Moby Dick Essay

Melvilles Moby Dick is widely recognized as angiotensin-converting enzyme of the most complex and brilliant allegorical brisks in American literature. As an allegory, the levelts, places, people and conflicts depicted in the unused represent not only the obvious surface-level elements of the novel, but stand as indications of the novels philosophical and metaphysical themes. The allegory of Moby Dick involves an examination into the temper of cosmos and also into the nature of good and vile, as defined for Melville partially by Americas Puritan heritage.Melville wanted to portray the fragrance of wrong in a attribute, which was the whale, Moby Dick. When Ahab says All visible objects, man, atomic number 18 but as pasteboard masks, (Melville) he is echoing the allegorical construction of the novel in which distributively thing, such as the whale, Moby Dick, is merely a pasteboard mask (Melville) which hides the true essence beneath, an un admitn but still reasoning thing ( Melville) which puts forth the mouldings of its features from butt the unreasoning mask (Melville).For Ahab, the clear whale is the mask which disguises truth and the apocalypse of the nature of reality. In this sense, the white whale becomes a symbol for whatsoever it is that holds mankind back from the perception of absolute reality. Ahab emphatically reveals his Platonic beliefs when he says If man will strike, strike done and through the mask How can the captive reach outside except by thrusting through the beleaguer? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.Sometimes I think thithers naught beyond. (Melville) In this sense, the whale represents oblivion, the naught beyond which in Ahabs mind is plainly associated with death. It is toward the heart of the nature of reality that Ahab strikes with his blood-sealed harpoon, not merely a fish in the ocean. For Ahab the white whale delineate both ultimate reality and the wall which separates man from ultimate r eality.Ahabs put one over of nature and reality is that the visible world and all of the events, people, and actions in it are indicators of deeper, more profound, metaphysical ideas and experiences when he hunts the white whale which represents evil and oblivion, he is hunting the absolute nature of evil, not merely one of its beasts. The intense hate that Ahab feels for the white whale helps to distinguish Ahabs view of reality as presented in the novel form the vision of reality Melvile was trying to establish by way of the allegory of the novel.While Ahab believes the white whale to be the symbol of evil, Melvilles depiction of evil through the allegorical structure of Moby Dick is shown, ironically, through Ahab himself and not through the symbol of the whale. Instead, for Melville, the whale symbol indicated the cosmic universe and was exhaustively related through his use of cetological detail and science. In this way, Ahabs obsession and hate are shown to be a tragic flaw al ong the lines of some of Shakespeares heroes, after whom Ahabs dialogue explaining his motives for hunting Moby Dick are all the way derived.As Ishmael gains a closer, more intimate apprehension of whales, the nurture of his character and spiritual insight are correspondingly elevated. The more minute are the cetological experiences and catalogues, the more wholly expressive and self-possessed and sure becomes Ishmael. bland deeper correspondences between the cetological material and Melvilles narrative form are constituted in Ishmaels descriptions of the whales snuff and skin which he posits as being indistinguishable.This is reflected in the narrative structure of Moby Dick where it is equally as difficult to apprehend where the skin (overt theme and storyline) of the novel ends and the blubber (cetological and whaling discourses and catalogues) begin. Melville makes it perfectly clear that the blubber is an as indispensable part of his novel as it is for the whales body. F or the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or feast or, still better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head (Melville) therefore, too, is the expository material, the blubber of the novel wrapped around its central, allegorical aspects.The detailed cetological aspects of Moby Dick may, indeed, prevent the commentator from an easy, and immediate grasp of the novels meaning or even its astounding climax. Just as the whales hump is believed by Ishmael to conceal the whales true brain opus the more easily accessed brain know to whalers is merely a know of nerves, the secret core of Moby Dick can only be engage with patience and close, deep cuttingdue to the organic and harmonious nature of its narrative form.By keeping in mind the previously discussed aspects of the affinity between Moby Dicks comprehensive cetological materials and their symbolic relationship to the novel itself, its form and themes, Ishmael, while discoursing on the desirability of whale m eat as fit food for humans, offers an ironic gesture toward the novels potential audiences. But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his surpass richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be delicately good (Melville).