Moby Dick Research Paper

In The Heart of the Sea Herman Melville wrote the novel Moby Dick, in 1851, about a rumour he heard while whaling. The story was of a monstrous Sperm Whale that attacked and sunk Whaler ships. Melville was greatly influenced by the Romantic writing of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who called this book “the great American epic.” Despite what Hawthorne believed, the novel didn’t become very popular until after Melville’s death in 1891. At this time, many people had started talking about the famous ship that sunk in Melville’s book, The Essex. This Essex was launched in 1799, in Nantucket Massachusetts. In the book, Melville says the ship is captained by a man named Ahab, but The Essex was actually under the control of Captain George Pollard Jr. Knowing

This means to rebel against specific ideas. This is seen when Pollard is talking to the council and decides to tell the truth rather than lie about the sinking of his ship. His dad was very surprised and angry about this because that meant that his whaling business would be considered a joke to other big businesses. This is also an example of truth being found better through the heart rather than the head. Pollard feels in his heart that he would be doing wrong if he lied. If he would have listened to the voice in his head, he would have been a

This is a belief that the artist should be viewed as a special individual or genius. When Melville is talking to Nickerson, his wife says how much she admires his writing. In her mind he is a genius. Romanticism insists on novelty and originality in art, in contrast to the Neoclassical view that the measure of artistic excellence is to be found in the conformation of particular works to known, established-in-the-past standards of artistic goodness. Melville wrote Moby Dick in hopes to impress Nathaniel Hawthorne with his style of writing. He left out many gruesome facts while writing to extend to new readers. The last Romantic tenet is gothicism. Romanticists had a fascination and pre-occupation with the supernatural, death, the mystery, the dark, the grotesque, and the horror. This is very prominent in the movie. The basic plot is killing whales for oil. Romanticists saw such things as natural and felt there was an unappreciated beauty in such things. For example, when Chase and the whale made eye contact, they both saw a killer, but neither of them did