Herman Melville’s novels, with good reason, can be called masculine. Moby-Dick may, also with good reason, be called a man’s book and that Melville’s seafaring episode suggests a patriarchal, anti-feminine approach that adheres to the nineteenth century separation of genders. Value for masculinity in the nineteenth century America may have come from certain expected roles males were expected to fit in; I argue that its value comes from examining it not alone, but in relation to and in concomitance with femininity. As Richard H. Brodhead put it, Moby-Dick is “so outrageously masculine that we scarcely allow ourselves to do justice to the full scope of masculinism” (Brodhead 9). I concur with Brodhead in that remark, and that Melville’s use of flagrant masculinity serves as a vehicle in which femininity is brought on board The Pequod; femininity is inseparable from masculinity in Melville’s works, as staunchly masculine as they seem superficially.
The marriage of the masculine and the feminine into one, at times, indistinct sphere produces what Gene Laskowski calls a “masculine sentimentality” in his dissertation of the same name; curiously called, he adds, as “sentimentality is commonly associated with the tender landscape of feminine” (Laskowski 4). Laskowski calls for a broader understanding of gender in Melville’s works, which need to be “liberated” from their prescribed gender definitions (Laskowski 4). I hope to extend Laskowski’s argument in adding further evidence of “masculine sentimentality”, particularly in Moby-Dick.
Juniper Ellis’ “Gendering Melville” argues that not enough attention has been paid to masculinity in relation to other major features in nineteenth century America, including femininity, race, and class....
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Laskowski, Gene L. Masculine Sentimentality in the Early Novels of Herman Melville. Diss. University of Michigan, 1993. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1993. Print.
Robbins, Sarah. "Gendering the History of the Antislavery Narrative: Juxtaposing Uncle Tom's Cabin and Benito Cereno, Beloved and Middle Passage" American Quarterly 49.3 (1997): 531-73. JSTOR. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.
Weigman, Robyn. "Melville's Geography of Gender." American Literary History 1.4 (1989): 735-53. JSTOR. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.
Wilson, Sarah. "Melville and the Architecture of Antebellum Masculinity." American Literature 76.1 (2004): 59-87. Duke University Press. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.
Brodhead, Richard H. "Trying All Things." New Essays on Moby-Dick. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge UP, 1986. 9. Print.
36 Melville to Evert Duychinck, 13 December 1850, Correspondence, 174.
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.
At the turn of the 18th century, the confines of multipurpose commercial ships fostered divergent enactments of patriarchal control on the oceanic peripheries of Latin America and the Caribbean. In particular, the Spanish vessel San Dominick served as a symbolic battleground between white superiority and black subversion, the fiercely republican United States of America and the weakening Spanish Empire. Covering historical and thematic distances, Herman Melville narrates and Greg Grandin analyzes this ship’s tale to engage readers as the white seamen Amasa Delano and Benito Cereno fear for their safety against the ship’s black majority on the unpatrolled, stormy seas. On board the San Dominick, Melville and Grandin illustrate that socio-political conceptualizations of patriarchy and liberty extended from
The rugged frontiersman, the wealthy self-made entrepreneur, the stoic lone wolf; these are classic archetypes, embodiments of an enduring mythos-- American Masculinity. The doctrine of ideal manliness and its many incarnations have occupied a central place in American literature since colonial times. These representations that still exists in countless cultural iterations. The literary periods studied in this course were witness to writers that continually constructed and deconstructed the myths of paternal heroism and ideal masculinity. From Romanticism to Modernism authors, like James’s Fennimore Cooper, and F. Scott Fitzgerald helped to create the lore of American Manhood by investigating cultural notions gender and self that were emblematic of their time.
For centuries women have been perceived as overshadowed figures who remain in a separate sphere from men. The term “separate spheres” refers to the distinct, conventional characteristics associated with gender differences. The public sphere of men is associated with commerce whereas the domestic sphere for women is linked with the household. However, there is more than just one perspective on feminism. The feminist view is influenced by three main voices: the French, American, and British. French feminists focus their attention on language; American feminists analyze the literary aspects; and British feminists examine the historical processes (Murfin 296-299). Using these perspectives, we can see the oppression of women conveyed in many different texts throughout literature and in history. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for instance, exhibits not only a feminist view in the text, but also in society during Shelley’s time period as displayed by her negotiations with the separate spheres. Voltaire’s Candide also conveys powerful gender differences and reveals the oppression of women throughout the novel. Therefore, a correlation can be seen between the view of women in the two novels and how it reflects the culture and time period in which the novels were written.
conceptualizations of gender in literature are situated in a culture and historical context ; the
This essay explores the role of women in Homer's Odyssey, James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and Derrick Walcott's Omeros (1990), epics written in very different historical periods. Common to all three epics are women as the transforming figure in a man's life, both in the capacity of a harlot and as wife.
One of the most fascinating elements that female authors bring to light is their use of perspective—something that’s most commonly illustrated through the eyes of a man, a male author, or, more often than not, both. Women writers offer a different voice than their male counterparts, even if it’s simply by the subtle inclusion of their own experiences within the narrative of the central character. With that in mind, the question must be asked—how do these female authors present their male characters? It’s common for male authors to stick to stereotypes and caricatures of the women they include in their works; but do female authors choose to follow this style as well? How do they represent the “modern man” within their texts? Through Woolf’s
Charters, Ann & Samuel. Literature and its Writers. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 137-147. Print.
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.
Moby-Dick is the one American story which every individual seems to recognize. Because of its pervasiveness into our country’s collective psyche, the tale has been reproduced in film and cartoon, and references to the characters and the whale can be found in commercials, sitcoms, and music, proving the novel to still be relevant today. It is the epitome of American Romanticism because it delves into the human spirit, the force of imagination, and power of the emotions and the intellect. The novel praises and critiques the American society in sharp and unequivocal terms, while, at the same time, mirroring this mixed society through the “multinational crew of...the Pequod” (Shaw 61). Melville, through his elaborate construction of the novel, “makes the American landscape a place for epic conquest” (Lyons 462). The primary draw of this novel is the story itself: a whaling ship, headed by a monomaniac, and the pursuit of a whale, or the American dream and its attainment, making a clear “connection between Romanticism and nationalism” (Evans 9). The novel calls upon the reader’s imagination, emotions, and intellect to fully understand the journey of the story, the journey which takes the reader on a most unusual trip into the soul of mankind.
In a chapter of her book Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790-1860 dedicated exclusively to Harriet Beecher Stowe's best-selling sentimental novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Jane Tompkins argues against the prevailing critical opinion that Stowe's novel is an unsophisticated, abortive attempt to write meaningfully about the "peculiar institution" which divided American culture in the mid-nineteenth century. Tompkins suggests that the novel's popularity, long considered a reason for "suspicion bordering on disgust, is [actually] a reason for paying close attention" to it (Tompkins 124). Tompkins makes a good point; perhaps Uncle Tom's Cabin makes sense outside of the bounds of the conventional critical approaches which can only view Stowe's novel as an example of "cultural deformation." In this essay, I want to discuss the ways in which Stowe's protagonist Tom manipulates and exemplifies the theory of feminine "influence" (as discussed in Ann Douglas' analysis of nineteenth century women's writings) which moderate white women advocated as means for reforming (and eventually subverting) the prevailing patriarchal social system in response to the Industrial Revolution; far from deforming its culture, Uncle Tom's Cabin actually reflects the rhetoric which the women of the nineteenth century used to redefine their position in a new, industrialist economy.
In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, the idea of patriarchy ruled the many societies all over the world. Particularly in Britain, its “overarching patriarchal model” (Marsh) had “reserved power and privilege for men” (Marsh). Also during this time period feminist literature began to arise and was invaded by, “the complex social, ethical, and economic roots of sexual politics… as testimony to gender bias and the double standard” (“Sexual Politics and Feminist Literature”). In Jane Austen’s writing, readers have been aware of her constant themes of female independence and gender equality. However, many have criticized the author for the fact that many of her “individualistic” female characters have ended up
Comparing Melville's Moby Dick as a Man's Story and Naslund's Novel, Ahab's Wife as a Woman's Story
Hurston portrays women as independent and capable of infinite possibilities. Many aspects contribute to how an author, male or female, portrays his or her female characters. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Wharton, and Hurston all illustrate their own perception of women based upon personal experience and social acuity of their particular era. The portrayal of women in American Literature is based solely upon an author’s personal opinion and interpretation and does not necessarily symbolize the true spirit and quintessence of women as one. Bibliography:..