Moby Dick
Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick has been read in countries and language from all over the world. It has been picked apart and analyzed from a plethora of analytical theories and contexts. In terms of the four functions of mythology, the story can be read in any perspective: mystical, cosmological, sociological, or pedagogical. Analysts and literary scholars could make the case that Moby Dick could be interpreted through any of these four lenses. Above the other three, it is easy to perceive and observe that the narrative is a definite comment on the lives of seafaring men during the 1800s. The story is an interesting example of one of history's most dangerous and fascinating periods and professions. As an example of a sociological text, Moby Dick not only informs the reader of the daily life of men on a whaling boat and the dangers that they face, but also….

Moby Dick or, The Whale is a book that can be read on a number of levels. On the surface it is an adventure story and a mine of information about whaling and the whaling industry. However, the novel also explores the depths of the human psyche and cardinal philosophical questions relating to the meaning of life, religion and good and evil. Sociologically, the novel explores the tension between enlightened thought and the tenets of eighteenth-century Calvinism.
The central theme of the work, which is clearly referred to in the quotation for this essay, is search for meaning and reality. This is implied by Captain Ahab when he says, "How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond." (Mansfield and Vincent 162) The white whale is a reality and a….

Moby Dick and Nature, How Nature Displays an Indomitable Force
Moby-Dick provides different conducts of human beings towards nature. Melville presents a sea animals' world with a white whale as the focus of the narrative and a society represented through the Pequod. Through underlining the conflict between the Pequod, and the white whale, the author of the novel makes a unique, thorough and intensive check out into the link amid human beings and nature. The different attributes and behaviors of the main characters and diverse ethical ideas demonstrated through these characters highlight the relationship between man and nature.

Ishmael and Captain Ahab different fates help the reader in discovering Melville's ethical leaning. Captain Ahab is a tragic hero and the conflict between Ahab and Moby-Dick sets off the reader's tension. Some innermost motive on nature makes an irreconcilable contraction between Moby-Dick and Ahab. The tragedy of Ahab represents human failures against nature….

Moby Dick
In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the character of Captain Ahab is repeatedly referred to as a "monomaniac" (Melville Chapter 41). In other words, he is a man obsessively devoted to and possessed by a single idea -- to get revenge upon the white whale, Moby Dick. To some extent, Ahab views his long-sought encounter with the whale as his own personal fate: it is clear from Melville's depiction that no trials or tribulations undergone during the Pequod's journey would be capable of stopping Ahab's strange quest. Yet it is clear from Melville's novel that the hunt for Moby Dick is not something Ahab could undertake on his own -- it requires a whaling-ship and it requires a crew. As a result, Ahab's journey to find the white whale can be viewed as a depiction of society in microcosm -- the difficulties that he faces along the way are not….

" p. 162 Ahab has taken the power and autonomy given to him as a ship's captain and set himself against God and nature over the loss of his leg. It is this hubris that will bring the Pequod to her doom.
By the end of the novel, Captain Ahab seems to realize that even as great as he apparently thinks he is, he may not be able to master Moby-Dick. Even at this point, he cannot humble himself and admit that some forces may be greater than him. He says, "By heavens man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and fate is the handspike." (p. 536) He has shown a belief in fate, bringing on board a man who seems to be a sooth-sayer, and who predicts Captain Ahab's death, and the predictions seem to be coming true. his is convenient for Captain Ahab;….

Additionally, the holy ritual of anointing the selected things for God's intentions is discussed as well in Moby Dick -- where Queequeg come to a decision that the whaling ship must be anointed and as a result, he alone come to a decision to anoint the ship which permits Queequeg the sacred right of personal participation in the anointing procedure, something usually referred to a religious person; Queequeg did not succeed to match this portrayal for he is a pagan as well as his deeds undermine traditional religious principles; anointing happens via the involvement of God as well as the anointing of the Pequod fails to be a sacred or spiritual communion with the Lord (Peretz, 2003).

The author's conclusions are certainly more than just mischievous fun because of the dominance of religious statements all over Moby Dick; for he is writing at an particularly religious era in American history plus….

And like a human being "owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere" (Chapter 85). And who knows, the whale may even be superior to us, as "this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber" (Chapter 68).
By treating Moby Dick as if the whale were an intelligent creature, Ahab overcomes the threat or fear of nothingness that all characters in the novel, indeed all human beings must grapple with. Ahab knows that his quest….

You cannot hide the soul... I saw the traces of a simple, honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. " (p. 45). Ishmael is a man who is able to look at "the deep things of God" and see the soul of man. He has developed spiritual sense.
Ishmael follows a line of Christian reasoning that allows him to unite with a "heathen," that is a person that knows nothing about the Christian religion. He reasons that to obey the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"), he must do for….

From the viewpoint of Melville scholar Lawrence Cleveland, the character of Captain Ahab, the sole master of the whaling ship the Pequod, "lost his leg to Moby Dick" which makes him "the victim of an attack by a vicious animal" ("Captain Ahab," Internet) in the form of a giant albino sperm whale. Yet by the time one reads Chapter 36 of the novel, it becomes clear that Ahab, named after a biblical figure that was married to Jezebel "who sponsored false prophets and gods, killed true ones and destroyed altars devoted to the Lord or Jehovah" (Smith, 267), is now a man possessed and "obsessed with destroying Moby Dick," due to the having lost his leg to the mighty jaws of the mysterious and terrifying white whale, humped with a crooked back and pierced by lances from past attempts to kill him.

y Chapter 37, the reader is convinced that Ahab….

In Job, the character of Job is presented as a virtuous individual who lives sinless and in accordance to the will of God. In order to test this, God sends his messenger down to strike Job and his life with a slew of calamities, including boils and loss of money. Job has no reason to blame himself for this punishment, yet refuses to curse god. In the end, he is rewarded for his ongoing faith.

This allegory of the ook of Job can be found in other literary works besides just Moby-Dick. For example, the struggle of an essentially good person against unreasonable evil in the ongoing pursuit of goodness is a common theme in almost all of Emily Dickinson's poems. A prevalent theme in many of her poems is the a struggle with depression without any reason. Like Job, Dickinson is an otherwise virtuous individual but for no explanatory reason,….

Starbuck's religious affinities do not assist him in preventing his captain from abandoning the campaign that he got involved in. In spite of his love for God, he is a very loyal individual and he is actually surprised to see the extent of his devotion, as he practically disregards God and all the factors pointing toward the belief that the ship's crew will experience a catastrophic end in favor of following Ahab. Starbuck himself is unable to explain the reason for which he would rather subject to his captain instead of subjecting to God's will, especially considering that he appears to be aware of the futility of their mission even before they begin their journey. Starbuck acknowledges the fact that it is irresponsible to try and get revenge on an animal that lack reason and that attacks only when it feels threatened, thus the reason for which he relates to….

Melville continues, "Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself" (Melville 159). Ahab may be mad, and the author combines all of these details to give the reader a picture of a man who is unique, different, and just a bit frightening as well. As the novel progresses, so will Ahab's madness, which is another way the author portrays him as a very different and frightening man throughout the novel.
Ahab is also very singular in his actions and his thoughts. Melville shows he is behaving more oddly as the voyage progresses, especially during his daily walks on deck. The author states of the captain, "[H]e was won't to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the particular object before him. When….

.. (is) blasphemous!" (pg. #). This is yet another foreshadowing device, for it shows that Moby Dick is nothing but an animal with no conscience and that Ahab's need for revenge will inevitably lead to his own death and that of the entire crew aboard the Pequod.
In a very moving moment in the chapter "The Musket," Starbuck's moral ethics are put to the supreme test, for after a severe typhoon, goes below deck to inform the sleeping Ahab that the dangerous weather has subsided. He finds a loaded musket just outside Ahab's door and in that instant "there strangely evolved an evil thought" in his head -- "Shall this crazed old man be... suffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom with him?" (pg. #). Yet Starbuck, as a result of his religious/moral beliefs, finds it impossible to kill Ahab in order to save the crew from certain….

Queequeg's Coffin
There are a thousands different ways for a man to lose himself and his soul - and a number of ways for him to be saved. Herman Melville presents us over the course of his work with a dozen different ways in which men find and lose and sometimes find themselves again. For Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, the way to life and to perhaps even hope is by death, or at least by an emblem of death, for it is by a coffin that he is - to steal a Dickensian phrase - recalled to life.

The first line of the novel is, of course, one of the best-known opening lines in English literature - but it is also a clue to the character of the narrator as well as a clue to the intent of Melville in writing this book. e are meant, as soon as we….

Point ONE: Billy Budd: Critic Eugene Goodheart is the Edythe Macy Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Brandeis University. He writes that while critics are generally divided between those who see Captain Vere as "an unwitting collaborator" with Claggart and those who feel Vere was correct to have Billy sent to the gallows. In his piece Goodheart explains that Billy is "…variously seen as Adam before the fall, as a noble barbarian, as Isaac the sacrificial victim…and as a Christ figure" (Goodheart, 2006, p. 81).

Point TO: Goodheart makes the most of his assertion that no matter what allegorical link to Billy, the protagonist is symbolic of innocence. hen Billy lashes out at Claggart, it is due to his innocence. He is first of all innocent of the charge that he was leading a mutiny, Goodheart explains. Secondly, Billy is innocent when it comes to the existence of evil (Goodheart, p. 82);….