CONTENTS

Life Works Moby Dick

Herman Melville

He was a novelist, an essayist, a short story writer and a poet.

1819.8.1---1891.9.28

His Life Melville was born on Aug. 1, 1819, in

New York City, into a family that had declined in the world.

In 1830,his father died in debt and Melville had to work early. He received little education and did various kinds of jobs.

In 1837 he shipped to Liverpool as a cabin boy.

Upon returning to the U.S. ,he taught school and then sailed for the South Seas in 1841 on the whaler Acushnet.

After an 18-month voyage he deserted the ship in the Marquesas Islands and with a companion lived for a month among the natives, who were cannibals.

He escaped and went to Papeete, Tahiti, where he was imprisoned temporarily. He worked as a field laborer and then shipped to Honolulu, Hawaii, where in 1843 he enlisted as a seaman on the U.S. Navy frigate United States.

After his discharge in 1844 he began to create novels out of his experiences and to take part in the literary life of Boston and New York City.

In 1847,he married Elizabeth Shaw, who led an extravagant life. Thus, he had to work extremely hard to support his family.

In 1850 Melville moved to a farm near Pittsfield, Mass., where he became an intimate friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom he dedicated his masterpiece Moby-Dick; or The Whale (1851).

For the last 20 years of his life, Melville worked as a customs inspector in New York City.

Melville died in New York on Sept. 28, 1891, shortly after completing Billy Budd.

Major Works

Typee (1846) : A Peep at Polynesian Life

Omoo, (1847): A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas

Mardi (1849): Romances of the South Sea islands

Redburn, His First Voyage (1849): Based on his own first trip to sea

White-Jacket, or the World in a Man-of-War (1850): Fictionalized his experiences in the navy

Moby-Dick; or The Whale (1851) :A marvelous sea adventure

Pierre: or the Ambiguities (1852):A darkly allegorical exploration of the nature of evil

Israel Potter (1855): A historical romance

The Piazza Tales (1856):Contains some of

Melville’s finest shorter works The Confidence Man (1857):Satirizes the

selfishness and commercialism of Melville’s time.

Battle-Pieces and the Aspects of War (1866)

Clarel (1876): A poem, about a troubled pilgrimage to the Holy Land

Billy Budd (1891): A novella about a young sailor, personifying innocence, doomed by the malevolent hatred of a ship’s officer, personifying evil.

Moby Dick

Written by one of America's greatest authors, Moby Dick is a work of tremendous power and depth-one of world literature's great prose epics.

First published on Oct. 18, 1851 in London

In Token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Published & Dedicated

Background

Two actual events inspired Melville's tale. One was the sinking of the Nantucket

whale-ship Essex . The other event was the alleged killing in

the late 1830s of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick.

The most important inspiration for the novel was Melville's experiences as a sailor, in particular those during 1841-1842 on the whaleship Acushnet.

Design

The original design of Moby Dick made sense within the romantic tradition. Melville wanted to write a romantic text on the whale fishery, giving much exotic information, derived from encyclopedias and world literature. The characters were to be colorful and picturesque, including the Byronic captain of the whaling ship.

Design contd.

The novel’s plot is built on one basic conflict – AHAB vs. THE WHALE. It is essentially the story of Ahab and his quest to defeat the legendary Sperm Whale Moby Dick, for this whale took Ahab’s leg, causing him to use an ivory leg.

Moby Dick ---Story

Ishmael, feeling depressed, seeks escape by going out to sea on the whaling ship, Peqoud.

The captain is Ahab, the man with one leg.

Moby Dick, the white whale, had sheared off Ahab’s leg on a previous voyage, and Ahab resolves to hunt him.

The ship makes a good catch of whales but Ahab refuses to turn back until he has killed his enemy.

Eventually, the whale appears, and the Peqoud begins its doomed fight with it.

On the third day, the whale carries the Peqoud along with it to its doom. All on board the whaler get drowned, except one, Ishmael, who survives to tell the tale.

ELEMENTS OF THE QUEST MYTH

CHALLENGE

The hero LEAVES SOCIETY(his goals are always noble, he is

always on the side of goodness, his enemies are always evil)

Undergoes TRIALS(PHYSICAL TESTS – slaying a dragon, battling powerful opponents, rescuing maidens in distress etc.)

Having completed his quest the hero RETURNS to society to bring about spiritual TRANSFORMATION and restore the perfect human community

AHAB’S QUEST not heroism; he is ready to

sacrifice his whole crew for his personal goal - his revengeful obsession to find and kill Moby Dick

For Ahab, the defeat of Moby Dick will represent redemption and a means of achieving clarity and peace. Claiming that Moby Dick is “chiefly what I hate” gives the whale greater significance for Ahab, who finds that the whale represents all of the mysteries of his life. The quest to find Moby Dick is therefore both an external conflict between Ahab and the whale as well as an internal conflict within Ahab for a sense of peace and happiness.

Moby Dick ---theme Melville's bleak view (negative

attitude): the sense of futility and meaninglessness of the world.

His attitude to life is “Everlasting Nay”

Man in this universe lives a meaningless and futile life, meaningless because futile. Man cannot overcome nature. Once he attempts to seek power over it he is doomed.

Theme --Destiny Destiny is a prominent theme throughout Moby Dick. Example: Captain Ahab’s death. Prophecy:

Fadallah’s deathTwo coffinsHemp can only kill him

Theme

alienation (far away from each other)

exists between man and man, man and society, and man and nature.

Theme

loneliness and suicidal individualism (individualism causing disaster and death)

Moby Dick is a negative reflection upon Transcendentalism

Theme

Rejection and questVoyaging for Ishmael has become a

journey in quest of knowledge and values.

Moby Dick---value

It is an encyclopedia of everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc. in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.

Moby Dick ---character analysis

Ahab Ishmael Queeqeg Starbuck Moby Dick

Ahab

Name: Ahab, King of Israel (from The Bible) symbol of evil

The tyrannical captain of the Pequod

Though a Quaker, he seeks revenge in defiance of his religion's well-known pacifism.

Ahab has the qualities of a tragic hero – a great heart and a fatal flaw.

Ahab contd.

Melville constructed Ahab as a mad, imperial figure, who thinks himself the equal to God

Ahab’s HUBRIS – REJECTION OF GOD altogether for an alliance with the devil (comparable to FAUSTUS, KURTZ)

Ahab contd.

Lost his leg to Moby Dick Maddened with need for revenge Insane “He’s a queer man, Captain Ahab- so some think- but a good one. Oh, thou’lt like him well enough; no fear, no fear. He’s a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn’t speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab’s above the common;” -Peleg to Ishmael (Moby Dick 85)

Ishmael Name: the first son of Abraham (from

The Bible) symbol of orphans, exiles, wanderers and social outcasts, etc.

The narrator of the story

starts out feeling bad

hopes to find an ideal life

comes to see the folly of Ahab seeking to conquer nature

feels the significance of love and companionship

learns to accept an attitude which ensures his survival

Queequeg Cannibal Prince Very well mannered Still, slightly out of place in America Always sticks to his morals Excellent Harpooneer Becomes a friend of Ishmael

Starbuck 1st mate Tries to stop Captain Ahab’s mad actions Careful, calm, cares about the crew Actually sees sense “Oh! Ahab,” cried Starbuck, “not too late is

it, even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!

-Starbuck (Moby Dick 609)

Moby Dick

The antagonist of the story

He is “paradoxically benign and malevolent, nourishing and destructive,” “massive, brutal, monolithic, but at the same time protean, erotically beautiful, infinitely variable.”

For Melville Moby-Dick, symbolizes nature.

For Ahab, the whale represents only evil.

For the author as well as for the reader and Ishmael, the narrator, Moby-dick is still a mystery, and ultimate mystery of the universe.

Writing Skills

Symbolism Ambiguity Periodic chapters

Moby-Dick received decidedly mixed reviews from critics at the time it was published.

Many critics praised it for its unique style, interesting characters and poetic language.

Review

Others agreed with a critic for the highly regarded London Athenaeum, who described it as: "[A]n ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed."

Hawthorne’s review

Hawthorne said of the book:

"What a book Melville has written! It gives me an idea of much greater power than his preceding ones".

Revival With the burgeoning of Modernist

aesthetics and the war (World War I) that tore everything apart still so fresh in memory, Moby-Dick began to seem increasingly relevant.

It best illustrates the loss of faith, and sense of futility and meaninglessness which characterize the modern life of the west so that the twentieth century has found it both fascinating and great.

In the 1920’s a Columbia scholar, G.M. Weaver, did solid spadework in reviving him, and needless to add, Melville has been on the pedestal ever since. Thus born in the 19th century, Melville didn’t receive recognition until the 20th century.

 By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.

Symbols Whiteness: paradoxical color (death

and corruption& purity, innocence, and youth)

Peqoud: a symbol of doom Voyage: "search and discovery, the

search for the ultimate truth of experience."

Queequeg’s coffin: alternately symbolizes life and death.

Etc.

Finale

Moby Dick is portrayed for the reader from different angles. The author has unwillingness to commit himself, and the reader is thrown upon himself for judgment