What Makes Moby Dick A Milestone In American Gothic Literature?

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick illustrates a journey across seas in pursuit of discovery, freedom, and vengeance. From the beginning, an aura of mystery surrounds Captain Ahab, as Melville waits to introduce him until well into the novel. The obscurity surrounding Ahab causes an uneasiness amongst the crew that continues throughout the novel. After the attack that left him missing a leg, Ahab views Moby-Dick as evil personified; to Ahab, killing the whale means killing all evil. Ahab’s thirst for blood turns him into a cold-hearted man whose sole purpose is to crucify the white whale.

Moby Dick is the most adapted and diversely depicted of American literature, and I attempt to work with the community to research the collective consciousness we all share that links itself to the various facet of the text. I will be continuing to create works that are related to Moby Dick during the Guttenberg residency, but mainly focusing on extending these imageries

His most famous book, Moby Dick, features the observant narrator, Ishmael, aboard the Pequot, a ship captained by the menacing one-legged Captain Ahab. Having lost his limb in a previous voyage to an enormous sperm whale named Moby Dick, Ahab scans the seven seas in manic search of revenge against the giant. Queequeg, Ishmael’s menacing best friend, and the rest of the crew are subjected to extreme jeopardy and later death due to Ahab’s monomaniacal disregard for bad omens and danger. The whale slices the boat clean in half and none survive to tells of its greatness except Ishmael.

When discussing gothic fiction many early authors come to mind, Mary Shelley, the Bronte Sisters, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few, were all exceptional European writers of this style. As for American authors, there are two names that hold top places of honor, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Poe, with his talent for lyrical, poetic prose and conveying the macabre, is considered by many to be the master of gothic fiction. However, Hawthorne with his propensity toward humor and his ability to breathe humanness into his characters is an excellent contender for the title. They both exhibited gothic traditions in their writing, while at the same time adjusting elements of this previously European genre to fit into American surroundings, all the while delivering their own unique contributions to the gothic scene. I will explore and compare some of their works with hopes of identifying what I find to be some of their genius contributions to this dark romantic style.

Herman Melville was a Romantic Era writer but before he wrote one of the Great American Epics he was a whaler. When Melville was writing he was very inspired and influenced by Nathaniel Hawthorne and even dedicated his work to him. Melville was also influenced by some other great writers including Poe, Thoreau, Emerson and Shakespeare. Melville heard a story about a ship called the Essex from a member on the ship, George Pollard, Jr.

Melville's novel, Moby Dick, has only men. Melville's men's club sails a sea whose gender changes often and whose personality is resolutely enigmatic. The feminine in Melville¹s novel hides her face in a veil of stars and behind a cloud of words.

Moby-Dick is considered to be one of, if not the, best novels in American history. Harper & Brothers first published it in 1851 in New York. In England, it was published in the same year under the title, The Whale (“Moby Dick”). Melville explores topics and themes that were scarcely spoken of and never even seen in a novel. In the novel, the Pequod, which is the ship, is named after a Native American tribe that was exterminated when the white settlers arrived. It is a symbol of death and doom and foreshadows event that occur later in the novel. Melville brings some very controversial themes to light in the novel. Revenge is one of the main themes of Dark Romanticism and Melville uses it to drive every action taken by Ahab. This is seen early on in the novel as Ahab explains to the crew why he has a peg leg and that he wants to enact his revenge on Moby Dick (Melville 160-161). “Moby Dick is, fundamentally, a revenge tragedy. It’s about one man’s maniacal obsession with vengeance. It’s about finding an object on which to pin all you anger and fear and rage, not only about your own suffering, but also about the suffering of all mankind” (“Moby

In Herman Melville's "Moby Dick," elements of American Gothic literature are evident. The first element of American Gothic Literature is Intense emotion. An example of intense emotion in "Moby Dick" is when captain Ahab is motivating the sailors to kill Moby Dick. Another example of intense emotion, is the way captain Ahab describes Moby Dick and; how he just had to try to kill him. Captain Ahabs intense emotion made the sailors think he is going crazy.

Michael Vannoy Adams on Moby-Dick: “Although “race” is not the dominant theme of the novel, Moby-Dick is a “book of color.” It is also a novel of multicultural importance” (The Multicultural Imagination). Considered a masterpiece of American literature, Moby-Dick was first published on October 18, 1851. For reference, slavery was abolished in the United States by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on December 6, 1865. Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick before the Civil War and 14 years before the abolishment of slavery.

Moby Dick is all about a sperm whale, named Moby Dick, who has wounded and killed many people.

While whaling amongst his own ship, inspired by a rumor, Herman Melville created what Nathaniel Hawthorne called "The Great American Epic." Melville's Fictional novel "Moby Dick" was based off of true events from Nantucket, Massachusetts. Melville interviewed one of the few survivors from the sunken ship, the Essex, to get the full story. He kept a journal of what the survivor had told him but would only use a limited amount of details in the making of his novel. Moby Dick is a story about a white whale that had destroyed an entire whaling ship and how the captain and crew attempt to get revenge on it. November 14, 1851, during the Romantic era, Moby Dick was published. Recently a producer and director, Ron Howard, sought to protect the integrity of What Hawthorne called "The Great American Epic" in

While Ahab was still the obedient captain he once was, he was one of the most successful and higher rewarding captains. Unexpectedly, in the midst of a whaling, Ahab and his crew encountered the whale he now refers to as “Moby Dick” or “the white whale.” The crew initiated in capturing the whale, but this whale was different. Rather than capturing the whale, the whale captured Ahab and though Ahab escaped, he did not escape entirely. Moby Dick had dismembered and consumed half of one of Ahab’s legs. Ever since this incident, Ahab’s one and only desire or, as stated in the text, “...his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought” has been to kill Moby Dick; which soon turns him obsessive (Melville). Ahab would not let anyone or anything stop him from achieving his goal, “...’I’ll chase him ‘round Good Hope, and ‘round the Horn, and ‘round the Norway Maelstrom, and ‘round

For as much as it represents exploration, ingenuity, and freedom, the ship has secured a place for itself in the Gothic imagination as a space of claustrophobic terror and enslavement. As a Foucauldian heterotopia, the space of the ship is indeed “a place without a place”, which functions only in relation to the void that surrounds it. However, the asylum a ship provides is what also makes it a prison, trapping its crew with any hostile elements that may be aboard. Focusing on a select group of texts, including Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno and Moby-Dick, this paper will examine the ship, that “heterotopia par excellence”, as a Gothic environment. It will discuss not only the ship’s potential for Gothic horror, but also the role of the ship

Published in 1851, the story of Moby-Dick is not just the tale of one mans search for control over nature, but also the story of friendship, alienation, fate and religion that become intertwined amidst the tragedy that occurs upon the doomed Pequod. The crew itself are an amalgamation of cultures, from the cannibal Queequeg, to Starbuck, "a native of Nantucket." The Pequod can thus be seen as a microcosm for immigrants and whaling within America. In Moby-Dick Herman Melville examines both the exploitation of whaling and the reality of being born outside of America.

Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces that surround him. Melville uses a series of gams, social interactions or simple exchanges of information between whaling ships at sea, in order to more clearly present man’s situation as he faces an existence whose meaning he cannot fully grasp.