Symbolism in Moby Dick

1. Symbolism in Moby Dick

2. Moby Dick is a complex work with many symbols . The white whale is perhaps the dominant symbol. It is the symbol of good as well as evil., light as well as darkness , joy as well as sorrow. Like nature the whale is malevolent, nourishing and

3. destructive. It is massive , brutal , nourishing and protean , erotically beautiful , infinitely variable . It signifies death and corruption as well as purity, innocence and youth. It has the advantage of being m from one point of view , the color that contains all colors

4. Perhaps Millville himself did not know what the whale exactly meant says D.H .Lawrence,. The book offers us two interpretations : Ishmael�s and Ahab�s . For the former the whiteness of the whale symbolizes an � absence of color as well as an inclusion of all colors .

5. For Ahab , the Whale concentrates in itself all the malignity and the evil of the world . Most critics interpret the book from the view point of Ahab. On the other hand, Ahab seems to have a good eye for symbols , points out the irony of transforming a coffin into a lifebuoy, the symbol of death into the symbol of life.

6. Even the vessel Pequod has a symbolic meaning. It has been mentioned that it is of a now extinct Indian tribe.

7. In fact, the characters of the novel are associated with biblical figures to grasp the symbolical nature of characters. Both Ahab and Ishmael have evident association with biblical figures .Even the zodiacal signs inscribed on Queequeg�s body are unintelligible to the savage

8. but indicate to us that Queequeg contains a mystical treatise on the heavens, which is transferred to coffin that saves Ishmael. The sun is a symbol of goodness for Fed Allah , but it is a symbol of evil for Ahab, even though he fixes the turned compass that have particular meanings for people in the book?

9. Plot � construction in Moby Dick

10. Moby Dick is a marvelous adventure story. It is mixed with fantasy , realism and symbolism, psychological and Puritanism . It is based on the South Pacific Whaling industry , which was a major commercial activity in the mid-19th century America. The narrator ( Ishmael) is an outcast wanderer

11. He boards a whaling vessel in New Bedford and finds himself in a real world of hard work and an unreal world of speculation and mystery. The crew represents most of the races of the world

12. The captain , in the opinion of the narrator , is mad . The other officers are sane enough , but they are completely dominated by the captain�s obsessed determination on to pursue , throughout the world one particular white whale who had previously destroyed the captain�s boat and attacked him , leaving him multitude in body with an artificial leg and injured in mind by the passion for revenge

13. Ahab becomes increasingly melancholic as he nears the whale�s ground. He admits madness, and his actions show him to be mad, He pursues the whale in spite of all natural and supernatural signs of warning, Even after the loss of the Pequod, Ahab pursues the whale and is killed > The effects of this simple , tragical plot are

14. by the emphasis Ishmael places on the deep meanings of all events and portents, Repetition and amplification for over a hundred chapters cause the reader to consider Moby Dick not just as a whale but as a gigantic symbol. ___________________________________________________________

15. The Moral Significance of �Moby Dick� OR� Moby Dick� is a fable or an allegory of man in a historical predicament�.

16. Moby Dick is the epic portrayal of the fish of America. It is a monumental allegory of a fish hero, a comedy of man with his immediate practical needs

17. Allegorically it is the exemplification of the human predicament held by Melville. He depicts the moral plight of our times . He remarks ; � they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable , a hideous and intolerable allegory�.

18. Events in the main action of the story , the symbolism of the white whale , details of Ahab�s character, and the numerous other digression support the thesis that the novel is a fable, and allegory.

19. The whale has become in Ahab�s mind an incarnation of the world�s evil. By killing the monster he would bring mankind into the millennium. To Ishmael the whale is doubtless a symbol of infinitely multiple significance beyond and full comprehension of any man .

20. The whiteness of the whale has been interpreted variously. It may symbolize goodness , chastity, magnificence , supremacy , joy , innocence ,religious purity , divinity, terror , ill , omen death , and the immense void of the universe. Melville ,

21. depicts the whale as an essentially dualistic creature , a being whose enigmatic motives may some how be related to this dualism. So Moby Dick is a symbol of both good and evil. The style is a maniacal � mad as a March hare � moving ,

22. So Moby Dick is a symbol of both good and evil. The style is a maniacal � mad as a March hare � moving , gibbering , screaming , like an incurable Bedlamite �. The theme of this many �faced book is a universal theme , that IS search or quest. The paradox of human experience is presented in its full ambiguity. It is puritanical

23. It is epical . It is a symbolic. The story of Moby Dick begins with the startling and sobering identification of its narrator with the Biblical wanderer, Ishmael , from there proceeding to the brooding gloom of the Spouter Inn and to the doleful sermon of Father Mapple from the lofty Seaman�s Bethel.

24. Is Ahab A Christ � figure , or a devil � figure ? Is the giant White Whale the manifestation of goodness and purity or an incarnation of the ultimate blankness of evil? Such are the questions that have ambiguous answers.

25. Finally , Moby Dick is a complex book . However, it has no systematic and full �fledged allegory as Spenser�s Farie Queene or Dryden�s Ansalm and Achitophel have.

26. Moby Dick As an Epic:

27. Moby Dick is a book which is neither a saga, though it deals in large forces, nor a classical epic, for we feel too strongly the individual who wrote it. � It is a book that is at once primitive, fatalistic, and merciless�.The book grows out of a single word, �I�, and expands until the soul�s voyage of this�I� comes to include a great many things that are unseen and unsuspected by most of us.�

28. All the introductory chapters, upto the sailing of the Pequed on the bleak Christmas day, form a clear and defined movement, like that of the first four books of the Odyssey.The subject matter is also archaic

29. : that is the hunt for the whale. The theme is the quest. Whereas the setting off and the conclusion have a fictive or mythical element in them, the description of actual details of daily life of the questers provide this epic with its realistic details. Furthermore, the book makes use of epic similes and images. Melville�s imagery of lances, harpoons, and cutting- spades, of

30. whale-boats. Whale-lines, and blubber- hooks, of cutting in and trying-out and stowing-down, of javelin and sword, and such practical activities as sailing, hunting, prowling, and the performance of obligatory rites is epical in nature and content.

31. Moby Dick is a romance because of the fictitious element and the use of �I� in the narration, and the subjective note of the characters. Ultimately it is a tale of adventures. It is because of the above reasons that Richard Chase calls it � an epic romance�.

32. Character of Ahab:

33. Captain Ahab is the hero of Moby Dick. He is a tragic hero in the grand tradition, defying fate and all the evil it has to offer until he is destroyed but not defeated. He has the unconquerable enthusiasm and pride of Lord Bryon�s Cain or Manfred or Milton�s Satan or Samson.

34. Captain Ahab is the monomaniacal captain of the Pequed. He has a poetic mind with imagination. He sets on to hunt the whale, Moby Dick

35. He is ego personified. He is also too moody, self willed old man. He is insane after the hunt, he wants to have revenge on the White Whale which has physically crippled him. He is a mad adventurer. Symbolically,

36. he is the redeemer of the wrongs which mankind has suffered from the inhuman world. He has been equated with Christ. � Ahab is the transcendentalist, knowing no other way of proceeding but shadowed by imminent failure.�

37. Other Scholars are of the opinion that Ahab�s quest is a quest for justice. For him Moby Dick is the incarnation of all evil on earth, and by killing him he would bring another millennium to the world.

38. Character of Ishmael

39. Ishmael is a major character in Moby Dick. He is the narrator of the story. He is a school-master, a highly civilized man, and an intellectual, having a foresight and predicting power. He warns Ahab of the consequences of his misadventure; he is the only survivor of the Pequod�s crew. It is he who narrates, tells, recalls, considers, meditates, emphasizes, and explains.

40. Ishmael posses wisdom. He is the case of � wisdom that is woe� whereas Ahab is � a woe that is madness�. He embodies thoughtfulness. He has sharp intelligence and understanding. He is curious and logical, He is tolerant too. He speaks eloquently in defense of Queequeg�s religion. He accepts the world as he finds

41. opening of the book he introduces himself: � Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over-conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a

42. whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled him. He looked for good. Unlike Ahab, Moby Dick symbolizes infinitely which can�t be destroyed and damaged. Finally, Ishmael is not only a character in the book; he is also the single voice, or rather the single mind.