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Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
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 Shakespeare and Milton’s Paradise Lost (Murray 41).
These influences lead to the novel Melville completed and published in 1851. Although
shunned by critics after its release, Moby-Dick enjoyed a critical renaissance in the 1920s and as assumed its rightful place in the canons of American and world literature as a great classic. Through the symbols employed by Melville, Moby-Dick studies man’s
relationship with his universe, his fate, and his God. Ahab represents the league humans
make with evil when they question the fate God has willed upon them, and God is
represented by the great white whale, Moby Dick. In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville uses
a vast array of symbols and allegories in the search for the true explanation of man’s
place in the universe and his relationship with his fate and his God.
The focus of cruel fate and evil symbols is placed on the head of Ahab, captain of
the Pequod. Ishmael, though narrator of the story, is not the center of Moby-Dick after
Captain Ahab is introduced onto the deck of the ship and into action. The focus of the
novel shifts from the freshman whaler to experienced Ahab, an “ungodly, god-like man”
(Melville 82). Having been a whaler for many years, he is a well respected captain, yet
his previous voyage has left him without a limb, and in its place is a peg leg carved from
whale ivory. Ahab remains below decks shadowed in obscurity for the initial stages of
the Pequod’s journey into the Atlantic. Ahab soon reveals his devilish plan to his crew,
however, in a frenzied attack of oratory — he wishes to seek, hunt, and destroy the White
Whale, the fabled Moby Dick. It was the white whale Moby Dick which had, on Ahab’s
prior voyage, ravenously devoured his leg, and Ahab harbored a resentful revenge on his
persecutor. Any mention of Moby Dick sent Ahab into a furious rage (Melville 155). He
riles against Starbuck, the ...
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New York: Chelsea, 1986.
Braswell, William. “Moby-Dick Is an Allegory of Humanity’s Struggle with God.”
Leone. 149.
Buell, Lawrence. “Moby-Dick as Sacred Text.” Bloom. 62.
Chase, Richard, ed. Melville: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice, 1965.
Chase, Richard. “Melville and Moby-Dick.” Chase. 49.
Gilmore, Michael T., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Moby-Dick. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1977.
Guiley, Rosemary. Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience. New
York: Castle, 1991.
Hillway, Tyrus. Herman Melville. New York: Twayne, 1963.
House, Paul R. Old Testament Survey. Nashville: Broadman, 1992.
Kazin, Alfred. “’Introduction’ to Moby-Dick.” Chase. 39.
Leone, Bruno, ed. Readings on Herman Melville. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1997.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick, or The Whale. 1851. New York: Bantam, 1981.
Murray, Henry A. “’In Nomine Diaboli’: Moby-Dick.” Bloom. 39.
Parker, Hershel, and Harrison Hayford, eds. Moby-Dick as Dubloon. New York: Norton,
1970.
Spiller, Robert, et al. Literary History of the United States of America. New York: Scott,
1968.
In Moby Dick, it follows the accounts of a young man named Ishmael. Ishmael is looking for money in the whaling business, the same thing as hunting game, but for whale blubber and whatever else they have to offer. At a tavern, he signs up to go whaling upon a ship named the Pequod, under the captaining of a man named Ahab. At first, Ishmael thinks he’s just your average whaling trip, but soon realizes there’s a deeper story behind Ahab. Ahab’s true intentions are to find a specific whale called Moby Dick. The whale is famous for sinking hundreds of whaling ships, and one was Ahab’s previous ship. In that process, Ahab also lost part of his leg at the knee. As you can imagine, most of the story Ahab is almost insane. At nothing anyone calls
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the most prolific and important musical innovators we have ever seen. His style of music helped re-shape music and the Classical period. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756. Mozart was a child prodigy, claiming most success as a youth. At the age of six, Mozart could play the harpsichord and violin, improvise fugues, write minuets, and read music perfectly. At the age of eight, he wrote a symphony and at eleven, an oratorio. Then amazingly, at the age of twelve he wrote an opera. Mozart's father was Leopold Mozart, a court musician. Both Mozart and Beethoven had help from their fathers in different ways. Mozart's father helped him travel around as a young musician and with this he traveled many places and seen many well-known people and aristocrats. With Mozart's early successes came many challenges to his life. He had greater expectations from the community and from his father. Unlike, Beethoven, Mozart was a bit spoiled as a youth and because of this he would not tolerate to be treated as a servant. He completely relied on his father to help him and would not work with the archbishop. This would become a problem when Mozart did not develop enough initiative and could not make decisions on his ow...
Though he did not walk until he was three years old, Mozart displayed musical gifts at an extremely early age. At the age of four, he could reproduce on the piano a melody played to him; at five, he could play the violin with perfect intonation. In fact, with more recent evidence, Mozart is believed to have written his first composition just a few short days before his fourth birthday! These compositions, an Andante and Allegro K1a and K1b, were written, Leopold noted, early in 1760, as he approached his fourth birthday. They are very brief, and modelled on the little pieces that his sister had been given to play (and which he also learnt; the "Wolfgang Notenbuch" is a forgery). As they survive only in his father's handwriting, it is impossible to determine how much of them are Mozart's own work.
Wolfgang started learning music at a very early age from his dad Leopold, who was a violin player. At the age of six he began composing and by eight he had written symphonies. His father toured Mozart and his sister around for the entertainment of nobles across Europe. From 1963 to 1973 Mozart went on tour with his father and family. He performed both publicly and privately for nobles of the time and often was asked to write music for weddings and other special occasions. While his father was often inflexible and hard to deal with, the tours that he went on were mostly improvised. “In 1777 Wolfgang went on a tour with his mother to Munich, Mannheim, and Paris. It was in Paris that his mother died suddenly in July, 1778. With no prospects of a job, Mozart dejectedly returned to Salzburg in 1779 and became court organist to the Archbishop.”(Sherrane, 1.2)
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...
The amount of involvement in one’s profession is another important theme in the two stories. Ahab takes his job as a whaler quite seriously. He is obsessed by the desire to destroy the whale that shattered his life. In contrast, the narrat...
The crew grew in eagerness as Ahab reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden doubloon that glistened in the sun. Previously, the crew had no interaction with Ahab; they only knew him by odd sightings and hyperbolic tales. Yet there he stood, with a single doubloon held high into the heavens, as he declared: “Whoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white headed whale with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke – look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys” (Melville 233). With this golden doubloon, Ahab convinces his crew to hunt for the great ravaging monster known as Moby-Dick. In a story about implications and perspectives, where narratives shift from character to character, what does a doubloon mean to the crew? Melville paints the crew of the Pequod into a microcosm of actual society; every character represents some human facet and the golden coin nailed to the mast peers into the souls of each shipmate. The coin’s imprinted imagery is interpreted differently by each crew member, which leads the reader to ask what this piece of gold means. Why is a crew following a monomaniacal tyrant into the depths of hell? Although the coin shows us that each character has a specific motive for the actions he commits, ultimately the reader realizes that meaning is not integral to any single situation - like the hunt for the whale - every man must hunt for his meaning.
His career in music started at an early age. His birth occurred on January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. His dad, Leopold Mozart, excelled in music himself. Because of that, Mozart got pushed in the direction of a musical career early in. By age 4, he could play short pieces on the harpsichord, and at age 5, he began composing and also had his first concert at Salzburg University. His sister, the only other surviving sibling, also had talent in music and together they performed. A story circulated that one day at age 7, Mozart picked up a violin and played the second part of a work for the first time with complete accuracy. Age nine, he composed his first s...
Mozart was talented in music from an early age at three he was picking out chords on the harpsichord, at four playing short pieces, at five composing. Before he was six, his father took him and his sister , to Munich to play at the Bavarian court, and a few months later they went to Vienna and were heard at the imperial court and in noble houses. At the age of seven, he picked up a violin at a musical gathering and sight-read the second part of a work with complete accuracy, despite his never having had a violin lesson.In the years 1763-1766 Leopold obtained a leave of absence from his position and the family set out on...
At the age of three, Wolfgang showed signs of remarkable musical talent. He learned to play the harpsichord, a keyboard instrument related to the piano, at the age of four. Wolfgang began composing minuets at the age of five. When he was only six years old, he and his older sister, Anna Maria, embarked on a series of concert tours to Europe’s courts and major cities. They played for the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa at her court in Vienna in 1762. Both children played the keyboard, but Wolfgang became a violin virtuoso as well. Before he was fourteen, Mozart had composed many works called sonatas for the harpsichord, piano, or the violin as well as orchestral and other works. His father recognized Wolfgang’s amazing talent and devoted a lot of his time to his son’s general and musical education.
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.
father at an early age. By the age of three, Mozart could play the clavinet and recognize chords.
born in Salzburg, Austria, January 27, 1756. His father, Leopold, perhaps the greatest influence on Mozart's life, was the vice Kapellmeister (assistant choir director) to the Archbishop of Salzburg at the time of Mozart's birth. Mozart was actually christened as "Joannes Chrysotomus Wolfgangus Theophilus," but adopted the Latin term "Amadeus" as his name of choice. Mozart was one of seven children born to Leopold and Anna, however, only one other sibling survived.
For instance, when the Pequod encounters other ships like the Samuel Enderby, Captain Boomer implies that Captain Ahab is attempting to lead the Pequod and its crew to their deaths when he asks, “‘What’s the matter? He was heading east, I think. —Is your captain crazy?’” (295). Ahab is heading towards Moby Dick against any advice given to him by the other ship captains. He is resolved to get his revenge and blinded to all else. His narrow-minded nature, has driven him to the point where he does not care about the danger Moby Dick poses to him and his crew. Similar to how the United States never backs down from danger, Melville is reinforcing the idea that the Pequod is as an allegory for America because it is headed straight for danger. Furthermore, Melville is indirectly warning about the current situation befalling the United