Moby Dick

(1851)

This is an amazing book with many symbolic meanings. As you read this book you will come to realize that Ahab has several problems as well as ambitions in his life. Moby Dick is an outstanding book that I highly enjoyed and I hope that you enjoy it as well.--Submitted by Anonymous.

~

Fan of this book? Help us introduce it to others by writing a better introduction for it. It's quick and easy, click here.

Quizzes on Moby Dick
No quizzes available to take yet.

Please submit a quiz here.

Recent Forum Posts on Moby Dick

Moby Dick

Hello Can any volunteer tell me what is the "Whale line" in question in chapter 60 please? I don't understand... bye

Posted By Lalla at Wed 6 May 2009, 1:08 PM in Moby Dick || 3 Replies

Ahab (RISKS) defying God

The dangers of whaling did not only come from battle with the live whale. Ahab was god like , he seeked revenge against Moby Dick ( the symbol of God.) And along the way him and he's crew prove to be witnesses of ill omens. Can you help me find some good ideas about this, RISKS in defying GOD, "Maybe any quotes u guys can throw in to support" CAN AHAB REALLY OVERCOME SUCH A LEVIATHAN, CLAIM TO BE GOD(or God like" AND DEFY SUCH CREATION OF GOD . >>>> THE RISKS!!!?? (Hope that made sense) Appreciated:thumbs_up

Posted By ole32 at Sat 10 Jan 2009, 12:29 AM in Moby Dick || 5 Replies

Call me Ahab?

I've always been intrigued what this book is really about. All explanations I've read sofar always are sort of superficial or higly intellectual. They never really responded with me. Recently I came across Jed Mckenna's second book: Spiritual incorrect enlightenment. I don't consider this (Mckenna's) a well written book but then my main interest is not literature but something else. Mckenna's perspective is difficult (for the mind) but throws a very intrigueing (to me) light on the something else Ahab/Ishmael/Melville was after: truth, freedom, waking up from the dream.... Liberté ou la Mort. What an example this Ahab is. And what a book Melville has written. Steven Somsen

Posted By steven somsen at Tue 6 Jan 2009, 8:32 AM in Moby Dick || 0 Replies

Moby Dick and September 11th

While reading the final chapters of Moby Dick, I could not help being reminded at several points of the September 11th attacks. The first thing that made me think of this was the description that opens Ch. 132, preceding the initial attack of Moby Dick: "It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure." A similar idea is found in Ch. 119: "In these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town." In this section there are also ruminations by the characters (incl. Ahab) on the sheer beauty of the day, as well as descriptions of the grace and peacefulness of Moby Dick swimming accompanied by birds. On September 11th, having been in New York City at the time I can attest that it was indeed a beautiful, "steel blue" day such as that. 81 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. All a prelude to an unthinkable, colossal disaster, just as in Moby Dick. Something else that made me think of it is when Moby Dick, after decimating the whaling boats, takes aim at the Pequod: that excruciating period of time as Moby Dick approaches, when everyone is aware of the impending disaster (e.g. Starbuck panics that he is about to die), yet is completely powerless to do anything about it and can only watch it unfold. This reminded me so much of watching the video of the attacks, seeing the planes in the sky a mile or so from the buildings, making their inevitable, deadly approach. And the feeling of powerlessness, awe, and horror while watching it all transpire. While this book is perhaps best-known for its big ideas and broad strokes, what I liked most about it was just these kinds of incisive details and subtle truths, relevant as much today as then and before. PS - Some have compared George W. Bush's quest to democratize the Middle East to that of Captain Ahab. Interesting, though I think Don Quixote is the more apt metaphor in that case.

Posted By exeverything at Sat 22 Nov 2008, 3:18 PM in Moby Dick || 4 Replies

Another Moby Dick Movie

my friend JLT sent me the following info in an email entitled "another sign the apocalypse is nigh." Variety reports that Universal Pictures has decided to produce a big budget reimagiging of Herman Melville's classic literary tale Moby Dick with Russian director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) to work from a screenplay being written by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage for "a high six figures." The Variety story details some of the changes that are being planned for the new version of Melville's tale: The writers revere Melville's original text, but their graphic novel-style version will change the structure. Gone is the first-person narration by the young seaman Ishmael, who observes how Ahab's obsession with killing the great white whale overwhelms his good judgment as captain. This change will allow them to depict the whale's decimation of other ships prior to its encounter with Ahab's Pequod, and Ahab will be depicted more as a charismatic leader than a brooding obsessive. "Our vision isn't your grandfather's 'Moby Dick,' " Cooper said. "This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize on the advances in visual effects to tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story." any thoughts?

Posted By fatmore at Wed 24 Sep 2008, 3:27 PM in Moby Dick || 2 Replies

Is This Truly One of the Great Works in English?

Do people unanimously agree on that, nowadays? I'm sixty years old. I "read" Moby Dick in high school, but as it was too abstruse for me to REALLY read it (and I've spent a lifetime as a literature major, writer, and reader), I thought I would try it again. I just finished listening to a set of 18 CDs. Took me over a month. I told my wife, "If I were an editor and someone sent Moby Dick to me as a manuscript, I'd say, "Cut out the 600 pages of didactic information about whaling, and you've got a 'whale' of a 200-page story there!" Does anyone agree? Even if I'm humiliating myself in front of every Western Literature aficionado, I want to say this. I did not feel that way when I re-experienced, after many years, The Great Gatsby or Cry, the Beloved Country or Tender Is the Night, to give three examples. Besides the encyclopedic essayism about whaling, I found Melville's way of using metaphors to be sometimes overblown and a little irritating--his penchant for saying "the were 'Japans' of so-and-so". I don't know if I can articulate this clearly. There were some very moving passges in the last several hundred pages, the relationship between Starbuck and Ahab, Pip and Ahab, all the elaborate foreshadowing, etc...although even here it sometimes seemed a little consciously "Shakespearian" to me. That's my considered opinion, spoken just after finishing the book and before I've had time, or read enough essays, to alter my genuine response. Please tell me what you think about what I've said. Sincerely, Max

Posted By REALnothings@co at Wed 30 Jul 2008, 4:03 PM in Moby Dick || 16 Replies

Nihilism

Is Moby Dick basically a nihilist novel? Any help for my research will be welcome.

Posted By SteveD at Sun 9 Mar 2008, 3:41 PM in Moby Dick || 2 Replies

Ahab as Christ Figure

In Robert Milder's book, Exiled Royalties, he makes an interesting point about how one can view Ahab as a Christological figure. This of course depends on whom you believe to be the hero of the tale, as well as how you view the whale. Ahab indeed creates a new covenant with the crew, using his blood as a baptism of sorts, and he even holds his own mass, a dark mass of courser, but still. If you view the whale as a satanic deity, then Ahab becomes a salvific figure, or in the least, a martyr. Or, perhaps, and even more intriguing, he becomes a failed messenger of God. It's interesting to look at the book in these terms, although I don't. I still believe there is too much of Milton's Satan in him to be heroic. If anything, he is an anti-hero, a Melvillean figure run wild with passion and pride. Nonetheless, he remains an interesting figure.

Posted By lethargic1 at Sun 20 Jan 2008, 11:38 PM in Moby Dick || 0 Replies

Identifying Conflicts

What would you say are the major conflicts in Moby Dick I thought they were Ahab vs. Moby Dick (Man vs. nature) Ahab vs. crew (Man vs. Man) Ahab vs. himself (Man vs. himself) Crew vs. Moby Dick/ (Man vs. nature) I just wanted to know what everyone else's opinions on this were, and if there were any I might have missed.

Posted By blaiser18 at Mon 29 Oct 2007, 6:30 PM in Moby Dick || 2 Replies

the stone lance-head

Life imitates art. I read Ibis found the story about de stone lance-head fascinating. Here's my (rather crude) translation of a newspaper-clipping from the NRC Handelsblad of june 22 2007(a duch newspaper). Whale with harpoon. More than a century swimming around with pain in your neck and shoulders ? It happened to a Greenland whale (bowhead). Somewhere between 1880 and 1890 he got a harpoon shot in the shoulder by whalers. It was the sort of harpoon that explodes in the body of the animal. This one did that neatly, but the whale survived. Until a few weeks ago. Then whalers near Alaska did kill him and hauled him in. Deep in his blubber (or lard?) they found a piece of the now antique harpoon, close to shoulder and neck. According to scientists it must have bothered the whale all the time. The animal was approximately 130 years old. Whales like this can become 200 years old. No stone lance-head, but a series of events similar to the description in chapter 81 of Moby Dick. Oeps!

Posted By Oeps! at Thu 4 Oct 2007, 5:02 PM in Moby Dick || 0 Replies

Post a New Comment/Question on Moby Dick

Moby Dick

(1851)

Related Links:

Quizzes on Moby Dick

Recent Forum Posts on Moby Dick