2. CONTENTS  Life Life  Works Works  Moby Dick Moby Dick

3. Herman Melville He was a novelist, an essayist, a short story writer and a poet. 1819.8.1---1891.9.28

4. 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.

5.  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.

6.  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.

7. I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 M oby- Dick; or The Whale (1851). FFor the last 20 years of his life, Melville worked as a customs inspector in New York City. MMelville died in New York on Sept. 28, 1891, shortly after completing B illy Budd.

8. 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

9.  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

10.  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.

11.  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.

12. 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.

13. 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

14. Background  Two actual events inspired Melville's tale.  One was the sinking of the Nantucket whale- ship Essex.Nantucket Essex  The other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick.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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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)

19.  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

20.  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

21.  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.

22. 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.

23. Theme -- Destiny  Destiny is a prominent theme throughout Moby Dick.  Example: Captain Ahab’s death.  Prophecy: Fadallah’s death Two coffins Hemp can only kill him

24. Theme  alienation (far away from each other) exists between man and man, man and society, and man and nature.

25. Theme loneliness and suicidal individualism (individualism causing disaster and death) Moby Dick is a negative reflection upon Transcendentalism

26. Theme  Rejection and quest Voyaging for Ishmael has become a journey in quest of knowledge and values.

27. 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.

28. Moby Dick --- character analysis  Ahab  Ishmael  Queeqeg  Starbuck  Moby Dick

29. 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.

30. 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)

31. 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)

32. 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

33. 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

34. Starbuck  1 st 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)

35. 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.”

36.  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.

37. Writing Skills  Symbolism Symbolism  Ambiguity Ambiguity  Periodic chapters Periodic chapters

38.  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

39. 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." London Athenaeum

40. 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".

41. 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.

42.  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.

43.  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.

44. 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.

45. 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