Moby Dick Essay -- Human Spirituality Society Papers

Moby DickMoby-Dick is the one American story which every individual seems to recognize. Because of its pervasiveness into our countrys collective psyche, the tale has been reproduced in film and cartoon, and references to the characters and the colossus can be found in commercials, sitcoms, and music, proving the impertinent 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 turn 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 readers imagination, emotions, and intellect to amply understand the journey of the story, the journey which takes the reader on a most unusual trip into the soul of mankind. The dickens primary characters, Ishmael and Ahab, are two parts of one whole. Ishmael is an Everyman and as such, he is the ideal model of the emotions, the imagination, and the appreciation of the beauty and power of Nature, God, and man, coupled with timely infusions from his intellect and reasoning capabilities. He is clearly an articulate narrator who blends intellect and emotion, though at times he stays wholly within the reign of the emotions. Conversely, Ahab ... ... Paul. Melville and His Precursors Styles as Metastyle and Allusion. American literature 62 (1990) 445-63.Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick or The White Whale. ed. Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker. New York Norton, 1967.Poe, Ed gar Allan. Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe. ed. G. R. Thompson. New York Harper & Roe, 1970/Post-Lauria, Sheila. Philosophy in Whales...Poetry in Blubber Mixed word form in Moby-Dick. Nineteenth Century Literature 45 (1990) 300-16.Putz, Manfred. The Narrator as Audience Ishmael as Reader and Critic in Moby-Dick. Studies in the fresh 19.2 (1987) 160-75.Shaw, Peter. Cutting a Classic Down To Size. The Virginia Quarterly 69.1 (1993) 60-84.Thoreau, Henry D. Walden and Resistance to Civil Government. ed. William Rossi. 2nd ed. New York Norton, 1992.