An Analysis of Herman Melville and Moby Dick

2248 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Moby Dick_various Interpretations

An Analysis of Herman Melville and Moby Dick

"Moby Dick is biographic of Melville in the sense that it discloses

every nook and cranny of his imagination." (Humford 41) This paper is a

psychological study of Moby Dick. Moby Dick was written out of Melville's

personal experiences.

Moby Dick is a story of the adventures a person named Ishmael. Ishmael

is a lonely, alienated individual who wants to see the "watery part of the

world." Moby Dick begins with the main character, Ishmael, introducing himself

with the line "Call Me Ishmael." (Melville 1) Ishmael tells the reader about

his background and creates a depressed mood for the reader. Call me Ishmael.

"Some years ago-nevermind how long precisely- having little or no money in my

purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail

about a little and see the watery part of the world." (Melville 1) Ishmael

tells the reader about his journeys through various towns such as New Bedford,

Nankantuket. Eventually while in Nankantuket, Ishmael signed up for a whaling

voyage on the Pequod. The Pequod was the whaling boat Ishmael sailed on where

such characters as Queequeq, Starbuck, and the captain of the ship, Ahab, all

journeyed together.

Not long once at sea, the captain of the ship, Ahab reveals his plan to

hunt down a white whale named Moby Dick. Ahab was veteran sailor, a man that had

a heart of stone. Ahab had a personal grudge against Moby Dick. Moby Dick was

responsible for taking off Ahab's leg in a previous voyage. Ahab's plan was

essentially an unauthorized takeover, what the whaling company had not in mind.

Ahab was very irrational and ludicrous; his plan seals the fate for himself and

the crew of the Pequod. In the tragic ending of Moby Dick, all of the

characters die except for Ishmael. Ishmael survived Moby Dick's attack of the

ship with the help of a coffin that his close friend Queequeq built. Ishmael of

Moby Dick was a special character because he closely relates to the author's

own life. There are many symbolism's between Ishmael of Moby Dick and Herman

Melville's own life. The name Ishmael can be traced back to the Bible.

Show More
Related

  • Moby Dick Dialectical Journal

    260 Words  | 1 Pages

    On the first day the man on watch was sniffing the air and he declared that the whale must be near and Captain Ahab was frantic with excitement, constantly changing their course slightly during the day. Finally they spotted the white whale, and they left the ship into a small boat to hunt him. Moby Dick then wrecked their boat, but luckily nobody died.

    Read More

  • The Role of Social Class in Priestly's, An Inspector Calls

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...are lower class or upper class (‘[W]e don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.’). Priestley believed in socialism, he uses the Inspector to express his thoughts about this. This is the main message that he wanted the audience to take away.

    Read More

  • Religion and Racism in A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything that Rises Must Converge

    3390 Words  | 7 Pages

    Flannery O’Connor, undoubtedly one of the most well-read authors of the early 20th Century, had many strong themes deeply embedded within all her writings. Two of her most prominent and poignant themes were Christianity and racism. By analyzing, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” these two themes jump out at the reader. Growing up in the mid-1920’s in Georgia was a huge influence on O’Connor. Less than a decade before her birth, Georgia was much different than it was at her birth. Slaves labored tirelessly on their master’s plantations and were indeed a facet of everyday life. However, as the Civil War ended and Reconstruction began, slaves were not easily assimilated into Southern culture. Thus, O’Connor grew up in a highly racist area that mourned the fact that slaves were now to be treated as “equals.” In her everyday life in Georgia, O’Connor encountered countless citizens who were not shy in expressing their discontent toward the black race. This indeed was a guiding influence and inspiration in her fiction writing. The other guiding influence in her life that became a major theme in her writing was religion. Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of a Catholic family. The region was part of the 'Christ-haunted' Bible belt of the Southern States. The spiritual heritage of the region profoundly shaped O'Connor's writing as described in her essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South" (1969). Many of her 32 short stories are inundated with Christ-like allusions and other references to her faith.

    Read More

  • Identifying Evil in Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find

    2002 Words  | 5 Pages

    Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, is tale about a grandmother who unknowingly steers her family to a fatal meeting with a fugitive. The chance encounter with the murderous fugitive ultimately costs the grandmother and her family their lives. Sticking with the Southern Gothic genre, O’Connor takes odd characters and mixes in dark encounters to produce a story packed full of hidden meanings and foreshadowing (Language and Literature, 2). At first glance, it seems easy to identify the character that represents evil in the story, the murderous outlaw. However, things are not always, what they seem; a closer look will reveal that the murder might not be the evilest character in the story.

    Read More

  • Viktor Frankl: Man's Search For Meaning

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    In his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Viktor Frankl shares his perspective on the human mind. He uses his experiences in Nazi Concentration camps to discuss his ideas and share what he learned from his life as a prisoner in Nazi Germany. He uses particular events to show just how the human mind reacts to certain things, such death and fear. Frankl also introduces his theory of Logotherapy, which is his way of therapy. In his book, Frankl observed many things about the human mind and how it reacts to particular situations. He used his observation to teach us about his perspective on human psychology.

    Read More

  • Analyzing the Forgetful Grandmother in 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'

    1186 Words  | 3 Pages

    With the plot essentially focusing around a forgetful grandmother, the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O 'Connor has created a large number of debates over its controversial and open ended contents. The story is considered one of the more well known writings from the Southern Gothic genre. The genre, often characterized by grotesque storytelling about a damaged or delusional character, was popularized during the 1940s by Southern writers like O’Connor. Throughout the story, a small cluster of characters are introduced. Each character is unique and have been analyzed by scholars to discuss the role they play in the story. The grandmother, however, seems to be the one analyzed the most because of her actions throughout the

    Read More

  • Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is known as one of the most famous examples of Southern Gothic literature, which seems to be O'Connor’s specialty. O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a well-developed short story and “the most famous examples of Southern Gothic literature,” because it incorporates the divine grace of God, as well as her use of subtle uses of irony and symbolism, specifically the setting and the event of death.

    Read More

  • A Good Man Is Hard To Find Analysis

    1431 Words  | 3 Pages

    “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is a Southern Gothic short story written in 1953 by Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) in a style that portrays the unfortunate demise of a family’s trip to Florida. Flannery O’Connor was raised as a Roman Catholic in the Bible Belt of the United States, which significantly influenced her purpose and style of writing towards themes of religious revelations and journeys (Flannery). This short story is a typical Foster quest story in that the family is oblivious to the fact that they are on a quest, but on their journey cut short to Florida, they learn more about themselves and others than they ever could have learned in their home-state of Georgia (Foster). Style is the manner in which an author chooses to write to their audience (“Style”). Style reveals a lot about the writer’s personality and through “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, Flannery O’Connor reveals her desire to convey God’s grace and religion in everyday life through religious symbols in characters and their actions.

    Read More

  • Moby Dick

    4652 Words  | 10 Pages

    Moby-Dick is the one American story which every individual seems to recognize. Because of its pervasiveness into our country’s collective psyche, the tale has been reproduced in film and cartoon, and references to the characters and the whale can be found in commercials, sitcoms, and music, proving the novel to still be relevant today. It is the epitome of American Romanticism because it delves into the human spirit, the force of imagination, and power of the emotions and the intellect. The novel praises and critiques the American society in sharp and unequivocal terms, while, at the same time, mirroring this mixed society through the “multinational crew of...the Pequod” (Shaw 61). Melville, through his elaborate construction of the novel, “makes the American landscape a place for epic conquest” (Lyons 462). The primary draw of this novel is the story itself: a whaling ship, headed by a monomaniac, and the pursuit of a whale, or the American dream and its attainment, making a clear “connection between Romanticism and nationalism” (Evans 9). The novel calls upon the reader’s imagination, emotions, and intellect to fully understand the journey of the story, the journey which takes the reader on a most unusual trip into the soul of mankind.

    Read More

  • Moby Dick

    1407 Words  | 3 Pages

    time sailor. Ishmael's role in the hunt for “Moby Dick” is to interpret what is

    Read More

  • Fast Food and the Obesity Epidemic in America

    1757 Words  | 4 Pages

    Obesity is an epidemic in America, greatly impacting youth, the health care system, and economically vulnerable populations. Among all of the high-income countries in the world, obesity rates remain the highest in the US. According to Harvard, US obesity rates have more than doubled since 1980, although they have remained the same since 2003. (Harvard School of Public Health) Approximately 31.9% of children and adolescents from the ages of 2 to 19 are obese or overweight (NPLAN), while roughly 69% of adults fall into the category of overweight or obese. (Harvard School of Public Health) With obesity rates this high, America is facing a huge crisis that could become greater in the future. In order to understand the issue of Obesity in America it is important to evaluate the extent to which the problem effects large populations of children and adults and how the fast food industry has served as one of the major causes of this epidemic.

    Read More

  • A Comparison of Melville's Moby Dick and Bartleby

    542 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ahab is dedicated towards regaining control of his life by conquering the whale. His obsession with Moby Dick is what fuels his desire to spend months and months at sea. Ahab is so involved that he tries to get into the mind of the whale. He becomes obsessed with the whale’s every move. Similarly, the narrator is highly analytical of Bartleby’s behavior. He feels the need to know exactly what it is that makes Bartleby ‘tick’. Eventually the narrator is mentally defeated by Bartleby and is forced to change the location of his offices in order to avoid him. Ahab on the other hand is constantly chasing his antagonist and does whatever he can to get closer to Moby Dick.

    Read More

  • The Obesity Epidemic in America

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    Obesity among Americans has been a growing issue in the United States predominantly over the past decade. Many may argue American’s are obese because of poor food choices, over-eating, genetic disposition, lack of exercise, or the environment which one lives, while others blame it all on fast-food chains and restaurants. Throughout my research I have come to find a lot of facts and statistics about fast food consumption causing obesity. Statistics show that without a doubt the United States is the most obese country in the world.

    Read More

  • Metaphysical Ideologies in Moby Dick

    1395 Words  | 3 Pages

    At first glance, Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, appears to be the story of a man, his captain, and the whale that they quest to destroy.  But a closer look reveals the author’s intense look at several metaphysical ideologies.  He explores some of the most ponderous quandaries of his time, among these being the existence of evil, knowledge of the self and the existential, and the possibility of a determined fate.  All of these were questions which philosophers had dealt with and written about, but Melville took it to a new level: not only writing about these things, but also doing so in a lovely poetic language backed by a tale packed with intrigue.  He explores the general existence of evil in his antagonist, the white whale, and through the general malice that nature presents to humans throughout the novel.  The narrator, Ishmael, gains a lot of knowledge about himself through his experiences on the whaling voyage, where he also is able to learn much about the phenomenon of existence itself.  Also, through Captain Ahab, he sees more about the existence of man and the things that exist within man’s heart.  Especially through Ahab and his ongoing quest for the white whale, and also in general conversation amongst the whalers, the issue of fate and whether one’s destiny is predetermined are addressed in great detail, with much thought and insight interpolated from the author’s own viewpoints on the subject.

    Read More

  • The Manifestos Of Symbolism In Herman Melville's Moby Dick

    1851 Words  | 4 Pages

    The ocean not only engulfs two‑thirds of the earth but two‑thirds of Moby Dick; a literary space penned by Herman Melville which sweeps the reader in its ever‑elusive eddies of symbolic complexity. The symbolism in the novel ceaselessly ebbs and flows like the sea, submerging the reader into Melville’s imaginative sea voyage. This paper will examine the watery depths as a recognizable setting from the corporeal universe, further observing how Melville juxtaposes this element in such a peculiar way, that the reader has no choice but to abandon, “reason, tradition, belief, and rely solely on thought to interpret these images,” which accordingly creates an “opportunity for open imagination” (Glover, 2003:42) (Bachelard,1983: 22). From beginning

    Read More

More about An Analysis of Herman Melville and Moby Dick

Open Document