|
Synopsis
Moby-Dick is a novel by the American writer Herman Melville. It follows
the crew of the Pequod on a whaling expedition that takes them around the world. The expedition soon transforms into a
monomaniacal hunt for the legendary "Great White Whale", Moby-Dick, lead by the ship's
captain, Ahab.
First published on November 14, 1851, Moby-Dick's style was revolutionary for its time. Descriptions of the methods of whale-hunting, the
adventure, and the narrator's reflections interweave the story's themes with a huge swath of Western literature, history,
mythology, philosophy, and science. The prose is intricate, imaginative, and varied. It was a commercial failure upon its initial
publication, but has since secured Melville's reputation in the first rank of American writers. It was published in an expurgated
version entitled The Whale in London one month before appearing in the United
States.
Inspiration
The plot was inspired in part by the November 20, 1820 sinking of the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts). The ship went down 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America after it was attacked by an 80-ton Sperm Whale.
See also Thomas Nickerson
Characters
The crew-members of the Pequod, are carefully drawn stylizations of humans types and habits; critics have often
described them as a "self-enclosed universe."
- Ishmael: "Call me Ishmael", is one of the best known opening sentences in English language
literature. Ishmael serves as our eyes and ears aboard the Pequod. He is, at the end, the only witness alive to tell the
tale. Ishmael was the name of the first son of Abraham in the Old Testament. The Biblical Ishmael was born to a slave woman because Abraham
believed his wife, Sarah, to be infertile; when God granted her a son, Isaac, Ishmael and his mother were turned out of Abraham's household. The name has come to
symbolize orphans and social outcasts. From the beginning, Ishmael tells us that he turns to the sea out of a sense of alienation
from human society. Ishmael, like Melville, has a rich literary background that he brings to bear on his shipmates and their
adventure.
- Captain Ahab: Ahab is the captain of the whaling ship Pequod. Injured and scarred by Moby-Dick on
their last meeting, Captain Ahab is consumed with the desire for revenge. There are two Ahabs named in the Bible, one a King of Isreal, the other a blasphemous prophet delivered by God to be killed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.
- Moby-Dick: Moby-Dick is a livid white sperm whalewho has
been attacked by multiple whaling ships, but has been able to destroy his attackers.
- Starbuck: Starbuck is the first mate of the Pequod. He is intellectual and pacifistic. He is alone among the crew in objecting to
Ahab's quest. Starbuck's Coffee is named after him.
- Queequeg: Queequeg the harpooner is a "savage" of indeterminate origin. He befriends Ishmael in Nantucket
before they leave port.
Plot
Warning: Plot details
follow.
In spite of being poorly received when first published, Moby-Dick is
considered to be one of the canonical novels in the English language. It tells the story of Captain Ahab, a Quaker sea captain obsessed with killing a legendary white whale that cost him one of his legs and gave him a vicious scar down his torso.
Symbolism
- All of the members of the Pequod's crew have biblical-sounding, improbable or descriptive names, and the narrator
deliberately avoids specifying the exact time of the events and some other similar details. These together suggest that perhaps
we should understand the narrator--and not just Melville--to be deliberately casting his tale in an epic and allegorical
mode.
- The white whale itself, for example, has been read as symbolically representative of good and evil, as has Ahab.
Selected adaptations
External links
|