The Theme Of Inevitability In Melville's Moby Dick

While Ishmael was running and trying to find survival, he pushed through to be strong, he may have been scared of the situation he was in, but he had hope to keep going. Ishmael was scared because he was running away from the Rebels in the war, trying to survive. Ishmael was also trying to have hope in surviving, he

Consequently due to his personal growth as a character, Ishmael's divine spirit becomes saved and he himself is rescued from certain death. Captain Ahab remains unable to accept the concepts of transcendentalism, his pursuit of Moby-Dick is relentless and without mercy. His character has no opportunity for growth or discovery as he shuns the advice of everyone, whilst in pursuit of the white whale. Due to this his fate becomes irrevocably sealed and he is doomed to fail his mission and perish at the mercy of his quarry.

He believed that the color of white had many meanings to many persons. Ishmael realized that the color white can represent beauty. Whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls. Another characteristic of the color white is strength, such as that of the polar bear or the great white shark. Ishmael also said the white can mean spirited leadership, such as the great white steeds. Contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions is has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness an power. Unlike Ahab, Ishmael saw the duality in white as he also understood that white could also be awesome, even fearsome, as man gazes across the white wastes of the prairies covered with snow and ice, or the white foaming sea hurled upon the rocky coasts by a frightful storm. To view his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness-as if from encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears. Due to Ishmaels's ability to view the whiteness of Moby Dick through many viewpoints it secured his survival on the inevitably disastrous voyage of the Pequod.

    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

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.

Once a person becomes attached or obsessed to a specific person, place, or even an idea, it is extremely difficult to expel this obsession. Ishmael becomes attached to Moby Dick. He does not execute a single action or take a simple breathe without thinking of this whale. Ishmael’s obsession with this whale is to taken to such an extent that he is willing to venture through extreme obstacles out on the sea just to murder the whale that is responsible for his missing leg. As always, the power of nature overcomes the ignorance of man. Nature does what nature wants. No one gets to tell nature what to do, it is one of the only aspects of life we truly are incapable of controlling. When we hear a hurricane warning, and most sensible people will take precautions, those who do not,

It becomes very evident throughout the story that Ishmael isn 't used to having to

In the book Moby Dick, there were numerous themes, symbols, motifs but the main one that was the basis of the book was revenge. The book is about Ishmael, the narrator, who goes whaling in a ship called the Pequod, with people that have a significance in the story especially the captain, Ahab. Ahab has an obsession with catching a white whale named Moby Dick that took his leg and this obsession of getting revenge takes a turn for the worst and the everyone on the Pequod, except Ishmael, died. One question we might what to ask ourselves is, what is Captain Ahab taking revenge for? Is it for his leg, For his anger, For his suffering or is it for something totally different? Maybe it's for all of them. Whatever it may be, sometimes the torment is so incredible, and the requirement for retribution becomes so strong, that it festers inside and starts to devour us. Captain Ahab exemplifies the idea of a determined desire for vengeance and shows how it can decimate a man.

Obviously Ishmael did not deserve any of this tragedy that happened to him, but as his grandma said “The sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, "In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy, and confusion." (Ishmael’s Grandma

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.

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,

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.

As the pursuit of Moby continues, Ishmael is left behind in the water far from the Pequod and where the rest of the crew ultimately die from the whirlpool Moby creates in the side of the Pequod. Ishmael avoids the wrath of Moby on Ahab, and the whirlpool from the sinking Pequod. Melville writes that “the Fates ordained” (625) Ishmael’s survival and that because of Fedallah’s death, he lives. For the philosophical reason of Ishmael’s survival from Moby’s wrath it was quite straightforward. Ishmael did not intently seek out the destruction of Moby and so is spared from the fate of the crew. Ishmael was on the Pequod not to seek out vengeance, but to find truth and because of his neutrality he was spared.

The idea behind this can often times be referred to as fate and free will. Like no other, the concept behind the two can often times get mixed up and confused, while many may choose to believe in fate, millions of others chose not to. Herman Melville can be considered amongst those who chose to believe in fate, and he demonstrates this to extent in his novel “Moby Dick.” Although many times Melville’s writing can tend to jump around and really confuse the writer, it’s his talent to be able to mix in these key themes that he portrays throughout the novel hidden in his text that make him so great. Throughout the novel we see fate and free will play a key role in Ahab’s character. Despite everything telling Ahab to turn around and stop pursuing the whale, it’s his free-will that continuously pushes him forward, therefore upon further analysis it becomes clear to us that Ahab allows his free-will overpower his fate. With this Melville makes it clear to us throughout the text, that the consequences of one’s free will is already destined by fate, however much like Ahab, sometimes we may allow one to overpower the

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.