Naturally varying from person to person, contexts and values can transform physical and intellectual discoveries into that of special significance to individuals, differentiating an individual’s experience and process of discovery. Simon Nasht’s documentary Frank Hurley, the Man Who Made History, and Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick express that for individuals in contexts where identity is inhibited, one’s physical discoveries can become self-discoveries by offering an escape from their context. An individual’s physical and intellectual discoveries, when driven by certain contexts and values, can become transformed into hazardous assertions of power. However, individuals across contexts and values can share an unvaried experience of a commodified …show more content…
In Frank Hurley, this individual is Hurley himself. Initially “a working class boy… [who wasn’t highly educated”, Hurley’s physical discoveries in the Shackleton expedition and his creative discovery regarding the creative treatment of actuality transformed his discoveries into “a means by which to escape the drudgery of an ordinary working-class life”. Nasht expresses that, by providing an escape from his restrictive social context, Hurley was able to construct and re-invent his identity as an “[Argonaut] whose quest had taken [him] to the world’s brim”. This is symbolised by Hurley’s “elaborately-constructed self-portraits”, and the necessity of physical discovery for this self-discovery is emphasised in a long shot of Hurley taking a self-portrait against a backdrop of ice. This process of self-discovery through physical discovery is in accordance with Martin Heidegger’s prescription of a retreat to nature, escaping ‘the chatter’ of one’s social context and confronting that which is infinitely more powerful, to locate the self. Appropriately, Ishmael’s social context in Moby-Dick, “insular Manhattan”, renders escape necessary to confront “the portentous and mysterious monster” that symbolises both the sea and his inner self. This is highlighted in an allusion to Narcissus, who …show more content…
Intratextually, Melville portrays the Pequod shipmates as swept away by Ahab’s romantic, neo-Shakespearean language: “to chase that White Whale… over all sides of the earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out… wilt thou not chase the white whale? Art not game for Moby-Dick?” thus creating a “deputation from all isles of the sea, and all ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod”, embarking on a shared experience and process of discovery. Metatextually, this same romantic, neo-Shakespearean language, as well as the sheer weight and volume of the novel awes audiences. As a marketable product itself, the novel allows for uniform creative discovery, as well as intellectual discovery (given the scientific chapters of the novel), for audiences across contexts. Thus, we can see that the emotional appeal of discoveries allows for its commodification and mass consumption creating unvaried rediscoveries by individuals across
Significant discoveries have the ability to generate far reaching and transformative impacts which catalyse renewed perceptions of the self, others and the world. However, in order for these impacts to happen, individuals and readers must be willing to reflect on certain discoveries, which is seen in Robert Gray’s poems The Meatworks and North Coast Town and Nam Le’s The Boat. This notion is explored through; firstly, provocative and confronting external experiences facilitate transformed perceptions of the self others and the world. Secondly, that there can be far reaching ramifications when individuals uncover the falsehoods and truths of the past.
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.
Due to his experiences a sailor, Melville commonly wrote his stories based on life at sea. His common theme of the sea attracted many literate people of the Renaissance. However, Melville´s common theme of life at sea is not the only factor which contributed to his style of writing. Herman Melville used many different rhetorical strategies to emphasize significance in many of his pieces. The use of similes, metaphors, and imagery supply Melville´s stories with various ways to describe certain characters or things. Alliteration, repetition, and onomatopoeia all come together to create specific effects on words and phrases in Melville´s works. The way Melville used parallel structure, malapropisms, and long, drawn out sentences reveals the variety of ways he has structured certain stories throughout his career. The rhetorical strategies used by Herman Melville are what made him the great Renaissance writer he was.
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
The term ‘discovery’ can be explored and interpreted in many different ways, the meaning is created by an individual’s perception, opinion and experiences of discovery. In the book Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch and the film, Titanic by James Cameron explores the concept of discovery as an idea that discoveries can be challenging as they allow for the transformation of an individual’s perspective, and they allow for an individual to discover their true identity and the identity of others around them.
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.
Moby Dick, a book about the voyages and pursuance of a white whale, was imagined by an incredible man. Herman Melville was a talented writer who wrote many fantasies and adventures, including Moby Dick. He’s most infamous for his work about the tale of the white whale and known less for his works of Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life and Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas. (“Herman
Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville, is believed by some to be the greatest literary works of all time. The book takes place in the 1840s and seems greatly advanced for its time. Herman Melville uses many literary techniques that bring about severe imagery as well as insight and education to the readers. One concept that is conveyed in Moby Dick is the journey itself. This is broken into the physical journey, the spiritual journey, and life’s journey.
Moby-Dick is considered to be one of, if not the, best novels in American history. Harper & Brothers first published it in 1851 in New York. In England, it was published in the same year under the title, The Whale (“Moby Dick”). Melville explores topics and themes that were scarcely spoken of and never even seen in a novel. In the novel, the Pequod, which is the ship, is named after a Native American tribe that was exterminated when the white settlers arrived. It is a symbol of death and doom and foreshadows event that occur later in the novel. Melville brings some very controversial themes to light in the novel. Revenge is one of the main themes of Dark Romanticism and Melville uses it to drive every action taken by Ahab. This is seen early on in the novel as Ahab explains to the crew why he has a peg leg and that he wants to enact his revenge on Moby Dick (Melville 160-161). “Moby Dick is, fundamentally, a revenge tragedy. It’s about one man’s maniacal obsession with vengeance. It’s about finding an object on which to pin all you anger and fear and rage, not only about your own suffering, but also about the suffering of all mankind” (“Moby
Therefore, Moby Dick must “haunt” the seas because it has become a symbol of humankind‘s desire to conquer evil in the world. Ahab has come to understand this aspect of Nature when he has survived an attack by the whale as a symbol of this evil. This is one aspect of the evil of the ocean that imposes a human framework of thought onto the whale as a n evil entity of an evil ocean. Meville is defining the barriers between good and evil that the white whale represents in the quest to destroy this manifestation of evil from the bottomless fathoms of the ocean. More so, the singularity of Moby Dick as a the only white Sperm Whale defines the singularity of this vision for Ahab to pursue the creature and destroy
The novel “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex,” by Nathaniel Philbrick, successfully tells the story of the whale ship Essex that was attacked by a sperm whale 1,500 nautical miles west of the Galapagos, 40 miles south of the equator. Many people know this as the story of “Moby Dick”, which was based off this event. The novel highlights three themes: man versus nature, survival, and suffering.
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.
Discovery is an intensely powerful experience which is the catalyst for change in an individual’s life due to its transformative effect on ones sense of self, forcing one to re-evaluate their core values and shattering their beliefs and perceptions of others and themselves. Throughout the journey of discovery, one might unearth something about themselves that they had never intended to find, which is explored through Tim Winton’s novel The Riders, as it explores the challenging process of discovery and how an individual’s values and worldview can be completely altered, whereas William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest explores how profound an impact a discovery can have on an individual’s life and how it has the power to completely unravel a person’s
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.
As Ishmael tries, in the opening pages of Moby-Dick, to offer a simple collection of literary excerpts mentioning whales, he discovers that, throughout history, the whale has taken on an incredible multiplicity of meanings. Over the course of the novel, he makes use of nearly every discipline known to man in his attempts to understand the essential nature of the whale. Each of these systems of knowledge, however, including art, taxonomy, and phrenology, fails to give an adequate account. The multiplicity of approaches that Ishmael takes, coupled with his compulsive need to assert his authority as a narrator and the