What Makes Moby Dick A Milestone In American Gothic Literature?

Herman Melville was a Romantic Era writer but before he wrote one of the Great American Epics he was a whaler. When Melville was writing he was very inspired and influenced by Nathaniel Hawthorne and even dedicated his work to him. Melville was also influenced by some other great writers including Poe, Thoreau, Emerson and Shakespeare. Melville heard a story about a ship called the Essex from a member on the ship, George Pollard, Jr.

Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, which was based off of Melville’s voyages. This book was mainly based off of the Essex whaler ship that sunk on account of a whale attacking the ship. There were very few survivors that were rescued and they told the story of what had happened. Moby Dick was originally titled The Whale.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Michael Vannoy Adams on Moby-Dick: “Although “race” is not the dominant theme of the novel, Moby-Dick is a “book of color.” It is also a novel of multicultural importance” (The Multicultural Imagination). Considered a masterpiece of American literature, Moby-Dick was first published on October 18, 1851. For reference, slavery was abolished in the United States by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on December 6, 1865. Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick before the Civil War and 14 years before the abolishment of slavery.

When discussing gothic fiction many early authors come to mind, Mary Shelley, the Bronte Sisters, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few, were all exceptional European writers of this style. As for American authors, there are two names that hold top places of honor, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Poe, with his talent for lyrical, poetic prose and conveying the macabre, is considered by many to be the master of gothic fiction. However, Hawthorne with his propensity toward humor and his ability to breathe humanness into his characters is an excellent contender for the title. They both exhibited gothic traditions in their writing, while at the same time adjusting elements of this previously European genre to fit into American surroundings, all the while delivering their own unique contributions to the gothic scene. I will explore and compare some of their works with hopes of identifying what I find to be some of their genius contributions to this dark romantic style.

In Herman Melville's "Moby Dick," elements of American Gothic literature are evident. The first element of American Gothic Literature is Intense emotion. An example of intense emotion in "Moby Dick" is when captain Ahab is motivating the sailors to kill Moby Dick. Another example of intense emotion, is the way captain Ahab describes Moby Dick and; how he just had to try to kill him. Captain Ahabs intense emotion made the sailors think he is going crazy.

Melville's novel, Moby Dick, has only men. Melville's men's club sails a sea whose gender changes often and whose personality is resolutely enigmatic. The feminine in Melville¹s novel hides her face in a veil of stars and behind a cloud of words.

For as much as it represents exploration, ingenuity, and freedom, the ship has secured a place for itself in the Gothic imagination as a space of claustrophobic terror and enslavement. As a Foucauldian heterotopia, the space of the ship is indeed “a place without a place”, which functions only in relation to the void that surrounds it. However, the asylum a ship provides is what also makes it a prison, trapping its crew with any hostile elements that may be aboard. Focusing on a select group of texts, including Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno and Moby-Dick, this paper will examine the ship, that “heterotopia par excellence”, as a Gothic environment. It will discuss not only the ship’s potential for Gothic horror, but also the role of the ship

While whaling amongst his own ship, inspired by a rumor, Herman Melville created what Nathaniel Hawthorne called "The Great American Epic." Melville's Fictional novel "Moby Dick" was based off of true events from Nantucket, Massachusetts. Melville interviewed one of the few survivors from the sunken ship, the Essex, to get the full story. He kept a journal of what the survivor had told him but would only use a limited amount of details in the making of his novel. Moby Dick is a story about a white whale that had destroyed an entire whaling ship and how the captain and crew attempt to get revenge on it. November 14, 1851, during the Romantic era, Moby Dick was published. Recently a producer and director, Ron Howard, sought to protect the integrity of What Hawthorne called "The Great American Epic" in

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.