Moby Dick
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Moby Dick is a famous novel written by Herman Melville.
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[edit] Plot
When the narrator, Ishmael, goes out with a newfound friend on a whaling expedition, he does not know what will fall upon him. Throughout this tale, the crew on the Pequod (the ship) is searching for the Great White Whale, Moby Dick. Their captain, Captain Ahab, had his leg taken from him by this whale, and now he is out for revenge. This book is filled with chaos as the crew tries so hard to find that whale and kill it.
[edit] Symbolism
[edit] Moby Dick
The albino whale is on of the main focuses of the story. He symbolizes chaos and uncontrollability. Moby Dick is also a symbol of evil.
Moby Dick possesses various symbolic meanings for various individuals. To the Pequod's crew, the legendary White Whale is a concept onto which they can displace their anxieties about their dangerous and often very frightening jobs. Because they have no delusions about Moby Dick acting malevolently toward men or literally embodying evil, tales about the whale allow them to confront their fear, manage it, and continue to function. Ahab, on the other hand, believes that Moby Dick is a manifestation of all that is wrong with the world, and he feels that it is his destiny to eradicate this symbolic evil.
Moby Dick also bears out interpretations not tied down to specific characters. In its inscrutable silence and mysterious habits, for example, the White Whale can be read as an allegorical representation of an unknowable God. As a profitable commodity, it fits into the scheme of white economic expansion and exploitation in the nineteenth century. As a part of the natural world, it represents the destruction of the environment by such hubristic expansion.
Since Captain Ahab's main goal is to find the whale and kill it, Moby Dick represents a goal.
[edit] Ahab's Pipe
The pipe that Captain Ahab smokes throughout the voyage represents happiness in Ahab's life. Once he tosses it over the edge of the ship in his pursuit to find Moby Dick, all his happiness is lost.
[edit] The Pequod
The ship that the whaling crew sails on is a symbol of doom. It is painted black and covered in the teeth and bones of whales. It is painted a gloomy black and covered in whale teeth and bones, literally bristling with the mementos of violent death. It is, in fact, marked for death. Adorned like a primitive coffin, the Pequod becomes one.
Link title===Queequeg's Coffin=== Queequeg's coffin alternately symbolizes life and death. Queequeg has it built when he is seriously ill, but when he recovers, it becomes a chest to hold his belongings and an emblem of his will to live. He perpetuates the knowledge tattooed on his body by carving it onto the coffin's lid. The coffin further comes to symbolize life, in a morbid way, when it replaces the Pequod's life buoy. When the Pequod sinks, the coffin becomes Ishmael's buoy, saving not only his life but the life of the narrative that he will pass on.
[edit] Story Significance
The entire tale of Moby Dick represents, and comes from, the story of Jonah. In this biblical story, Jonah becomes swallowed by a giant fish.
[edit] Related
- Captain Ahab
- revenge
- obsession
- Moby Dick article on the Literature Wikia
