Day Saints was beginning to gain traction, and religions all across America were polarized with the growing issue of slavery, all the while people were becoming more and more pious. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick tells the tale of a crew destined for death by the hands of an invincible leviathan, and throughout the novel, the characters are cleverly named after biblical characters. Melville thus made Moby Dick in the way that he did in order to appeal to the growing number of religious people in the country. In Moby Dick, Melville uses the biblical narrative as a means to give a modernized parable about mankind’s superiority complex in order to illuminate his society’s

Donald Yannella, author of New Essays on Billy Budd, says that “at the heart lies an obsession with justice," as is exhibited in Herman Melville’s classics, Moby Dick and Billy Budd, Sailor. Herman Melville was an American author born on August 1, 1819 in New York, New York. The author wrote many books and penned poetry in his later years. Best known for his novel Moby Dick, Melville was not regarded as one of America’s greatest writers until after his death on September 28, 1891. Not achieving his dream job, and with his family in shambles, he boarded the St Lawrence in 1839. His time spent at sea would prove to be useful, as the majority of his books take place on the high seas.

Although Captain Ahab’s character is monumentally important to the story he is not introduced immediately. Furthermore, there is a certain mystery to the man when Ishmael asks Captain Peleg about him. Peleg divulges to Ishmael that Ahab is “a grand, ungodly, god-like man…” (Melville 112) and this simple statement comes to define Captain Ahab almost absolutely. Ahab refuses to believe that there is any higher power that he needs to submit his will to. There is no higher authority to him than that of his own, which makes the contradiction effective. This air of mystery that surrounds the appearance of the captain of the Pequod is ultimately broken in chapter 28 entitled “Ahab”. In this chapter, Ishmael is finally able to finally look upon Captain

On October 8th, 1851, the book “Moby Dick” written by Herman Melville was published, which be later be considered a Great American Epic. Melville before he was a writer took an a few odd occupations, including a banker, a teacher, and a whaler for about 5 years. On his voyages he heard many tales, one about a peculiar and catastrophic incident involving a certain whaling boat. “Moby Dick” based off of this tale, telling a story of a young man called Ishmael signs up to work on the ship the “Pequad”. The ship was captained by a strict, crazy man called Ahab, who would stop at nothing to kill Moby Dick, the white whale. At first, “Moby Dick” was poorly received. At first people hated it, a considered it to be one of Melville’s worst books. It wasn’t considered a “Great American Epic” until after Melville’s death. Today however, “Moby Dick” has been influential to other writers and literary topics, such as movies. One popular movie, not based off of “Moby Dick” but it’s true story, about Captain Pollard and his first mate Owen Chase, “The Heart of the Sea” stands out among the others. “The Heart of the Sea” was produced by Ron Howard, who says he wanted to create a “Moby Dick” movie, but instead told the actual story the book was based off of. “The Heart of the Sea”, is about the true story of “Moby Dick”, about a whale that attacks Captain Pollard 's ship “the Essex”, sinking it and leaving the crew members stranded with three lifeboats, little food,

Melville’s Shakespearean influence filters through in select chapters throughout the novel, and this helps dramatize Ahab’s performativity and heighten the theatrical elements of his interactions with sailors on the Pequod. The first instance of this is at the beginning of Chapter 36, in which Ahab rounds up every member of his crew and addresses him in a rousing emotional exchange about the voyage. The chapter begins with the use of stage directions “(Enter Ahab, Then all)” (Melville, 136), which immediately establishes the hierarchal structure of the scene, in that Ahab as captain has the right to give orders to his crew. The syntactical structure in placing ‘Ahab’ before ‘all’ suggests that Ahab is in a dominant position over his crew, and the inserted comma creates a dramatic pause and consequently widens the authority of Ahab over the rest. On a holistic level, the emergence of stage directions here differentiates the dramatic elements of this chapter from previous chapters. After the stage direction, Ishmael’s narrative continues with “It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe…” which evokes the sense of continuity, however, the break in tone caused by the stage direction strengthens the reader’s awareness that the drama has shifted. In Charles Olson’s Call Me Ishmael, he explores Melville’s fascination with Shakespeare’s

After Ahab makes his appearance, Melville proceeds to express the captain’s charismatic leadership skills in “The Quarter-Deck” chapter (Melville 174). He begins the process by interrogating the crew with: “What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?”…“what do ye next, men?”…“And what tune is it ye pull to, men?”(Melville 175). After that, Ahab goes further by answering questioning about the crew's questions about the whale, passing around the “the measure,” to touching the axis of the crossed lances; he encourages the crew to do the same making them go berserk in the process (Melville 179-181). The psychology behind charismatic leadership within this chapter is necessary because “charismatic individuals use emotional expressiveness to arouse,

Ahab may be the captain of the Pequod but his relationship to the ship runs deeper than that. Ahab has a mark on his body that “resembled a perpendicular seam” (Melville 237) almost like he was sewn together. The Pequod also has seams where they have had to patch up the boat after it has taken a hit. On the Pequod “there was an auger hole, about half an inch or so, into the plank” (Melville 239) that Ahab would stick his bone leg in so that he could have a 360 degree view of the ocean. The Pequod owners had made modifications to the boat just so Ahab would be the captain.

Because of Ahab’s monomania, in the beginning of the novel Ahab isolates himself from the rest of the crewmembers until they are out on the sea. During the early stages of this novel, Ahab avoids bonding with anyone else, which can be found when at the dinner table. All the mates are silent, and they must leave in the reverse order from which they came, with the third mate having to leave first; the harpooners eat last. It is because of this order that demonstrates how Ahab tries to isolate him and his crewmembers. “… In the cabin was no companionship; socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally included in the census of Christendom, he

Cultural critic Robert Berkhofer hints at this idea in characterizing a prevailing attitute among many white Americans at this time: "The quest for American cultural identity, the role of the United States in history, faith in the future greatness of the nation, and the fate of the Indian and the frontier in general were all seen as connected by the White Americans of the period." (Berkhofer, 92) In this search for identity issues of racial inequality and white encroachment and themes of death and destruction are necessarily implicated. This is no surprise considering the mid-nineteeth century social and political circumstances framing the writing and reception of Moby-Dick , particularly the Mexican War of 1848, the increase in American expansionism, and the divisions between slave and free states (Brodhead, 9). Although no doubt Melville was well-aware of these realities and of culturally-recurring images of ethnic peoples as "Noble," "romantic," or "enlightened savages" (Berkhofer, 78), his unconventional depiction of Queequeg seems to defy neat compartmentalization into such existing categories.

Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces that surround him. Melville uses a series of gams, social interactions or simple exchanges of information between whaling ships at sea, in order to more clearly present man’s situation as he faces an existence whose meaning he cannot fully grasp.