Herman Melville

赏析米考伯人物形象

赏析米考伯人物形象米考伯人物形象赏析。

米考伯（Moby-Dick）是美国作家赫尔曼·梅尔维尔（Herman Melville）创作的一部经典小说，被誉为美国文学史上的巅峰之作。

小说以捕鲸业为背景，讲述了一位年轻水手伊什梅尔的冒险故事，以及他与一条白鲸米考伯之间的激烈斗争。

在这部小说中，米考伯这一人物形象被塑造得极为生动和复杂，深深地吸引着读者的目光。

本文将从不同角度对米考伯的人物形象进行赏析，探讨其在小说中的重要意义。

首先，米考伯是一条白鲸，但在小说中却被赋予了人类般的智慧和情感。

它不仅是伊什梅尔追逐的目标，更是一种象征和意象。

米考伯的形象在小说中扮演着多重角色，既是恐怖的杀手，又是神秘的谜团，更是对自然力量的象征。

米考伯的出现使得小说充满了神秘和戏剧性，同时也引发了对人类与自然、命运与自由的深刻思考。

米考伯这一形象的复杂性和多重性，使得它成为了小说中最具有象征意义的角色之一。

其次，米考伯的形象还体现了人类对自然的探索和对命运的挑战。

在小说中，米考伯被描绘成一种超越人类理解的存在，它的力量和智慧超乎想象，让人类感到渺小和渺茫。

然而，正是这种对自然的探索和对命运的挑战，使得伊什梅尔和他的船员们能够超越自我，勇敢地面对挑战，不断前行。

米考伯的形象在小说中扮演着一种启发和激励的作用，它让人们认识到，面对自然的力量和命运的考验，人类需要拥有勇气和智慧，去探索和挑战，去追求真理和自由。

此外，米考伯的形象还反映了人类内心深处的欲望和野心。

在小说中，米考伯不仅是一条白鲸，更是一种象征和隐喻。

它象征着人类内心深处的欲望和野心，是人类对未知和神秘的追求。

米考伯的形象在小说中扮演着一种诱惑和诱惑的角色，它让人类感到无法抗拒的吸引力，让人们不断追逐和探索。

然而，正是这种对未知和神秘的追求，使得人类陷入了无尽的苦难和折磨，最终导致了悲剧的结局。

米考伯的形象让人们认识到，人类内心深处的欲望和野心是无穷无尽的，需要警惕和克制，否则将会带来灾难和毁灭。

Melville 麦尔维尔

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Masters influencing him
• He was deeply impressed by Hawthorne’s book. Hawthorne’s understanding of evil impacted Melville’s original design of Moby Dick. • They were philosophically closely related, and they represented a position of tragic humanism in their time.
Works
Moby Dick《白鲸》
• Moby-Dick, Herman Melville's 1851 novel, tells the story of obsessed Captain Ahab’s quest for revenge on the White Whale as observed by a common seaman who identifies himself only as Ishmael.
A whaling ship is my Yale College and my Harvard. ------Herman Melville
◆ 1847, married Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of Massachusetts. ◆ 1850-1863, bought a farm near Pittsfield, Mass., and became friends with his neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne. ◆ 1851, Moby-Dick was published, but received little attention. ◆ died in 1891 in poverty and obscurity

Herman Melville——Moby Dick《白鲸》

Meeting Hawthorne in the summer of 1850 Influenced by his black vision, he revised Moby 1）Life Dick and dedicated it to Hawthorne. will never rest he gets hold of a definite He was“He a novelist, anuntil essayist, a short story belief. It is strange how he persists… He can writer and a poet. He was called as‖Master of neither believe, nor be comfortable in his Philosophical His sea experiences and disbelief; Allegory‖ and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other… adventures He has a very furnished him with Three things which deserve mentioned: high and noble nature.” abundant material

Man cannot influence and overcome nature at its source. Once he attempts to seek power over nature, he is doomed. The idea that man can make the world for himself is nothing but a transcendentalist folly. Melville never seems able to say an affirmative yes to life: his attitude of ―Everlasting Nay‖ . The loss of faith and the sense of futility and meaninglessness were expressed in Melville‘s works.

1. Life and works (4)

Melville's next novels, Pierre: or the Ambiguities (1852), Israel Potter (1855), and The Confidence Man (1857), were also unsuccessful. The Piazza Tales (1856) contains some of Melville's finest shorter works. Between 1866 and 1885 Melville worked as a customs inspector in New York City. During this period he published only poetry. In 1891 he completed his last work, the novella Billy Budd, Foretopman (1924).
2. The Melville Revival (2)

Although many critics of this time still considered Moby-Dick extremely difficult to come to grips with, they largely saw this lack of easy understanding as an asset rather than a liability. The two books generally considered most important to the Revival were both brought forth by Raymond Weaver: his 1921 biography Herman Melville: Man, Mariner and Mystic

美国文学Herman Melville

Herman Melville麦尔维尔(1819—1891)Herman Melville1. Three important things in his life:* Going out to seaHis experiences and adventures on the sea furnished him with abundant material for his fiction writings, especially his masterpiece Moby Dick2) His marriageIn the history of American literature there were two authors had similar marriages. Melville and Scott Fitzgerald, both married above them and had to do hackwork（纯粹为糊口而写的东西，庸俗作品）for the money they needed to keep their wives in their extravagant style.3)His friendship with HawthorneDuring the summer of 1890 Melville and Hawthorne met and became good friends.They shared similar ideas and opinions on most kinds of fields.Especially against the background of Transcendental optimism, Melville agrees with Hawthorne’s Blackness --- the evil at the core of life. “Evil in life and the human soul help make life and man better”“To scale great heights, we must come out of the lowest depths. The way to heaven is through hell. We need fiery baptism in the fierce flame of our bosoms.”凤凰涅槃浴火重生• The original design of Moby Dick was just a text on the whale fishery.When Melville met Hawthorne, he had completed one third of Moby Dick. Without Hawthorne, Melville would have just written it about whaling hunting.With the influence of Hawthorne, Melville rewrote it into a world classic with a mixture of:游记、航海故事、寓言、捕鲸传说、有关鲸鱼与捕鲸业的百科全书、美国史诗、莎士比亚式的悲剧、抒情散文长诗、塞万提斯式的浪漫体小In Token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.2. Melville’s Major Works1) Novels(1)Polynsie Trilogy “波里尼西亚三部曲” from his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islandsTypee 1846«泰皮»Omoo 1847«欧穆»Mardi1849«玛地»(2) Redburn 1849 «雷得本» an account of his voyage to England(3) White Jacket 1850 «白外衣»his life on a United States man-of-war军舰(4) Pierre《皮埃尔》 (1852):A darkly allegorical exploration of the nature of evil, which is psychologically complex and elaborate.(5) Israel Potter《伊斯雷尔·波特》 (1855):A historical romance(6) The Confidence Man《骗子的化装表演》(1857):Satirizes the selfishness and commercialism of Melville’s time.(7) Billy Budd《比利•巴德》(1891)A novella about a young sailor, personifying innocence, doomed by the malevolent hatred of a ship’s officer, personifying evil.2) Short storiesThe Piazza Tales《广场故事》(1856):Contains some of Melville’s finest shorter works(1) Bartleby, the Scrivener书记员巴特尔比The story of Bartlebyis simply about a manlosing his will to live.Subtitled, "A Story of Wall Street”, it is set in the business world of 19th-century New York.Bartleby, a scrivener was good at the copying part of his job, but when asked to proofread aloud one day he simply replied, "I prefer not to." From that moment forward, he used the phrase "I prefer not to" for every task requested of him, eventually "preferring not to" do any work whatsoever.Bartleby chose to rebel and become an anti-hero. It is intended to show the reader a dark side in all of us when the meaning of our existence is allowed to be challenged."Bartleby, the Scrivener" reflects Melville's own pessimism at the time. (2) Benito Cereno 《贝尼托·塞莱诺》The story centers on a slave rebellion on board a Spanish merchant ship in 1799.Earlier critics regarded Benito Cereno as a tale that primarily explores human depravity .It is regarded by many as Melville's finest short story.3) Poetry:(1) Battle-Pieces and the Aspects of War《战事集》(1866)(2) Clarel 《克拉瑞尔》 (1876)Melville’s Masterpiece Moby-Dick«白鲸»，«莫比•狄克»an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy, religion, the whaling industrya Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against fates in an indifferent and hostile world.Moby-Dick---“the world’s greatest sea novel”, compound of search, pursuit, conflict, and catastrophe.1. PlotThe novel’s plot is built on one conflict---Ahab vs. the WhaleIt is essentially the story of Ahab and his quest to defeat Moby Dick, for this white whale took Ahab’s leg.• Ishmael伊什梅尔, feeling depressed, seeks escape by going out to sea on the whaling ship, Peqoud裴廓德号.The captain is Ahab亚哈, the man with one leg.•• Moby Dick, the white whale, had sheared off Ahab’s leg on a previous voyage, and Ahab resolves to hunt him.• The ship makes a good catch of whales but Ahab refuses to turn back until he has killed his enemy.• Eventually, the whale appears, and the Peqoud begins its doomed fight with it.• On the third day, the whale carries the Peqoud along with it to its doom.• All on board the whaler get drowned, except one, Ishmael,who survives to tell the tale.2. Characters• Ishmael伊什梅尔/以实玛利• The narrator of the story• Name: the first son of Abraham (from The Bible) symbol of orphans, exiles,wanderers and social outcasts,etc.starts out feeling badhopes to find an ideal lifecomes to see the folly of Ahab seeking to conquer naturefeels the significance of love and companionshiplearns to accept,an attitude which ensures his survival2) Ahab 亚哈• Name: Ahab, King of Israel (from The Bible， a tyrant) symbol of evil • The tyrannical captain of the PequodAhab has the qualities of a tragic hero – a great heart and a fatal flaw.•Melville portrayed Ahab an Emersonian self-reliant individual.But he is too much of self-reliance.For him, the only law is his own will;To him the world exists for his sake;He may do what he wills:lives may be sacrificedand nature may havebeen vanquished.His too much self-reliance leads to death—physical, spiritual, emotional, at the expense of all else.His tragedy stems from his extreme individualism or solipsism(唯我论). Moby Dick– a negative reflection upon Transcendentalism3. Symbols in Moby Dick1) The ship – Pequod and the voyage2) Moby Dick3) Ahab4) Queequeg’s Coffin1) The Pequod and the voyage(1) a symbol of doom 必遭毁灭的命运named after a Native American tribe in Massachusettsdid not long survive the arrival of white men (extincted)is painted gloomy black and covered in whale teeth and bones(2) the Pequod -the ship of the American soul象征执著探寻自然界秘密的美国精神the voyage - search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience/象征探索与发现的心灵历程2) Moby DickThe white whale is capable of many interpretations.For he is a mixture of evil and goodness:“paradoxically benign (kind and gentle) and malevolent (malicious and wicked),nourishing (providing sth good) and destructive,”“massive, brutal, monolithic(massive), but at the same time protean(changeable), erotically beautiful, infinitely variable.”various symbolic meanings to different peopeto the pequod’s crew--一只时而平静安详,时而恐怖暴虐的海怪a concept onto which they can displace their anxiety about dangerous and frightening jobsto Ahab---A symbol of evil邪恶与恐怖、难以征服而又必须予以摧毁的仇敌a manifestation of all that is wrong with the worldTo IshmaelMoby-dick is the embodiment of the mysterious nature or universea metaphor for the human relationship with God: God is unkown and cannot be pinned down(force)Paradoxical whiteness: Death and corruption Purity and innocenceA symbol of evilA symbol of goodnessA symbol of both白鲸既代表高洁安宁,也代表恐怖死亡,它是宇宙间一切对立矛盾的结合4).Queequeg’s Coffin• Queequeg’s coffin alternately symbolizes life and death.• Queequeg has it built when he is seriously ill, but when he recovers, it becomes a chest to hold his belongings and an emblem of his will to live.• He perpetuates the knowledge tattooed on his body by carving it onto the coffin’s lid.• The coffin further comes to symbolize life when it replaces the Pequod’s life buoy.• When the Pequod sinks, the coffin becomes Ishmael’s buoy(浮标), saving not only his life but the life of the narrative that he will pass on.4. Themes of Moby Dick1) Melville's bleak view (negative attitude): the sense of futility andmeaninglessness of the world.His attitude to life is “Everlasting Nay”• Man in this universe lives a meaningless and futile life, meaningless because futile (having no useful results徒劳的).• Man cannot overcome nature. Once he attempts to seek power over it he is doomed.• Man must place himself at the mercy of nature.• The idea that man can make the world for himself is nothing but a transcendentalist folly.the adventure of killing Moby Dick is meaningless.Ahab tries to control it, which leads to his doom.the loss of faith, the sense of futility2) alienation (far away from each other)exists between man and man, man and society, and man and nature.Ahab cuts himself off from his family, stays away from his crew, hates Moby Dick and becomes a devil rushing to his doom.He was within “the masoned石瓦匠, walled town of a captian’s exclusiveness”,which leads him to his doom.3) loneliness and suicidal individualism (individualism causing disaster and death)Ahab: too much of a self-reliant individual to be a good human beinga victim of extreme individualismThe price of self-reliance is death.Moby Dick is a negative reflection upon Transcendentalism4）rejection and questVoyaging for Ishmael has become a journey in quest of knowledge and values.starts out feeling badhopes to find an ideal lifecomes to see the folly of Ahab seeking to conquer naturefeels the significance of love and companionshiplearns to accept,an attitude which ensures his survivalRevival of Moby DickBorn in the 19th century, Melville didn’t receive recognition until the 20th century.Moby-Dick best illustrates the loss of faith, and sense of futility and meaninglessness which characerize the modern life of the west so that the twentith century has found it both fascinating and great.5. Writing styles of Melville1) His works are symbolic and metaphorical.voyage- "search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience."the Pequod -the ship of the American soulMoby Dick---a symbol ofits whiteness--- paradoxical color(2)He manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple view of his narratives.Moby Dick is portrayed for the reader from different angles.The author is unwillingness to commit himself, and the reader is thrown upon himself for judgment.(3) He tends to write periodic chapters (掉尾章的手法).掉尾句是主句在最后出现的一种复合句the last paragraph of chapter one pulling all things into one sentence is a good illustration in point.Chapter one Loomings 幻影重重/海市蜃楼。

赫尔曼·梅尔维尔

Ishmael
a simple sailor on the Pequod
his role in the plot of the novel is inconsequential Ishmael is the only survivor of the Pequod's voyage, living to tell the tale of Moby Dick only because he is by chance on a whaling boat when Moby Dick sinks the Pequod and is rescued by a nearby ship.
Queequeg
a harpooner from New Zealand the son of a king Melville portrays Queequeg as a blend of civilized behavior and savagery he is uncivilized by the standards of the main characters of the novel,yet Melville finds Queequeg to be incredibly noble, courteous and brave Melville uses Queequeg as a character in perpetual transition from savagery to civilization, and in the final chapters after he suffers from an illness from which he wills himself recovered, in an uneasy stasis between life and death.

Herman Melville

Three Important Things in his life:

Going out to the sea. His adventures led to his literary career, furnished him with abundant raw materials for most of his major fictions and his imaginative vision of life. We should mention his marriage. In the history of American literature there were two authors had similar marriages. Melville and Scott Fitzgerald, both married above them and had to do hackwork for the money they needed to keep their wives in their extravagant style. During the summer of 1890 Melville and Hawthorne met and became good friends. They shared similar ideas and opinions on most kinds of fields.
until 1859 – importance of whale oil. In 1844, $120 million was tied up in whaling. Whaling was especially significant in the
American economy in the middle of 19th century, when the

Herman Melville简介

• Hawthorne was an important peer to Melville. Because of his effect, a significant change came about in the original design of Moby-Dick (1851), and was rewritten into the world classic that we read today after they met.
These first three novels drew from his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands.
• Typee(1846) 《泰比》 • Omoo (1847) 《欧穆》 Redburn (1849) • Mardi (1849) 《玛地》
Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)
A famous American novelist and poet
Born in New York, America
Three things that deserve mention about his life: • going out to the sea • his marriage with Elizabeth Shaw • his friendship with Hawthorne
relationships that are possible between man and Nature.
• Race: characters includes a South Sea Islander, a Native American,
and an African tribesman. It express attitudes of racial tolerance that are surprising for a nineteenth century text.

美国文学HermanMelville.pdf

Herman Melville麦尔维尔(1819—1891)Herman Melville1. Three important things in his life:* Going out to seaHis experiences and adventures on the sea furnished him with abundant material for his fiction writings, especially his masterpiece Moby Dick2) His marriageIn the history of American literature there were two authors had similar marriages. Melville and Scott Fitzgerald, both married above them and had to do hackwork（纯粹为糊口而写的东西，庸俗作品）for the money they needed to keep their wives in their extravagant style.3)His friendship with HawthorneDuring the summer of 1890 Melville and Hawthorne met and became good friends.They shared similar ideas and opinions on most kinds of fields.Especially against the background of Transcendental optimism, Melville agrees with Hawthorne’s Blackness --- the evil at the core of life. “Evil in life and the human soul help make life and man better”“To scale great heights, we must come out of the lowest depths. The way to heaven is through hell. We need fiery baptism in the fierce flame of our bosoms.”凤凰涅槃浴火重生• The original design of Moby Dick was just a text on the whale fishery.When Melville met Hawthorne, he had completed one third of Moby Dick. Without Hawthorne, Melville would have just written it about whaling hunting.With the influence of Hawthorne, Melville rewrote it into a world classic with a mixture of:游记、航海故事、寓言、捕鲸传说、有关鲸鱼与捕鲸业的百科全书、美国史诗、莎士比亚式的悲剧、抒情散文长诗、塞万提斯式的浪漫体小In Token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.2. Melville’s Major Works1) Novels(1)Polynsie Trilogy “波里尼西亚三部曲” from his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islandsTypee 1846«泰皮»Omoo 1847«欧穆»Mardi1849«玛地»(2) Redburn 1849 «雷得本» an account of his voyage to England(3) White Jacket 1850 «白外衣»his life on a United States man-of-war军舰(4) Pierre《皮埃尔》 (1852):A darkly allegorical exploration of the nature of evil, which is psychologically complex and elaborate.(5) Israel Potter《伊斯雷尔·波特》 (1855):A historical romance(6) The Confidence Man《骗子的化装表演》(1857):Satirizes the selfishness and commercialism of Melville’s time.(7) Billy Budd《比利•巴德》(1891)A novella about a young sailor, personifying innocence, doomed by the malevolent hatred of a ship’s officer, personifying evil.2) Short storiesThe Piazza Tales《广场故事》(1856):Contains some of Melville’s finest shorter works(1) Bartleby, the Scrivener书记员巴特尔比The story of Bartlebyis simply about a manlosing his will to live.Subtitled, "A Story of Wall Street”, it is set in the business world of 19th-century New York.Bartleby, a scrivener was good at the copying part of his job, but when asked to proofread aloud one day he simply replied, "I prefer not to." From that moment forward, he used the phrase "I prefer not to" for every task requested of him, eventually "preferring not to" do any work whatsoever.Bartleby chose to rebel and become an anti-hero. It is intended to show the reader a dark side in all of us when the meaning of our existence is allowed to be challenged."Bartleby, the Scrivener" reflects Melville's own pessimism at the time. (2) Benito Cereno 《贝尼托·塞莱诺》The story centers on a slave rebellion on board a Spanish merchant ship in 1799.Earlier critics regarded Benito Cereno as a tale that primarily explores human depravity .It is regarded by many as Melville's finest short story.3) Poetry:(1) Battle-Pieces and the Aspects of War《战事集》(1866)(2) Clarel 《克拉瑞尔》 (1876)Melville’s Masterpiece Moby-Dick«白鲸»，«莫比•狄克»an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy, religion, the whaling industrya Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against fates in an indifferent and hostile world.Moby-Dick---“the world’s greatest sea novel”, compound of search, pursuit, conflict, and catastrophe.1. PlotThe novel’s plot is built on one conflict---Ahab vs. the WhaleIt is essentially the story of Ahab and his quest to defeat Moby Dick, for this white whale took Ahab’s leg.• Ishmael伊什梅尔, feeling depressed, seeks escape by going out to sea on the whaling ship, Peqoud裴廓德号.The captain is Ahab亚哈, the man with one leg.•• Moby Dick, the white whale, had sheared off Ahab’s leg on a previous voyage, and Ahab resolves to hunt him.• The ship makes a good catch of whales but Ahab refuses to turn back until he has killed his enemy.• Eventually, the whale appears, and the Peqoud begins its doomed fight with it.• On the third day, the whale carries the Peqoud along with it to its doom.• All on board the whaler get drowned, except one, Ishmael,who survives to tell the tale.2. Characters• Ishmael伊什梅尔/以实玛利• The narrator of the story• Name: the first son of Abraham (from The Bible) symbol of orphans, exiles,wanderers and social outcasts,etc.starts out feeling badhopes to find an ideal lifecomes to see the folly of Ahab seeking to conquer naturefeels the significance of love and companionshiplearns to accept,an attitude which ensures his survival2) Ahab 亚哈• Name: Ahab, King of Israel (from The Bible， a tyrant) symbol of evil • The tyrannical captain of the PequodAhab has the qualities of a tragic hero – a great heart and a fatal flaw.•Melville portrayed Ahab an Emersonian self-reliant individual.But he is too much of self-reliance.For him, the only law is his own will;To him the world exists for his sake;He may do what he wills:lives may be sacrificedand nature may havebeen vanquished.His too much self-reliance leads to death—physical, spiritual, emotional, at the expense of all else.His tragedy stems from his extreme individualism or solipsism(唯我论). Moby Dick– a negative reflection upon Transcendentalism3. Symbols in Moby Dick1) The ship – Pequod and the voyage2) Moby Dick3) Ahab4) Queequeg’s Coffin1) The Pequod and the voyage(1) a symbol of doom 必遭毁灭的命运named after a Native American tribe in Massachusettsdid not long survive the arrival of white men (extincted)is painted gloomy black and covered in whale teeth and bones(2) the Pequod -the ship of the American soul象征执著探寻自然界秘密的美国精神the voyage - search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience/象征探索与发现的心灵历程2) Moby DickThe white whale is capable of many interpretations.For he is a mixture of evil and goodness:“paradoxically benign (kind and gentle) and malevolent (malicious and wicked),nourishing (providing sth good) and destructive,”“massive, brutal, monolithic(massive), but at the same time protean(changeable), erotically beautiful, infinitely variable.”various symbolic meanings to different peopeto the pequod’s crew--一只时而平静安详,时而恐怖暴虐的海怪a concept onto which they can displace their anxiety about dangerous and frightening jobsto Ahab---A symbol of evil邪恶与恐怖、难以征服而又必须予以摧毁的仇敌a manifestation of all that is wrong with the worldTo IshmaelMoby-dick is the embodiment of the mysterious nature or universea metaphor for the human relationship with God: God is unkown and cannot be pinned down(force)Paradoxical whiteness: Death and corruption Purity and innocenceA symbol of evilA symbol of goodnessA symbol of both白鲸既代表高洁安宁,也代表恐怖死亡,它是宇宙间一切对立矛盾的结合4).Queequeg’s Coffin• Queequeg’s coffin alternately symbolizes life and death.• Queequeg has it built when he is seriously ill, but when he recovers, it becomes a chest to hold his belongings and an emblem of his will to live.• He perpetuates the knowledge tattooed on his body by carving it onto the coffin’s lid.• The coffin further comes to symbolize life when it replaces the Pequod’s life buoy.• When the Pequod sinks, the coffin becomes Ishmael’s buoy(浮标), saving not only his life but the life of the narrative that he will pass on.4. Themes of Moby Dick1) Melville's bleak view (negative attitude): the sense of futility and。

Herman Melville

1 ) Melville's bleak view (negative attitude): the sense of futility and meaninglessness of the world. His attitude to life is “Everlasting Nay” -Man in this universe lives a meaningless and futile life, meaningless because futile (having no useful results徒劳的). -Man cannot overcome nature. Once he attempts to seek power over it he is doomed. -Man must place himself at the mercy of nature. -The idea that man can make the world for himself is nothing but a transcendentalist folly. the adventure of killing Moby Dick is meaningless. Ahab tries to control it, which leads to his doom. the loss of faith, the sense of futility 2) alienation (far away from each other) 3) loneliness and suicidal individualism (individualism causing disaster and death) 4）rejection and quest Voyaging for Ishmael has become a journey in quest of knowledge and values.