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Moby Dick Controversy

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Herman Melville was not well-known in his day, only within certain circles was his work considered legendary. His first two publications Typee and Omoo were highly successful, they told stories of adventure, danger, and sexuality. They were published as a true story of Melville’s travels in Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas Islands and Tahiti. This claim that was later validated by his ship mate Richard Tobias Greene, causing a spike in sales along with the growth of recognition and respect for Herman Melville as an author. However, after these publications Melville’s popularity stagnated then decreased to minuscule amounts. Towards the end of his career he was forced to publish under pseudonyms including Guy Winthrop, Salvator R. Tarnmoor, and A Virginian Spending July in Vermont. …show more content…

Despite his perceived lifetime of failure, today he has one of the most well known names in American literature. Moby Dick has received highest praises and remains within the collective conscious of almost any educated citizen as a “must read.” Moby Dick is considered essential to understanding the definition and composition of classic American literature. Herman Melville captured and created an American voice because he addressed the problems of society in ingenious and sometimes indictable ways, especially to the “superficial skimmer. ” In the 1920s Melville became an important contributor to the creation of an American cannon, this quest was inspired by World Wars and the pursuit towards Americanness through literature that reproduced American values of individuality, adventure, and

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912 Words | 4 Pages

Nathaniel Philbrick grew up in Pennsylvania and went on to earn a BA in English from Brown University and an MA in American Literature from Duke University. ( Philbrick has worked as an editor at Sailing World Magazine during his earlier years and is the founding director of Nantucket’s Egan Maritime Institute. He is still a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association. Most of Philbrick’s works relate to the sea due to his past experience, these works include: Bunker Hill, Why Read Moby Dick? , The Last Stand, Sea of Glory, In the Heart of the Sea, Away Off Shore, and Mayflower.

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498 Words | 2 Pages

In Paul A. Gilje’s book, To Swear Like a Sailor, Gilje explains how maritime culture shaped our country, but more importantly how life at sea was just as much affected by life on dry land as life and literature on land affected sailors. This is especially since “the majority of Americans lived close to saltwater.” He uses examples from writers like Mark Twain, Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, and even Edgar Allan Poe as sources. But stories such as Moby Dick, The Narrative of Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Red Rover and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge) were not the only sources of information Gilje reminds us of. Sailors themselves would “spin yarns,” keep logbooks and journals, and sometimes sell their works and

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685 Words | 3 Pages

In Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd,” Captain the Honorable Edward Fairfax Vere is torn between the desires of personal, moral convictions and the letter of the law. Vere’s difficulties are represented by the decision to hang Billy or forgive him. Furthermore, Melville utilizes various biblical allusions and examples from history to promote his ideology through the character of Captain Vere. Melville introduces the historical background of the story before proceeding to describe life on the Bellipotent.

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490 Words | 2 Pages

Although Clemens was a well-known public speaker, author, and humorist, he was a serious advocate for education, literacy, abolition of slavery, freedom of speech, and social-political reform. Samuel Clemens’s writing on 19th-century life greatly impacted American literature and even awarded him names such as “the father of American literature”.

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1170 Words | 5 Pages

The Norton anthology of American literature (Shorter 8th ed.) (pp. 2164-2178). New York, NY: Norton. (Original work published 1931). Jarrell, R. (2013).

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1075 Words | 5 Pages

Many writers wanted to bring the glory and history of America’s early life to their literary works. Great works such as Ichabod Crane and Rip Van Winkle, written by Washington Irving, are still read today. Other writers such as Mercy Otis Warren and Mason Weems captured the heroism of the American struggle in the History of the Revolution and the Life of Washington in 1806, which became one of the best-selling books of the era (p. 187). Patriotism and nationalism began to enrich the lives of Americans with these historical

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1761 Words | 8 Pages

Moby-Dick, one of the few novels in American Literature that has left a lasting impression on society for almost two centuries now. The time around where the novel was first published Moby-Dick has received negative attention from many people with it being known as one of Melville's worst pieces of writing . In the modern era, however, Moby-Dick receives negative attention from people due to the use of language in the text. The use of language in Moby-Dick is unreadable to most 21st century readers because of the novel's use of words and phrases from the 19th century that are now obsolete. This causes modern day readers to feel illiterate in terms of the 19th-century language used in the novel.

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1887 Words | 8 Pages

Moby Dick begins with Ishmael's arrival in New Bedford as he travels toward Nantucket. He rests at the Spouter Inn in New Bedford, where he meets Queequeg, a harpooner from New Zealand who will also sail on the Pequod. Although Queequeg appears dangerous, he and Ishmael must share a bed together and the narrator quickly grows fond of the somewhat uncivilized harpooner. Queequeg is actually the son of a High Chief who left New Zealand because of his desire to learn among Christians. The next day, Ishmael attends a church service and listens to a sermon by Father Mapple, a renowned preacher who delivers a sermon considering Jonah and the whale that concludes that the tale is a lesson to preacher Truth in the face of Falsehood.

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Matthew Rebhorn’s analysis argues that ‘Benito Cereno’ offers both an ‘inside narrative’ to be analyzed, as well as a guide on how to properly read analytically (157). Melville is using our hunger to understand the truth as a tool to display the negative effects of such an appetite, like Delano’s quest to understand the mysterious intentions of Cereno blinds him to the reality of the situation aboard the ship, in this sense, he traps the reader in this ambiguity in order to guide the reader out of it (157-8). Melville uses language to tangle and subvert meaning, challenging our “logocentric reading practices” and highlighting the “[in]adequacy of rational discourse” (Rebhorn, 158-9). ‘Benito Cereno’ discredits an objectivist reading practice, and replaces it with what Rebhorn identifies as an embodied reading practice. (161).

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2456 Words | 10 Pages

Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" is a classic novel that explores the complexities of human nature, the nature of society, and the search for justice and morality. The novel, which was first published posthumously in 1924, is set in the late 18th century aboard a British warship and tells the story of Billy Budd, an innocent sailor falsely accused of mutiny. Through its themes and symbolism, the novel comments on the human condition and the nature of society, while also exploring the historical and cultural context in which it was written. In this paper, we will examine the themes, symbolism, characters, and narrative techniques used in "Billy Budd" to demonstrate how the novel serves as a commentary on the human condition and the nature of society.

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886 Words | 4 Pages

Another great influence in writing Moby Dick was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Definitely, not only by his works, but also meeting him had an impact on Moby Dick. They became friends and later neighbors in the summer of 1850 with “an infinite fraternity of feeling” as Melville called it. He especially admired Hawthorne’s psychological deepness and linked him with unique American Literature. Such was Melville’s admiration for Hawthorne that he dedicated Moby Dick to him.

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346 Words | 2 Pages

Herman Melville’s story of, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street” is a very different kind of fiction than what we are accustomed to when thinking about bout what Melville has produced. Titles that come to mind are Moby Dick and Billy Budd, both great sea-faring tales, and yet the setting for this story is much different from the ocean. Ever since Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” was published in 1853, it has been interpreted in so many ways. It is a profoundly American story which is set on Wall-Street in New York City. It is a tale of defiance, choice, and the freedom to “not do” even in a world of capitalism.

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804 Words | 4 Pages

Two of the three Dark Romanticists – Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville - did not agree that America lacked long and stormy past. In their texts, both authors show that American society had to struggle with their own problems that many did not even realize their presence. In this paper,

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975 Words | 4 Pages

From the twentieth century on, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has been considered a masterpiece of literature and a landmark in

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977 Words | 4 Pages

In order to consent with Alleline’s allegations, the reader must interpret the text as being anti-slavery oriented, given what was called the “immorality of slavery”. In accordance with Alleline, I agree that Melville was making a statement against the institution of slavery in his writing of Benito Cereno. Whereas Alleline’s interpretation of Benito Cereno is distinctly about one effect of slavery, general American shallowness; My interpretation differs in regards to what I think is Melville’s overarching theme of the countless detrimental effects of slavery on an entire population. While J. G Alleline’s critique of Melville’s story, serving as vehicle to highlight American superficiality is slightly narrow, his general ideas that Benito Cereno is a subtle anti-slavery work of literature is accurate, as portrayed through the ignorance of Captain Delano and

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