Melville's Men The body of this argument lies in a meager psychoanalysis of Melville. I have had to take a very broad approach, look at Melville purely as a man. I have attempted to put the reader into Melville's head, where I have attempted to put myself. To better achieve this I discuss much of Melville's background, hoping to give the reader a sense of what he had experienced. I have written with confidence, but hopefully not too much, you must decide for yourselves what of mine you feel is right. It is always very hard to use psychoanalytical approaches, because, as the mind is a mystery, it is all ultimately unproved. All psychoanalytical opinion is based on event, as all psychology is based on the idea that men are shaped by experience. I speculate below, on things I cannot really know, and I do this only to achieve some rough personal connections between Melville and his Moby-Dick. It serves me, and I hope you as well. Herman Melville might have been a homosexual, or at least, a lover of men. Of course the word, "Homosexual" did not exist in Melville's time and so he could not really be a homosexual. Besides this, there is little to no evidence that Melville ever did, or desired to engage in genital, homosexual sex. There is no way of knowing that he was homosexual, but there are many implications that he at least had strong affections toward men. The question is: How was this reflected in what is generally considered to be Melville's greatest work, Moby-Dick? Or one could even ask, how does the homoeroticism, ever present in Moby-Dick, reflect on Melville's own sexuality? Because homoeroticism, or rather, male friendships are such a large theme in Moby-Dick, one might also think to ask what it all means to the greater message of the book. The parallels between Melville's own sexual identity and the sexual identity of his protagonist, Ishmael are quite strong. Thus it follows that Moby-Dick might have been Melville's attempt to understand his own sexuality and its' course, or at least his fantasy. Sigmund Freud theorized that while most male children are secretly attracted to their mothers, homosexual male children harbor attraction toward their fathers. While I am not calling him a homosexual, it seems clear to me that Melville's relationship with his father must have effected him. I assume the effect to be negative, because, Allan Melville was not a model father.
Analysis: Melville's Great American Novel draws on both Biblical and Shakespearean myths. Captain Ahab is "a grand, ungodly, god-like man … above the common" whose pursuit of the great white whale is a fable about obsession and over-reaching. Just as Macbeth and Lear subvert the natural order of things, Ahab takes on Nature in his
Bartleby- The Scrivener In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, the author uses several themes to convey his ideas. The three most important themes are alienation, man’s desire to have a free conscience, and man’s desire to avoid conflict. Melville uses the actions of an eccentric scrivener named Bartleby, and the responses of his cohorts, to show these underlying themes to the reader. The first theme, alienation, is displayed best by Bartleby’s actions. He has a divider put up so that the other scriveners cannot see him, while all of them have desks out in the open so they are full view of each other, as well as the narrator. This caused discourse with all of the others in the office. This is proven when Turkey exclaims, “ I think I’ll just step behind his screen and black his eyes for him.”(p.2411) The other scriveners also felt alienated by the actions of the narrator. His lack of resolve when dealing with Bartleby angered them because they knew that if they would have taken the same actions, they would have been dismissed much more rapidly. The narrator admits to this when he said, “ With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence.” (2409) The next theme is man’s desire to avoid conflict. The narrator avoids conflict on several occasions. The first time Bartleby refused to proofread a paper, the narrator simply had someone else do it instead of confronting him and re...
In conclusion, this essay analyzes the similarities and differences of the two stories written by Herman Melville, Billy Budd and Bartleby. The settings, characters, and endings in the two stories reveal very interesting comparisons and contrasts. The comparison and contrast also includes the interpretation of the symbolism that Melville used in his two stories. The characters, Billy and Bartleby, could even be considered autobiographical representatives of Herman Melville.
In all of Herman Melville’s short stories the captain is a tyrannical madman, but in Billy Budd, Sailor he changed things up and the captain, Captain Vere had compassion and a sensitive side to him, yet at the same time he had a military disciplinarian side to him. This is what made him such a controversial character. Captain Vere is all the talk, many critics have discussed the issue in their essay’s including Charles A. Reich’s “The Tragedy of Justice in Billy Budd” as well as Robert K. Martin’s “Is Vere a Hero?” Both essays argue whether Vere was the hero or the Villain. They also both question the fine line between law and humanity. Just because a law is made a law it doesn’t necessarily mean it is humane. When comparing the two essay’s the points made in Reich’s “The Tragedy of Justice in Billy Budd” are stronger than those made in Martin’s essay and therefore is more persuasive.
In Herman Melville's short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener, the narrator's attitude towards Bartleby is constantly changing, the narrator's attitude is conveyed through the author's use of literary elements such as; diction-descriptive and comical, point of view-first person, and tone-confusion and sadness.
Before exploring Ishmael, Ahab, and Moby Dick and their Biblical counterparts, it is important to understand Melville's background. He grew up as a baptized Calvinist in the Dutch Reformed Church. His parents trained him to obey God at all times, even if God’s commands seem unjust and cruel. However, he quickly turned against his faith after his father died. During his travels, he witnessed diseases, catastrophes, and hatred throughou...
Wendy Galeas Professor Geddes The Study of Literature: Essay 2 April 9, 2015 In Herman Melville’s work “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street”, the idea of a capitalist agenda is intentionally reinforced. This short work tells the story of a lawyer on Wall-Street and those of his employees, but he is particularly fascinated by Bartleby. Bartleby at first a hard worker who divulged tirelessly in his job as a law-copyist begins to “ prefer not” to do what is asked of him.
In her article “How the Internet Has Changed Bullying”, Maria Konnikova explained how bullying has reached technology, and in the workplaces of many adults. The Internet has made it harder to escape from bullying, and easier for bullies to escape from confronting their victims. Furthermore, the author stresses that cyberbullying not only targets high schoolers, but it’s affecting the lives of college students as well (Konnikova 1). Cyberbullying takes place in the Internet world where is easier for a bully to gossip and humiliate multiple of victims in a faster pace. The studies have shown that cyberbullying is making a greater impact in the victims’ and the bullies’ lives more than the traditional bullying and many people are not aware of it; therefore the schools, witnesses, and employers should work together to fight against cyberbullying and provide help to the victims and bullies.
Herman Melville’s stories of Moby Dick and Bartleby share a stark number of similarities and differences. Certain aspects of each piece seem to compliment each other, giving the reader insight to the underlying themes and images. There are three concepts that pervade the two stories making them build upon each other. In both Moby Dick and Bartleby the main characters must learn how to deal with an antagonist, decide how involved they are in their professions, and come to terms with a lack of resolution.
Leadership is a quality many of us strive to achieve. To be an excellent leader has been an elusive quest. However, the pursuit of excellent leadership is movement in the right direction. In this paper we will examine the major types of leadership styles. The three types are, Participative or Democratic, Laissez-Faire, and Authoritative.
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.
Generations after generations teens have used the actions of bullying to hurt others they felt as a threat or to be in the “in crowd” of popularity. Traditional bullying was physical and thus confined to face-to-face contexts. However, with the development of widespread social interaction via social media websites, email, and text-messaging, teens have additional avenues of expression and, as a result, other means of bullying. Over time the bullying taking place using digital means has come to be known as cyberbullying. Cyberbullying has brought the evilness out of teen’s actions, words, and thoughts whether they were the bully or the victim. Equally important, the ending results of these actions, words and thoughts have brought death, limited yet undefined punishable consequences if pursued, and slowly progressing methods to control cyberbullying as a whole.
There are many different leadership styles that have been identified by a multitude of researchers. This essay will define and explain three leadership styles. Authoritarian leadership is used when the leader tells her employees what she wants done and how she wants it done, without getting the advice of her team. Some of the appropriate conditions to utilize this style are when you have all the information is available to solve the problem, time is limited, or employees are well motivated. A Participative style involves the leader including one or more employees in on the decision making process (determining what to ...
The three main styles of leadership are authoritarian, democratic, and Laissez Faire. An authoritarian leader is someone who provides clear expectations for what needs to be done, when
...ree leadership styles discussed are different, each of the styles has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, there are some similarities between the styles that present an opportunity for synergism. Identifying the potentials and capitalizing on them will positively increase the team productivity. It is obvious the three leadership styles have the desire to arrive at a concrete and educative decision and influence the team with directions.