白鲸文献综述读后感

Literature Review of Moby Dick Studies

Introduction

Herman Melville is a typical American writer who was recognized after death. It has been almost 100 years since Melville Revival in 1920s, and there are many stuy on Moby Dick in home and aboard from various angles. This paper attempts to summarize critics from various journals, which focus on the narrative theory, the author's attitude toward capitalism and the contradiction between Puritanism and Transcendentalism embodied in this book.

Narrative Theory

The reviewer described Moby-Dick as three books rolled into one: an encyclopaedia of sperm whale, a fiction of sea adventure, an essay collection of philosophical questioning. In terms of the non-narrative chapters,they are structured around three patterns: first, the nine meetings of the Pequod with ships that have encountered Moby Dick. Each has been more and more severely damaged, foreshadowing thePequod's own fate. Second, the increasingly impressive encounters with whales. In the early encounters, the whaleboats hardly make contact; later there are false alarms and routine chases; finally, the massive assembling of whales at the edges of the China Sea in "The Grand Armada". A typhoon near Japan sets the stage for Ahab's confrontation with Moby Dick. The third pattern is the cetological documentation, so lavish that it can be divided into two subpatterns. These chapters start with the ancient history of whaling and a bibliographical classification of whales, getting closer with second-hand stories of the evil of whales in general and of Moby Dick in particular.

In terms of the narrative chapters, it’s"narrative architecture" is an "idiosyncratic variant of the bipolar observer/hero narrative", that is, the novel is structured around the two main characters, Ahab and Ishmael, who are intertwined and contrasted with each other, with Ishmael the observer and narrator.

In addition, one of the most distinctive features of the book is the variety of genres, such as sermons, dreams, travel account, autobiography, Elizabethan plays（inspired by Shakespeare）, and epic poetry. Moreover, Ishmael's explanatory footnotes can be regard as an invented documentary genre.

Attitude Toward Capitalism

Melville registers the global system of capitalism as it begins to emerge in the Pacific and assert its dominance in the USA. And It was at the dawning of industrial capitalism that Melville created his major work Moby-Dick.That is why it may not be baseless to argue that this masterpiece should be a product depicting contradictions arising from the disturbing early stage of industrial capitalism. The whaling ship Pequod as a joint‐stock company is also a pioneering outpost to spread industrial capitalism to many coasts around the world. Thus, as an

authoritarian manager of the Joint‐stock company, Ahab orchestrates the work of the crew into the systematic division of labor, which unwittingly amounts to the exploitation of natural resources. But because Ahab regards the Pequod as his own private property and forces his crew into achieving his revenge rather than economic success, the business of the joint‐stock company Pequod ends in a devastating failure.

By writing Moby Dick, Melville express his attitude toward capitalism.

On the one hand, he realized a universal model of exchange based on the reciprocity of the gift while thoroughly ensconced within the capitalist world-economy, which is embodied in the character Ishmael. Ismael understands the power of gift exchange and strikes a gift exchange with Queequeg by worshipping an idol, and he articulates his motivations, which are ostensibly grounded in a desire to please God but actually grounded in the adoption of a universal moral to do good to others.

But what is worship? –to do the will of God – that is worship. And what is the will of God? –to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me – that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Prebyterian form of worship. Ishmael's bond with Queequeg shows the gift's power to drive peaceful relations between cultures from different world-spaces. In the logic of the novel, Queequeg serves as a synecdoche of the Pacific-world gift economy. Ishmael's acceptance of the gift bridges the gap between Atlantic and Pacific world spaces through understanding, rather than through exploitation, enslavement or colonization.

This point is further depicted by a plot that Queequeg and Ishmael were tied in one monkey-rope, with Ishmael on deck and the other on the back of a dead whale. In that scene, Ishmael elaborate the corporation nature of human society and capitalism .

It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg\'s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed.

So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another\'s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering--while I jerked him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam him--still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die.

True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg\'s monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.

On the other hand, Melville depicts the brutality of capitalism by Pip’s incident.In pursuit of a whale, Pip falls out of the boat. Stubb picks him up, but warns him that next time he would not be so lucky. His reasoning: “a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama”. Ingeniously, Melville hinted that “Though man loves his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.”(Quote from Ishmael) Thus push forward a fact that capitalism is the very cause of slavery and it tends to reduce human into money-making animal.

But if we view the ship as a microcosm for the nation, for the world, driven by the capitalist world-economy and by Ahab's monomaniacal quest then perhaps Ishmael's lone survival means something quite significant: hope for exchange based on the free reciprocity of the gift lives on.

Puritanism and Transcendentalism

The transcendentalism in Moby-Dick is the combined outcome of Melville’s checkered experiences and the turbulent American society in the 19th century. At that time, the pivotal doctrine of Puritanism is to obey God and obey the fate he bestowed. In this book, Ahab is the very symbol of Jonah, yet he refuse to accept the fate assigned to him by pardoning Moby Dick and live on with his born-made leg. He set to revenge God and "strike though the mask."

In the excerpt from Father Mapple's sermon, we can see the contradiction of Puritanism and Transcendentalism been condensed into one line:" If we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists."

"As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God-- never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed-- which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that-- and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists."

In his revenge of God, Ahab was pursuing a fair play to defend his dignity as a man, to show that he isn't subject to any manipulation. Moreover, he want to thrust through the wall and find who is over him and get the ultimate truth. In this way, he shows that man could transcend to God's level.

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--

in the living act, the undoubted deed--

there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features fro m behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is th

at wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there\'s naught beyond. But \'tis enough. H e tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sin ewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or b e the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I\'d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the ot her; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. Bu t not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who\'s over me? Truth hath no confines. Summary

Moby Dick is a transcendental novels of the sea, in which he defended self-reliance, attacked conformity, and learned to employ Transcendental symbols of increasing complexity. Moreover Moby Dick is a experimental book with its remarkable matching of Transcendental idealism and with tragic drama and other creative genres in the backdrop of America's capitalism expansion.

Reference

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2.ChangsukKoh. Melville's Reformative Discourse against Puritanism and Social Conventions.[J] The Journal of English Language and Literature. 2006.pp273-305.

3.Hong, SeungHyun, Melville's Moby-Dick and the Dawn of Industrial Capitalism, [J] British & American Studies,2016,pp135-159.

4.Doan, Caleb. From Typee'sTommo to Moby-Dick's Ishmael: gift exchange in the capitalist world system [J]. Atlantic Studies: Literary, Cultural and Historical Perspectives. October 2016, pp206-226.

5. ??? The transcendentalism in Moby-Dick and its Characteristics [J]. The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature,2006, pp 275-289

6 McLoughlin, M. Dead Letters to the New World: Melville, Emerson, and American Transcendentalism. September 02, 2003, Pages 1-170