Analysis Of The First Lowering In Moby Dick

Whatever expectations that Ishmael may have had for his journey, it seems that another, perhaps divine force, has other plans for him. It is clear from the very first chapter of Moby-Dick – aptly titled “Loomings,” which is a word that inspires a feeling of fear and smallness – the only appropriate expectations are that Ishmael is headed

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.

Throughout his novel, Moby Dick, Herman Melville will often devote entire chapters to the thoughts and actions of specific characters. Two specific examples of this type of chapter are Chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck, and Chapter 42, The Whiteness of the Whale. The first of these chapters depicts Ahab addressing his crew for the first time in order to convince them to hunt down Moby Dick. The second offers insight to the fear that is brought upon by the mere mention of Moby Dick The significance and effectiveness of each of these chapters are enhanced by Melville’s use of rhetoric and style respectively.

The first passage is the opening paragraph to Herman Melville Moby Dick. The novel opens the narrator speaking, “Call me Ishmael” (Melville 3). This line is significant for many reasons. One is that the narrator does not state that is his name, but just what he prefers to go by. Another reason is that Ishmael is a biblical name, it comes from the son of Abraham. However, Ishmael is overlooked in the bible and Abraham’s son Isaac becomes this heir of his family. Thus, making Ishmael an outcast and a loner. This directly reflects what Ishmael is like in Moby Dick. Ishmael begins to tell his tale, a few years ago he decided to go out and explore the ocean. Ishmael talks about how he was depressed living on land. He says, “…I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul” (Melville 3). November is often symbolic of death because it is a time between fall and winter when everything is dying. Ishmael explained how he was feeling morose and gloomy all the time. He even states, “especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street” (Melville 3). This implies that Ishmael is suicidal and often thinks about giving up. During this time, in the 1850s, traveling out to sea was a dangerous task. Lots of men who traveled out to sea never return. It is considered suicidal to go out and hunt whales. This is exactly why Ishmael

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.

Queequeg and Ishmael have a brotherhood that is a central theme of the novel. When the two smoke together and vow to share with each other materials and hardships, Queequeg defines them “wedded”. This interracial friendship was a leap for Melville, but crucial in order for the readers to understand the two. Ishmael takes his friendship with Queequeg and extends it to his fellow shipmates. He even squeezes other men’s hands while squeezing spermaceti in the tubs. Other characters, Ahab for example, reject friendship. He pushes Starbuck away from him and Pip as well for fear that the sympathy and brotherly love that friendships bare would ruin his madness and interfere with his relationship to Moby Dick.

As soon as Herman Melville introduces Captain Ahab in his novel, Moby Dick, there is a sense of mystery behind him. More and more information about the captain of the Pequod is revealed to Ishmael, the narrator of the novel, and readers begin to recognize the contradiction in Ahab’s character. He is described as a “grand, ungodly, god-like man” (82), who has his humanities despite being given a name that would “somehow prove prophetic” (83). Later in the novel, Ahab confesses his plan to find and kill the “inscrutable” (157) white whale that took his leg off. Although he hates the inscrutability behind the whale, Ahab himself is also portrayed as inscrutable to Ishmael, who continuously tries to find about more information about his “unknown

Moby Dick is the most adapted and diversely depicted of American literature, and I attempt to work with the community to research the collective consciousness we all share that links itself to the various facet of the text. I will be continuing to create works that are related to Moby Dick during the Guttenberg residency, but mainly focusing on extending these imageries

main relationship demonstrating human solidarity and brotherhood is the one between Ishmael and Queequeg, a white man and a tattooed dark skinned man of the South Seas. In the years before the Civil War, interracial friendship was a daring theme. Melville uses this pairing to bring out some comic relief and to contrast ideas of civilization, but he does give Queequeg dignity and treats the friendship seriously.
Queequeg calls it a “marriage” when they smoke the pipe together and vow to share both hardships and material goods. Ishmael says, “I felt melting in me. No more splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it” . This

The first chapter of Moby Dick written by Herman Melville, is full of information of the narrator Ishmael and why he is choosing to go to see. Ishmael says that he is going to sea as a “simple sailor” which is not the case, he is actually a very intellectual man (Melville). Throughout the entire first chapter there is evidence of Ishmael’s intelligence, his awareness of geography and vocabulary is too advanced for a simple man, his knowledge of ancient cultures, and his interests in fate and the Bible. Two of the most obvious reasons that prove that Ishmael is more than the simple man he says he is, is that he has knowledge of geography and uses great vocabulary.

As the story opens, Ishmael explains that he sails because he wants adventure. "Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses…I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." (Melville, 1), though we also understand that he considers sailing as a whaler to be like committing suicide to him. We recognize little of the character Ishmael; though he is the narrator of the text he is merely an observer at most times, rather than a central part of the action. Though this seems largely in keeping to the biblical tale of Ishmael.

“If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.” (Melville 17) There is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support Ishmael’s love for the sea and is emphasized and returned to Ishmael in an ironic and humbling way from the “watery world”. In this adventurous journey, a young man named Ishmael sets out on a voyage to see the world and become a harpooner. He does not only discover a fierce whale representing his external influences but also his own internal self-revelation.

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.

Paglia notes the “matrimonial language” Melville uses to portray “a ritual of male bonding” in her argument that women’s “sexual allure is never acknowledged” (700). However, by using this “matrimonial language”, Melville is doing the opposite; through these marriage parallels he acknowledges the importance of balance that occurs between the feminine and masculine. The landlord and boarders at the Spouter Inn give evidence of this “allure” by being “amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship” between Ishmael and Queequeg (Melville 61). Breaking down the mystery exposes Melville’s unconventional portrayal of gender-fluidity. Ishmael’s muses “Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other… in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg- a cosy, loving pair,” when sharing a bed with Queequeg (Melville 57). Though Ishmael is biologically male, he takes on the feminine role of wife, and with it, expressive and affectionate emotions. By comparing their friendship to that of husband and wife, Melville contrasts the destructive nature of masculinity otherwise present on the ship’s all-male microcosm. The nurturing characteristics of their bonding oppose the failure later seen by the overly masculine environment at the Spouter Inn. Their coziness acts as a contrast to the whalemen’s silent breakfast and isolation of

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.