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Moby Dick By Herman Melville

Root Words hypo- –Greek for under or below (particularly when referring to organisms or the human body) –hypo + derm (skin) = hypodermic (below the skin) A hypodermic needle is used to give vaccines. –hypo + chondrios (cartilage of the breastbone) = hypochondria (below the breastbone) Hypochondria means excessive worry about one’s own health. A hypochondriac is a person who is overly preoccupied with his or her own health. A hypochondriac usually obsesses about aches, pains, or other internal discomforts, thinking that they are symptoms of more serious conditions.

Root Words circum- –Latin for around ambula(re) –Latin for to walk circumambulate – around walk (walk around)

Vocabulary Patagonia (noun) Area in southern South America— southern Argentina and Chile—from the Andes Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. Patagonian (adj)

PICTURES OF A 19 TH CENTURY WHALER port_charles_morgan.htmhttp:// port_charles_morgan.htm

Interactive map of the path of the Pequod es/011/Wanderlust/ es/011/Wanderlust/

What is the difference between THEME and ALLEGORY? “A theme is like an underlying subject that ties the whole story together. An allegory is when something abstract is represented by something material.” from

The Sneetches Theme? (underlying subject that ties the whole story together) Allegory? (something abstract represented by something material) –What ideas do the different characters, things and actions represent?

What is the difference between THEME and ALLEGORY? Theme might social class elitism. Allegory might be that the Star-Belly Sneetches represent the rich, the Plain-Belly Sneetches represent the poor, their Frankfurter roasts represent the opportunities available to the rich that are not available to the poor…

Major Themes 1.Man’s search for knowledge 2.Man’s search for control over the natural world 3.Alienation 4.Friendship 5.Loyalty and obedience 6.Fate 7.Obsession

“Herman Melville’s MOBY-DICK (1851) is ranked as America's greatest epic. It can be read as an allegory of the risks in trying to subjugate nature to the will of humanity, a rebellion against the evil and chaos in the universe, and/or a metaphor for the narrator Ishmael's search for the meaning of life. Moby-Dick, the white whale, is usually interpreted as a symbol of evil, God, or an indifferent universe. In its complex examination of right and wrong (what Melville calls ‘Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate’), the novel dares to question not only the nature of humanity but also the nature of God. Ahab, the central figure, is a madman, but the model of the romantic rebel, hurling his defiance into the teeth of a vast and inscrutable universe. The novel explores other enduring American…themes as well. For instance, despite Ishmael's extensive efforts and exhaustive description, he can never fully understand the nature of the behemoth Moby-Dick, suggesting the allegorical limits of human knowledge: efforts to understand God are inevitably fruitless and may even be fatal, as is the case here. This reading is reinforced by Melville's inversion of the customary representation of whiteness. Traditionally a symbol of purity, whiteness in the novel comes to represent a lack of meaning and even a terrible, evil void. The novel also explores 19th-century America's belief in manifest destiny and the inevitable exploitation that followed, shown here in the whaling trade, which echoes the despoiling of the American frontier through overhunting of the buffalo and the displacement of Native Americans.”

“Moby-Dick, published by Herman Melville (1819−1891) in 1851, breaks with the familiar form of the Anglo- European novel (life story, linear plot, societal backdrop) to give us something at once lyrical and metaphysical, altogether larger than life. The book enlarges the concept of the self versus society to the human being versus the universe.” -

“ With his novel Moby-Dick, Herman Melville uses the voyages of a New England whaler as a metaphor for the expansionist society in which he was living and the crew members and specific actions in the story serve as allegory. Completed in 1851, the novel condemns America's values during the middle of the 19th century. During this time, the United States' expanding population encouraged the idea of manifest destiny.” -

“ One way that Melville's work succeeds as an allegory is through the examination of the relationship between individual and nature. There is a very strong element of allegory or symbolic analysis present when analyzing how Ahab appropriates the natural world. Similar to America itself at the time of Westward Expansion and Industrial growth, there is a clear parallel in how Ahab approaches the idea of that which lies outside his control. His stubbornness and determination are both examples of his strong qualities, but also representative of absolute terror in that he never relents in his hope to control an aspect of nature, an element that lies outside his control and exacts much in the way of human cost. Another allegorical relationship concerns the idea of pursuing dreams. On one level, dreams animate and inspire Ahab, as his dream of catching this whale are the source of his action. Yet, Ahab becomes victimized and crushed, literally, by the weight of his own dreams. In the process, the novel reminds us how dreams have to have some level of control for we should always control them, as opposed to them controlling us.” -