Essay about Desire in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick

Desire in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick Moby-Dick describes the metamorphosis of character resulting from the archetypal night sea journey, a harrowing account of a withdrawal and a return. Thus Ishmael, the lone survivor of the Pequod disaster, requires three decades of voracious reading, spiritual meditation, and philosophical reflection before recounting his adventures aboard the ill-fated ship.1 His tale is astounding. With Lewis Mumford’s seminal study Herman Melville: A Critical Biography (1929) marking the advent of the â€Å"Melville industry,† attentive readers—amateur and professional alike—have reached consensus respecting the text’s massive and heterogeneous structure. Moby Dick, for all its undeniable heuristic†¦show more content†¦The first portion of the text, which functions as extensive exposition, belongs to Ishmael alone—with no mention of Captain Ahab until several pages into Chapter 16, â€Å"The Ship.† Thus, the retrospective unfolding narrat ive presents Ishmael’s consciousness as first person participatory narrator, who, although unreliable in certain respects, 2 earnestly describes both the material and psychological preparation for his great adventure. Shortly before his departure he is delivered from a life-in-death existence, if not suicide itself, by the 0ther: a dark-skinned, heavily-tattooed, cannibal prince named Queequeg, who later serves as First Mate Starbuck’s harpooner aboard the Pequod. Doubtless, Ishmael’s willingness to withdraw his culturally determined projections and to integrate his shadow self earns him two crucial passages: 1) as crewmember of the doomed Pequod; 2) as designated survivor aboard Queequeg’s life-saving coffin. Thus, Leslie Fiedler’s thesis as outlined in Love Death in the American Novel is confirmed: the canonical American romantic hero fulfills an adolescent fantasy by escaping ordinary bourgeois responsibilities (job, wife, family) through seeking exotic adventure beyond the ordinary limits of civilization.3 As a moral bonus (in the examples of Natty Bumppo, Huck Finn, and Ishmael) the typical protagonist implicitly attempts to expiate and redeem a terrible sense of historical/social guilt by choosing a non-Caucasian male companionShow MoreRelatedHerman Melville s Moby Dick 1471 Words   |  6 PagesHerman Melville has become a well-known classic novelist in today’s society, most popularly known for his novel Moby Dick. This book, taught in many high school classrooms, has been critiqued and analyzed in several ways, the characters and story line becoming familiar throughout academia. However, what many high school classrooms do not address is the sub-textual hom osexual references made throughout the book. In fact, several books authored by Melville, once viewed upon closer inspection, can beRead MoreIn the eyes of many his book is seen as a worldwide classic and according to Clark Davis’900 Words   |  4 Pagesaccording to Clark Davis’ composition he brings forth two important elements into his writing, his vivid imagination and philosophical sense. Another way Herman Melville grabs the audience’s eyes is by the way he clashes fact, fiction, and adventure into one piece of work. According to Lois Gordon author of another essay thinks the book Moby- Dick captures the religious side, in which no man can act out the distribution of good and evil (Gordon, 1). These two authors had both divergent and resemblingRead More The Duality of Man in Moby Dick Essay1289 Words   |  6 PagesThe Duality of Man in  Moby Dick In Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, every character is a symbol of the good and evil sides of humanity.   However, none of the characters represent pure evil or pure goodness.   Even Melville’s description of Ahab, whom he repeatedly refers to monomaniacal, which suggests he is driven insane by one goal, is given a chance to be seen as a frail, sympathetic character.   Ishmael represents the character with the most good out of the crew, though hisRead MoreEssay about Herman Melvilles Moby-Dick1910 Words   |  8 PagesHerman Melvilles Moby-Dick   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Herman Melville began working on his epic novel Moby-Dick in 1850, writing it primarily as a report on the whaling voyages he undertook in the 1830s and early 1840s. Many critics suppose that his initial book did not contain characters such as Ahab, Starbuck, or even Moby Dick, but the summer of 1850 changed Melville’s writing and his masterpiece. He became friends with author Nathaniel Hawthorne and was greatly influenced by him. He also read ShakespeareRead MoreAnalysis of Herman Melville ´s Moby Dick Essay821 Words   |  4 Pages Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces thatRead More Evil in the Works of Melville and Emerson Essay1736 Words   |  7 PagesEvil in the Works of Melville and Emerson Herman Melville, like all other American writers of the mid and late nineteenth century, was forced to reckon with the thoughts and writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson celebrated the untapped sources of beauty, strength, and nobility hidden within each individual. Where Emerson was inclined to see each human soul as a beacon of light, however, Melville saw fit to describe and define the darkness, the bitter and harsh world of reality thatRead MoreComparing Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melvilles Writings1739 Words   |  7 PagesComparing Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melvilles Writings Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville focused their writings on how man was affected by nature. They translated their philosophies though both the portrayal of their protagonist and their own self exploration. In Moby Dick, Melville writes about Ahabs physical and metaphysical struggle over the great white whale, Moby Dick, symbolic of mans struggle against the overwhelming forces of nature. Ahabs quest is reported and experiencedRead MoreMargaret Fuller Vs. Herman Melville1259 Words   |  6 Pages(1255 words) Margaret Fuller vs. Herman Melville Kendall Kinney ENGL267 In her 1945 article, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller illustrates a world in which â€Å"there exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves†, and where men hold â€Å"the belief that Woman was made for Man†. Two books, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Woman in the Nineteenth Century, provide male and female perspective in the 19th century. These separate texts exemplify two sides of the sameRead MoreHerman Melville s Moby Dick1358 Words   |  6 Pagesreader. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick contains a man who is among the unforgettable characters of literature: Ahab, sea-captain of the whaling ship the Pequod. Ahab is a mysterious figure to Ishmael, the narrator of the tale, at first. Despite the captain’s initial reclusiveness, Ishmael gradually comes to understand the kind of man that Ahab is and, most importantly, the singular obsession he possesses: finding the white whale, Moby Dick, the beast that bit off his leg. The hunt for Moby Dick (and,Read MoreReview Of Moby Dick 1071 Words   |  5 PagesThe Impact of Devices in Moby Dick 1) Device: Allusion Quote with context (step one): In the very first sentence of Moby Dick, Herman Melville introduces Ishmael as the sole narrator of the novel. He quickly reveals Ishmael’s intense desire to take part in a whaling voyage. However, Ishmael has trouble reconciling why he wants to do so; he explains, â€Å"I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage...yet, now that I recall