1. Unit 1: Herman Melville’s
Moby Dick
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2. Unit 1 outline
• Herman Melville’s life, works and literary
significance
• An introduction to Moby Dick (1851)
• Movie: Moby Dick, dir. John Huston (1956)
• Novel: analysis of chapters 1, 28, 34, 41
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3. 1. H. Melville’s Life, Works and Literary Significance
Handout pp. 1-4
The basics:
• Heredity but loss of fortune
• Works at several odd jobs
• Sails on various whaler ships (lives with a tribe
in the Marquesas, explores in Tahiti and Eimeo,
Honolulu...)
• 1844 starts writing, with irregular success, revival
from 1919
• Psychological, economic and familiar distress
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4. Main works
Typee (1846)
Omoo (1847)
Mardi (1849)
Redburn (1849)
White Jacket (1850)
Moby Dick; or The Whale (1851)
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5. Main works (cont.)
Pierre (1852)
Israel Potter (1855)
The Piazza Tales (1856)
The Confidence Man (1857)
Battle Pieces (1866)
Clarel (1876)
Billy Budd (posthumous, 1924)
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6. Relevance
•“The man who lived among the cannibals”
•“The first American literary sex symbol”
•Mostly appreciated as author of travel narratives
•Not admired for more philosophical works
•Criticised for his style and morals
•Forgotten in the postbellun literary world
•Revival on centennial in 1919
•Today: mass consumption of Melville in
classroom and popular culture
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7. Main themes
• Religion: original sin and evil / innocence
• Man in society and nature
• Man as maker of his own identity:
– Appearances
– Mortality
– Inability to know the universe
– Need for love and his fellow men
• Race
– civilized/savage
• Gender and sexuality
– Masculine world
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– Homoerotic overtones Falquina

8. Melville’s influences and style
Experience (sea voyages, whaling)
Hawthorne
• Influence in Moby Dick (dedicated to Hawthorne): style,
quest for the meaning of life…
• Melville’s review “Hawthorne and his Mosses” (1850)
In common:
• obscurity, darkness and pessimism
• Romantic concern with good and evil
• philosophical ideas and obsessions
• Two kinds of audience: the mob and the eagle-eyed
Differences:
• Hawthorne: individuals
• Melville: philosophical or metaphysical matters (more
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9. Melville’s influences and style
Dark Romanticism
• Hawthorne, Melville, Edgar Allan Poe
• View of Man: moral struggle with evil; feelings and
intuition; dark interior
• View of God: good v. evil; sin and its psychological
effects on people
• View of Nature: evil found in setting and symbol;
often the supernatural
• View of Society: must be reformed
Shakespeare (Style, poetic diction, verbal
exuberance, especially in dramatic monologues)
The Bible (Old Testament)
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10. An introduction to Moby Dick
Handout p. 5
• Reception and relevance
• Context
• General interpretation
• Plot
• Themes
• Characters
• Narrative voice
• Influences, style and tone
• Symbolism
• Epilogue
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11. Reception and Relevance
From...
“ an ill compounded mixture of romance and
matter of fact. It is a crazy sort of affair, stuffed
with conceits and oddities of all kinds, put in
artificially, deliberately and affectedly” (Boston
Post, November 20, 1851)
To…
“The best American novel”
“An American classic by the American
Shakespeare” (common views, today)
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16. Context
Coming of age of the US (economical, political,
social)
– definition of Americanness, American democracy, …
Mexican-American war 1846-48 and
Civil War 1861-65
– Imperialism, liberty, American individualism, race…
In literature:
•1850s American Renaissance
•Debate: American vs. English
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17. General interpretation
Two narrative levels:
•A voyage on board a whaler which ends tragically
•The conflict between human life and nature, the
quest for the meaning of life
Various possible readings:
•Religious symbolism
•Adventure story
•Nature documentary
•(...)
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18. Plot
Initial situation
• Ishmael goes on his first
whaling voyage aboard
the Pequod.
• In New Bedford he meets
Queequeg
• Introduction of the
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19. “How it is I know not; but there is no place
like a bed for confidential disclosures
between friends. Man and wife, they say,
there open the very bottom of their souls
to each other; and some old couples often
lie and chat over old times till nearly
morning. Thus, then, in our hearts'
honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy,
loving pair” (Chapter 10)
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20. Plot
Conflict
• Ishmael is caught up in
Captain Ahab’s quest for
revenge on the White
Whale, Moby Dick.
• Ahab makes his first
appearance and shows
his obsession
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21. “Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and
see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot
swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has
ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed
purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul
is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges,
through the rifled hearts of mountains, under
torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an
obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!”
(Chapter 37)
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22. Plot
Complication
• While Ahab searches for
Moby Dick, the Pequod
continues everyday
whaling activities
• Conflict between the
official purpose of the ship
and Ahab’s secret one
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23. Plot
Between Chapter 36 (Ahab’s declaration of his
real quest) and Chapter 133 (Ahab sees
Moby Dick):
– Whale biology, industry, and sea voyages
– An extra boat crew
– The Pequod’s journey
– Bad omens
Climax
• Captain Ahab sights Moby Dick.
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25. Everett Henry
The Voyage of the Pequod from the book Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Cleveland: Harris-Seybold, 1956
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26. “Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and
welded by Perth to the shank, the steel soon
pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith
was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to
tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the
water-cask near.
‘No, no - no water for that; I want it of the true
death-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg,
Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as
much blood as will cover this barb?’ holding it high
up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three
punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the
White Whale's barbs were then tempered.
‘Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in
nomine diaboli!’ deliriously howled Ahab, as the
malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal
blood” (Chapter 18)
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27. Plot
Suspense
• The Pequod
chases Moby
Dick for three
days
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28. Plot
Denouement
• Moby Dick
destroys the
Pequod and
nearly everyone
on board is
killed…
• Ahab’s drowning/
strangling death
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29. “Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying
but unconquering whale; to the last I
grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab
at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last
breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all
hearses to one common pool! and since
neither can be mine, let me then tow to
pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied
to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give
up the spear!” (Chapter 135)
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30. Plot
Conclusion
• Epilogue: only Ishmael
survives to tell the
story
• He is saved by
Queequeg’s coffin
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31. Themes
•Obession, revenge and madness
•Fate and free will
•Good/evil
•Nature
•Truth, knowledge, language
•Race
•Gender and sexuality
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32. Characters
•Ishmael
•Ahab
•Queequeg
•Moby Dick
•Starbuck
•Stubb
•Flask
•Tashtego
•Dagoo
•Pip
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33. Narrative voice
•Ishmael as first person narrator
– Central (protagonist)
– Peripheral (observer)
•Third person narrator, omniscient
•Dramatic style
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34. Influences, Style and Tone
Influences:
•Hawthorne
•Shakespeare
•Tragedy and medieval romance
•Cetology and other areas of knowledge
Style:
•Complex, adorned, metaphorical, exuberant...
Tone:
•Versatility: thoughtful, elevated, humorous.
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35. Symbolism
•The Pequod
•Moby Dick
•The Gold Doubloon
•Sperm
•Queequeg’s coffin
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36. Epilogue
“And I only am escaped alone to tell thee”
(Job)
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