Herman Melville

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Many American novelists appeared during the harsh times that slavery existed. Herman Melville was one of them. Dying as one of the most unknown authors, his works came again and had major success. Despite not gaining major success during Melville’s time and receiving harsh criticism as well, Herman Melville remains one of the most important American novelists for his use of reoccurring themes and discrete symbols within his works.

Born in New York in August 1819 (Szumski 13), Melville was full of imagination and his father’s treasures added to his creative mind (Robertson 33). Melville’s father was extremely successful, therefore giving Melville an advantage in life at an early age (Szumski 14). When his father passed shortly after the downfall of his company, Melville got multiple jobs to provide for his poor family (Szumski 14). Melville was just 12 when his father had passed away (Szumski 13). He felt even more pressure due to his older brother’s achievements as he already struggled with the desire to gain acceptance (Robertson 34).

Herman Melville attended a strict New York Male High School and, ironically, struggled at a young age to read and write (Bengtsson). He had difficulty gaining approval of family members and his father once said, “Your little protégé Herman, although a monitor at the High School, is rather indisposed this evening.” (Robertson 35). Regardless of the negative feedback towards Melville himself, he never gave up trying to win the acknowledgement and acceptance of his family (Padilla). At just 20 year old, Melville went on his first journey across the sea; this was the start of his significant inspiration for years to come (Robertson 34). Sailing from New York to Liverpool would begin t...

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...layed out in his lifetime (Spark notes). Some say that Benito Cereno is expressing Melville’s apprehensiveness on the topic of slavery and slavery itself (Spark notes). People overall felt great rigor in his works with the way Melville presented his characters and the motives of those characters (Bloom 33). They had a good idea that the readers of Melville were represented as the lawyer in Benito Cereno. Many of his readers noted that many of the characters had multiple sides to themselves which made it difficult to follow along. Although some found it hard to keep up with, they still pointed out many uses of Melville as a hidden symbol (Bloom 34).

Although Melville went through troubling times and received harsh criticism, his works will remain some of the best novels ever written because of their unique structure, basis, and inspiration for his stories.

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