Surface: the Key to Understanding Moby-dick Essay

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

Herman Melville began working on this novel Moby Dick in 1850. In this book Melville challenges the relationship man have with his universe, his fate, and his God. Ahab represents a human being made up of evil, when he decides to questions God fate, and goes against God when he tries to strike Moby Dick the whale. The whale in this novel represents God. Moby-Dick, can teach you many things if you can remain focused long enough. However, the most important lesson that can be learned from the work is not that hard to understand. This lesson about this novel can be summed up in one sentence; Captain Ahab mission leads him to death, as Ishmael leads him to life because when a man tries to discover their ultimate purpose on land, and does so

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.

Herman Melville, in his epic novel Moby-Dick, utilizes the symbolism of the color of the Great White Whale to demonstrate his theme of duality. However, Captain Ahab tragically had a single mind set towards Moby Dick, as he believed that the whale was the symbol of the world's evil and had to be destroyed. On the other hand, Ishmael sees that the color white can mean many various and opposing things. It would be dangerous to settle upon any one single meaning. In the chapter, The Whiteness of the Whale, Melville explains the importance of duality of meaning in the world, as opposed to man's (and Ahab's) desire to see only one meaning in any one thing. Melville utilizes the symbol of the

    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

Quote with context (step one): In the very first sentence of Moby Dick, Herman Melville introduces Ishmael as the sole narrator of the novel. He quickly reveals Ishmael’s intense desire to take part in a whaling voyage. However, Ishmael has trouble reconciling why he wants to do so; he explains, “I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage...yet, now that I recall all of the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which...induced me to set about performing the part I did” (Melville 7).

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

The whiteness that coats the whale represents to Ishmael all that is unnatural and frightening. It conveys meaning on the extremes. Either the whiteness conveys a lack of any meaning, or people are unable to comprehend its excess meaning. The whiteness of Moby Dick represents for different people different things. To Ahab, the lack of color on the whale represents his evil nature. To Ishmael, it represents an unnatural being. Ishmael failed to ever bring about scientifically the nature of the whale, so it is to him,

“Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors” (Melville 212). Whiteness is at once the absence of color and all of the colors combined. Ishmael devotes the entire chapter to Moby Dick’s color. He begins with naming characteristics generally associated with the color white: majestic, holy, “divine spotlessness,” and powerful (205). However, in spite of all the reasons Ishmael has listed above that make whiteness a seemingly grander hue, it still manages to stimulate fear. In the whale’s whiteness, Ishmael sees both innocence and evil.

(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

“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.

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

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.

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.