Analysis Of Moby Dick Essay

Analysis of Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Herman Melvilles personal experiences are prominent in his novel Moby Dick.

Moby Dick can be considered a biography of Melville because it unveils every aspect of his originality and personality. Moby Dick has become known as one of the greatest novels in American literature, even though when it was first published it was known as one of the worst.

Moby Dick is a story written about the adventures of an outgoing character named Ishmael. Ishmael is a lonely, alienated individual who wants to see the "watery part of the world" (Melville 1).Ishmael tells the reader about his background and creates a depressed mood for the reader. Ishmael compares to Melville because he goes out on the whaling ship out of spiritual malaise (Delbanco 146). By Ishmael boarding a ship at such a young age, it was his own way of committing suicide. Ishmaels boarding of ships compares to Melvilles own reality of his time at sea because it caused Melville to create a sense of social suicide (Delbanco 132).

Not long after being at sea, the captain of the boat, Ahab, reveals his plan to hunt down a white whale named Moby Dick. Ahab was veteran sailor and a man who had a heart made of stone. Just like Ahab, Melville had a heart of stone and he was very stubborn in the sense of making sure his novel dreams came true. Ahab had a personal grudge against the whale. Moby Dick was responsible for taking off Ahab's leg in a previous voyage. His plan was essentially an unauthorized takeover, of the whaling companys ship. His plan seals the fate for himself and the crew of the Pequod. In the tragic ending of Moby Dick, all of the characters die except for Ishmael. This shows how passionate and crazed Ahab truly was, just as Melville would be in writing his stories and novels because no matter how bad Moby Dick actually sold he continued to write.

Ishmael survived Moby Dick's attack of the ship with the help of a coffin that his close friend, Queequeq, built. Ishmael is a special character because he closely resembles Melvilles own drive and passion, in that he would give anything just to succeed and survive. In Melvilles life, he would fund his own books on his personal cost just to have a great novel that would make him famous. This lead him and his own family into deep debt (Delbanco, 87).

Moby Dick is considered an interpretation of God, an inscrutable and all-powerful being that humankind can neither understand nor defy (The Life, Online). Moby Dick is a type of presentation screen on which all of the other characters in the novel can write their own story (Shmoop Editorial Team). In the novel, he makes the whale his own interpretations of God. Melvin had written in many letters about how something more powerful and unknown had worked itself into his writings (Delbanco, 157). But not all of them knew of his existence (Melville, 131). Melville uses this to show how he felt in life as a writer small and non existent. He would use some of his own personal letters saying Alone , in such remotest waters (Melville 133), which is quoted in Moby Dick.

Pequod the ship is a representation of Melvilles own trials and passion for the sea. Melville says in Moby Dick The Pequod was a ship of the old school and, rather small if anything (Melville, 51). Melville himself was not very tall and wrote to what he considered the old school days of sailing. The Pequod was long seasoned and weather stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans (Melville, 51). Melville, at the time of writing the novel, had grown older and considered himself seasoned as a writer by bad times and good times and this novel would become more of his legacy.

Herman Melville used Moby Dick to express his own feelings and personal experiences throughout his life. The ongoing effects of Melvilles childhood are readily seen in most parts of Moby Dick. The popularity of Moby Dick is close to that of Melville in a way that it took thirty to fifty years for Melville and his writing to become well known and respected.