Pequod

If a fire ever breaks out in a person 's home, the first instinct should be to remove all living beings in the residency. If by chance however, a person is next to their book shelf at the time of the incident, the only book worthy of saving would be Moby Dick by Herman Melville. While that statement is a tall order, simply analyzing the novel 's characters and themes is enough to leave a person with questions that would take an eternity to answer. The narrator opens immediately with one of the…

Secondary Characters disposition towards death In Melville’s, Moby Dick, he describes the way in which the secondary characters interact with the different situations that occur on the Pequod. These situations usually have to do with the concept of the inscrutable. The inscrutable deals with the notion of death, and how the characters look at the outside world. The inscrutable displays to the character, this “pasteboard mask” that one must punch through to understand the true meaning of death…

In every American household there is the ultimate goal to achieve the “American Dream”. And every household holds a different version of the “American Dream”. But what is the proper version of the “American Dream”? How can we achieve it? Who has access to it? For the majority of people, myself included, one would argue that the “American Dream” is to utilize the system of capitalism, to achieve financial success, materialistic belongings, have a family and to be healthy and stable when retired.…

the 1940s. In the story of Moby Dick Ishmael seeks to go whaling and ends up in Nantucket, the traditional capital of the whaling industry with Queequeg, a guy he met in New Bradford, Massachusetts. The two end up going on a whaling ship called the Pequod, captained by Ahab. When Ahab makes his first appearance on board he has an artificial leg made from a whale’s jaw and tells his crew of his intentions of pursuing and killing Moby Dick. He then makes his crew promise to search for Moby Dick to…

In Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick, a captain and his crew endeavor on a perilous journey to kill the legendary white whale. Melville, often through the perspective of a first-time whaler named Ishmael, chronicles Captain Ahab’s desperate venture to exhort his revenge on the great Moby Dick. During the Pequod’s quest to avenge Ahab's leg, Ishmael vividly documents life aboard, while analyzing the significance of both morality and immorality in this world. Ultimately, Melville utilizes powerful…

In Chapter 94 of Moby-Dick, “A Squeeze of the Hand,” Melville exposes the reader to the bizarre and coveted substance that catalyzed the rapid expansion of the whaling industry. Spermaceti is a waxy, oil-like substance produced in the spermaceti organ in the skull of the sperm whale. Originating from the spermaceti-organ, the fluid is located in the cranial cavity of the sperm whale and occupies a major part of the skull, holding up to 1,900 litres of spermaceti. Since the spermaceti organ, a…

Most interpretations of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick have a central focus on the evolution of Captain Ahab’s characterization. However, while Ahab’s journey offers a multitude of allegorical insight, other remarkable characters are disregarded by researchers in favor of Captain Ahab. One such character is the narrator of the story, Ishmael. He is depicted as only a passive viewer in the tale of Ahab and the white whale, but Ishmael has his own development in Moby Dick. Indeed, Ishmael grows as he…

The Enlightenment may have brought us the ideas of democracy, and the Industrial Revolution may have eventually led to the technological marvel that is the cell phone, but equally important is the movement sparked in their opposition. Through the minds of Locke, Montesquieu, Whitney and Watt, the modern ages of government and technology were born, but not all at the time were completely in favor of these ideas. In fact, there was an artistic movement that began as a response to these glorious…

If the initial idea were true then Queequeg’s time on the Pequod would have led to more hardships and pain, but Queequeg proved to be a savior when he saves the men of the ship by spearing a whale “and taking sharp aim at it, he darted the iron rod over Bildad’s broad brim, clean across the ship’s decks, and struck…

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.” (Pessoa). Literature has many different definitions, but they all have more or less the same concept. According to Study.com, English literature is the study of literature written in the English language. (What is English Literature? - History & Definition). Throughout the years’ literature has evolved to keep up with today’s society. It has been modernized to fit in it into its current contemporary mold. Reading English literature from…