Moby-Dick.(作者)ppt

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白鲸MobyDick作品分析教学课件讲议

自大疯狂的）captain of the Whal名er称，书中爱喝咖啡的大
Pequod.
副就叫Starbuck。
Moby Dick—the great white whale.
whaleship
Starbuck—the first mate（大副）of the Pequod.
Hale Waihona Puke Queequeg（标枪手魁魁格)— Starbuck’s skilled harpooner and Ishmael’s best friend.
白鲸MobyDick作品分析
About The Author
Herman Melville（1819—1891） was an American novelist,short story writer,essayist,and poet.
Although Melville has been regarded throughout most of the twentieth century as one of America’s most powerful literary artists,particularly for his masterpiece Moby-Dick,he was largely unrecognized in his lifetime.
Symbolism
The land The sea The Pequod The voyage Ahab Ahab's Pipe Starbuck The Doubloon Queequeg's Coffin Moby Dick
Land:a symbol f safety
Sea:a symbol of adventure and danger

美国文学 moby dick

The Symbolic Meaning of Moby Dick in Moby DickMoby Dick, which is regarded as the Great American novel and the first American prose epic, is written by Herman Melville. It is a tremendously ambitious novel that functions at once as documentary of life at sea and also a vast philosophical allegory of life in general. The novel, first published in 1851, tells the story of the one-legged Captain Ahab, a deranged whaling skipper, and his obsessive voyage to find the great white whale that causes him to be crippled. However, Herman Melville uses symbols instead of putting the battle between Ahab and the big whale into simple statements. Referring to symbols, the symbolic meaning of Moby Dick is more typical, because Moby Dick possesses various symbolic meaning for various individuals, as shown by the symbol of evil, the symbol of human being to the Pequod’s crew including Ahab, and the symbol of omnipotent God to some whale men except for Pequod’s crew and Ahab.To the Pequod’s crew, the legendary white whale is a concept onto which they can displace their anxieties about their dangerous and often very frightening jobs. They believe deeply that the legendary white whale act malevolently towards men, so Moby Dick is the incarnation of evil. To Ahab, “all evil [are] visibly personified, and [make] practically assailable in Moby Dick” (Melville, 153). In chase of Moby Dick, he loses one of his legs, so he hates Moby Dick very much. He wants to take revenge. He dedicates his ship and crew to destroying Moby Dick, because they see Moby Dick as the living embodiment of all that is evil and malignant in the universe. By ignoring the physical dangerous that this quest entails, setting himself against other men, and presuming to understand and fight evil on a cosmic scale, Ahab arrogantly defies the limitations imposed upon human being. Also, just the evil of Moby Dick makes the crew including Ahab get close to death.To readers, in terms of the suffering of the crew including Ahab, Moby Dick is the incarnation of evil to some extent. Although Ahab becomes almost crazy, he is therepresentation of the people who are determined to fight against evil. In an ultimate demonstration of defiance, Ahab uses his “last breath” (468) to curse the whale and fate. Although the strength of Ahab and his crew is negligible and in some ways their action is a little blind, their spirit of fighting against the evil and perseverance is worthy of learning today. Nowadays, life is becoming more and more comfortable, and the will-power of people becomes weaker and weaker. In some ways, ignoring Ahab’s craziness and blindness, his braveness and perseverance really set a good example for today’s people.Referring to Ahab’s positive spirit s, have you realized that in some ways Moby Dick is about the conflicts between two kinds of people? Of course, it is reasonable. Ishmael, the narrator, compares the legend of Moby Dick to his experience of the whale. He notes that sperm whale attacks have increased recently and that superstitious sailors have come to regard these attacks as an intelligent action. Pequod’s crew regard Moby Dick as human being, because Moby Dick, who has defied capture numerous times, seems to exhibit an “intelligent malignity” (154) in his attacks on men. In Pequod’s opinion, Moby Dick is as intelligent as human being. During struggling with Moby Dick, Ahab realizes, “aye, he’s chasing me now; no I, him - that’s bad” (Melville 461). Ahab regards Moby Dick as human being and they engage in a battle of wits.In my opinion, the battle of w its between them is the epitome of today’s society, in which all people fight for their own benefits. From their battle, readers can conclude that there is no real winner in their competition. Does it tell readers that they need to get along well with each other? Does it tell readers that they need to build a harmonious world in a concerted effort? People really need to consider about these questions carefully.Referring to regarding Moby Dick as a human being, have you realized that Moby Dick has some kind of super power? To some whale men not including Pequod’s crew and Ahab, “Moby Dick” is “not only ubiqu itous, but immortal (forimmortality is but ubiquity in time)” (151). In particular, wild rumors about Moby Dick circulate among whale men, suggesting that it can be in more than one place at the same time and that it is immortal. That is to say, Moby Dick is the image of God to them. The people, who believe in God, believe that God is omnipotent. In some ways, some whale men regard Moby Dick as omnipotent and powerful God, who is “all-destroying but unconquering” (Melville 462). However, in Pequod’s crew’s and Ahab’s views, they don’t think so. To them, Moby Dick is the representation of evil. Ahab, as a fatalist to the last, believes the arrangement of fate, but the fate plays a serious joke on him.Ahab’s sufferings are pitiful, however, his temerity and craziness also give a lesson to people today – you can believe in fate, but please act according to your own capability in case that you are the next person on whom God play a serious joke. No matter you believe the existence of God or not, and no matter what kind of image of Moby Dick in your point of view, please be yourself, because when you are lost, only you can really save yourself. In our daily life, there is always that kind of person, who has a great dream, but life always gives him or her a lesson and then becomes his or her teacher in the end.Moby Dick is a whaling tale or sea adventure, dealing with Ahab, a man with an overwhelming obsession to kill the whale which has crippled him. The novel is also turned out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, and a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychological. Above all, the symbolic meaning of Moby Dick is the most typical. It symbolizes evil, human being themselves, and the omnipotent God. From the symbolic meaning of Moby Dick, readers also learn a lot. For example, although you are brave enough, and you also believe in fate, you must still act according to your capability. That may the force be with me is just a good hope. I hope you will not be the next person, on whom God plays a serious joke. All in all, Moby Dick is a good novel which will prove worthy of your attention.References:Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited Cumberland House, 1993.。

moby dick

Key FactsFULL TITLE ·Moby-Dick; or The WhaleAUTHOR · Herman MelvilleTYPE OF WORK · NovelGENRE · Epic, adventure story, quest tale, allegory, tragedyLANGUAGE · EnglishTIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · Between 1850 and 1851, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and New York CityDATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION ·1851PUBLISHER · Harper & Brothers in America (simultaneously published in England by Richard Bentley as T HE W HALE)NARRATOR · Ishmael, a junior member of the Pequod’s crew, casts himself as the author, recounting the events of the voyage after he has acquired more experience and studied the whale extensively.POINT OF VIEW · Ishmael narrates in a combination of first and third person, describing events as he saw them and providing his own thoughts. He presents the thoughts andfeelings of the other characters only as an outside observer might infer them.TONE · Ironic, celebratory, philosophical, dramatic, hyperbolicTENSE · PastSETTING (TIME) ·1830s or 1840sSETTING (PLACE) · Aboard the whaling ship the Pequod, in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian OceansMAJOR CONFLICT · Ahab dedicates his ship and crew to destroying Moby Dick, a white sperm whale, because he sees this whale as the living embodiment of all that is evil and malignant in the universe. By ignoring the physical dangers that this quest entails, setting himself against other men, and presuming to understand and fight evil on a cosmic scale, Ahab arrogantly defies the limitations imposed upon human beings.RISING ACTION · Ahab announces his quest to the other sailors and nails the doubloon to the mast; the Pequod encounters various ships with news and stories about Moby Dick.CLIMAX · In Chapter 132, “The Symphony,” Ahab interrogates himself and his quest in front of Starbuck, and realizes that he does not have the will to turn aside from his purpose.FALLING ACTION · The death of Ahab and the destruction of the Pequod by Moby Dick; Ishmael, the only survivor of the Pequod’s sinking, floats on a coffin and is rescued by another whaling ship, the Rachel.THEMES · The limits of knowledge; the deceptiveness of fate; the exploitative nature of whalingMOTIFS · Whiteness; surfaces and depthsSYMBOLS · The Pequod symbolizes doom; Moby Dick, on an objective level, symbolizes humankind’s i nability to understand the world; Queequeg’s coffin symbolizes both life and deathFORESHADOWING · Foreshadowing in Moby-Dick is extensive and inescapable: everything from the Pequod’s ornamentation to the behavior of schools of fish to the appearance of a giant squid is read as an omen of the eventual catastrophic encounter with Moby Dick. Themes, Motifs & SymbolsThemesThemes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.The Limits of KnowledgeAs Ishmael tries, in the opening pages of Moby-Dick, to offer a simple collection of literary excerpts mentioning whales, he discovers that, throughout history, the whale has taken on an incredible multiplicity of meanings. Over the course of the novel, he makes use of nearly every discipline known to man in his attempts to understand the essential nature of the whale. Each of these systems of knowledge, however, including art, taxonomy, and phrenology, fails to give an adequate account. The multiplicity of approaches that Ishmael takes, coupled with his compulsive need to assert his authority as a narrator and the frequent references to the limits of observation (men cannot see the depths of the ocean, for example), suggest that human knowledge is always limited and insufficient. When it comes to Moby Dick himself, this limitation takes on allegorical significance. The ways of Moby Dick, like those of the Christian God, areunknowable to man, and thus trying to interpret them, as Ahab does, is inevitably futile and often fatal.The Deceptiveness of FateIn addition to highlighting many portentous or foreshadowing events, Ishmael’s narrative contains many references to fate, creating the impression that the Pequod’s doom is i nevitable. Many of the sailors believe in prophecies, and some even claim the ability to foretell the future. A number of things suggest, however, that characters are actually deluding themselves when they think that they see the work of fate and that fate either doesn’t exist or is one of the many forces about which human beings can have no distinct knowledge. Ahab, for example, clearly exploits the sailors’ belief in fate to manipulate them into thinking that the quest for Moby Dick is their common destiny. Moreover, the prophesies of Fedallah and others seem to be undercut in Chapter 99, when various individuals interpret the doubloon in different ways, demonstrating that humans project what they want to see when they try to interpret signs and portents.The Exploitative Nature of WhalingAt first glance, the Pequod seems like an island of equality and fellowship in the midst of a racist, hierarchically structured world. The ship’s crew includes men from all corners of the globe and all races who seem to get along harmoniously. Ishmael is initially uneasy upon meeting Queequeg, but he quickly realizes that it is better to have a “sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” for a shipmate. Additionally, the conditions of work aboard the Pequod promote a certain kind of egalitarianism, since men are promoted and paid according to their skill. However, the work of whaling parallels the other exploitative activities—buffalo hunting, gold mining, unfair trade with indigenous peoples—that characterize American and European territorial expansion. Each of the Pequod’s mates, who are white, is entirely dependent on a nonwhite harpooner, and nonwhites perform most of the dirty or dangerous jobs aboard the ship. Flask actually stands on Daggoo, his African harpooner, in order to beat the other mates to a prize whale. Ahab is depicted as walking over the black youth Pip, who listens to Ahab’s pacing from below deck, and is thus reminded that his value as a slave is less than the value of a whale.MotifsMotifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.WhitenessWhiteness, to Ishmael, is horrible because it represents the unnatural and threatening: albinos, creatures that live in extreme and inhospitable environments, waves breaking against rocks. These examples reverse the traditional association of whiteness with purity. Whiteness conveys both a lack of meaning and an unreadable excess of meaning that confounds individuals. Moby Dick is the pinnacle of whiteness, and Melville’s characters cannot objectively understand the White Whale. Ahab, for instance, believes that Moby Dick represents evil, while Ishmael fails in his attempts to determine scientifically the whale’s fundamental nature.Surfaces and DepthsIshmael frequently bemoans the impossibility of examining anything in its entirety, noting that only the surfaces of objects and environments are available to the humanobserver. On a live whale, for example, only the outer layer presents itself; on a dead whale, it is impossible to determine what constitutes the whale’s skin, or which part—skeleton, blubber, head—offers the best understanding of the entire animal. Moreover, as the whale swims, it hides much of its body underwater, away from the human gaze, and no one knows where it goes or what it does. The sea itself is the greatest frustration in this regard: its depths are mysterious and inaccessible to Ishmael. This motif represents the larger problem of the limitations of human knowledge. Humankind is not all-seeing; we can only observe, and thus only acquire knowledge about, that fraction of entities—both individuals and environments—to which we have access: surfaces.SymbolsSymbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.The PequodNamed after a Native American tribe in Massachusetts that did not long survive the arrival of white men and thus memorializing an extinction, the Pequod is a symbol ofdoom. It is painted a gloomy black and covered in whale teeth and bones, literally bristling with the mementos of violent death. It is, in fact, marked for death. Adorned like a primitive coffin, the Pequod becomes one.Moby DickMoby Dick possesses various symbolic meanings for various individuals. To the Pequod’s crew, the legendary White Whale is a concept onto which they can displace their anxieties about their dangerous and often very frightening jobs. Because they have no delusions about Moby Dick acting malevolently toward men or literally embodying evil, tales about the whale allow them to confront their fear, manage it, and continue to function. Ahab, on the other hand, believes that Moby Dick is a manifestation of all that is wrong with the world, and he feels that it is his destiny to eradicate this symbolic evil. Moby Dick also bears out interpretations not tied down to specific characters. In its inscrutable silence and mysterious habits, for example, the White Whale can be read as an allegorical representation of an unknowable God. As a profitable commodity, it fits into the scheme ofwhite economic expansion and exploitation in the nineteenth century. As a part of the natural world, it represents the destruction of the environment by such hubristic expansion.Queequeg’s CoffinQueequeg’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, in a morbid way, when it replaces the Pequod’s life buoy. When the Pequod sinks, the coffin becomes Ishmael’s buoy, saving n ot only his life but the life of the narrative that he will pass on.。

moby dick

Themes

Revenge
•Man and the Natural World
•Alienation & Isolation
Alienation 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, walled town of a captian’s exclusiveness”,which leads him to his doom.
Symbols
Queequeg’s Coffin:life and death
a.built when Queequeg is seriously ill
b.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. c. When the Pequod sinks, the coffin becomes Ishmael’s buoy, saving not only his life but the life of the narrative that he will pass on.

美国文学Moby Dick课件

Other characters
• The harpooner and the best friend of Ishmael: Queequeg
• the first mate of the Pequod: Starbuck
• The Parsee: Fedallah
Moby Dick is not only a revenge
• The coffin further comes to symbolize life . 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.
the mementos( 纪念品) of
violent death
did not long survive
Moby Dick
Various Symbols
Mysterious Powerful
and unknown
Threat to the seamen And killed many sailors
story, but also is an
encyclopedia(百科全书) of
everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc. in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.The book is steeped in symbolism
Starbuck

美国文学课件Herman-Melville-and-Moby-----dick

man and nature; man and society. ✓ Solipsism（唯我论）.
2021/5/2316 NhomakorabeaSymbols
The Pequod
The Pequod is a symbol of doom. It is painted a gloomy black and covered in whale teeth and bones, literally bristling with the mementos of violent death. It is, in fact, marked for death. Adorned
2021/5/23
6
In 1840, Melville set sail aboard the Acushnet, a whaling ship headed for the South Pacific. The rough conditions of the sea toughened the romantic New Englander and he took such a liking to sea life that he sailed around the globe four years aboard various ships.
debt.
4
Melville was born into a slightly eccentric, established New England family.
His father Alan imported clothes and other goods from France, providing Herman with a comfortable and happy childhood in New York.

lecture8 moby dick

Moby Dick
It is widely considered to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. It is an encyclopedia of everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc, in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry. It is regarded as the first American prose epic, a Shakespearean tragedy of a man fighting against overwhelming odds in an indifferent and even hostile world.
Social Backgrounds
Whaling industry
American whaling in its most prosperous time. Whaling is a lucrative work. One whale‟s profit to every crew = half a year‟s revenue of a worker on land
Social Background: capitalism
The capitalism was an extremely greedy monster, swallowed everything endlessly. The blind and cruel predatory activities were not only a disaster but also left shadow in all the areas it conquered. The social atmosphere of conquest and possession was around everywhere.

moby_dick

▪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 anemblem of his will to live.▪The coffin further comes to symbolize life when it replaces the Pequod’s life buoy. When the Pequod sinks, the coffin becomesIshmael’s buoy(浮标), saving not only his life but the life of thenarrative that he will pass on.Theme1)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. Man cannot overcome nature. Oncehe attempts to seek power over it he is doomed.Key FactsFULL TITLE ·Moby-Dick; or The WhaleAUTHOR · Herman MelvilleTYPE OF WORK · NovelGENRE · Epic, adventure story, quest tale, allegory, tragedyLANGUAGE · EnglishTIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · Between 1850 and 1851, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and New York CityDATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION ·1851PUBLISHER · Harper & Brothers in America (simultaneously published in England by Richard Bentley as T HE W HALE)NARRATOR · Ishmael, a junior member of the Pequod’s crew, casts himself as the author, recounting the events of the voyage after he has acquired more experience and studied the whale extensively.POINT OF VIEW · Ishmael narrates in a combination of first and third person, describing events as he saw them and providing his own thoughts. He presents the thoughts and feelings of the other characters only as an outside observer might infer them.TONE · Ironic, celebratory, philosophical, dramatic, hyperbolicTENSE · PastSETTING (TIME) ·1830s or 1840sSETTING (PLACE) · Aboard the whaling ship the Pequod, in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian OceansMAJOR CONFLICT · Ahab dedicates his ship and crew to destroying Moby Dick, a white sperm whale, because he sees this whale as the living embodiment of all that is evil and malignant in the universe. By ignoring the physical dangers that this quest entails, setting himself against other men, and presuming to understand and fight evil on a cosmic scale, Ahab arrogantly defies the limitations imposed upon human beings.RISING ACTION · Ahab announces his quest to the other sailors and nails the doubloon to the mast; the Pequod encounters various ships with news and stories about Moby Dick.CLIMAX · In Chapter 132, “The Symphony,” Ahab interrogates himself and his quest in front of Starbuck, and realizes that he does not have the will to turn aside from his purpose.FALLING ACTION · The death of Ahab and the destruction of the Pequod by Moby Dick; Ishmael, the only survivor of the Pequod’s sinking, floats on a coffin and is rescued by another whaling ship, the Rachel.THEMES · The limits of knowledge; the deceptiveness of fate; the exploitative nature of whalingMOTIFS · Whiteness; surfaces and depthsSYMBOLS · The Pequod symbolizes doom; Moby Dick, on an objective level, symbolizes humankind’s inability to understand the world; Queequeg’s coffin symbolizes both life and deathFORESHADOWING · Foreshadowing in Moby-Dick is extensive and inescapable: everything from the Pequod’s ornamentation to the behavior of schools of fish to the appearance of a giant squid is read as an omen of the eventual catastrophic encounter with Moby Dick.Themes, Motifs & SymbolsThemesThemes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.The Limits of KnowledgeAs Ishmael tries, in the opening pages of Moby-Dick, to offer a simple collection of literary excerpts mentioning whales, he discovers that, throughout history, the whale has taken on an incredible multiplicity of meanings. Over the course of the novel, he makes use of nearly every discipline known to man in his attempts to understand the essential nature of the whale. Each of these systems of knowledge, however, including art, taxonomy, and phrenology, fails to give an adequate account. The multiplicity of approaches that Ishmael takes, coupled with his compulsive need to assert his authority as a narrator and the frequent references to the limits of observation (men cannot see the depths of the ocean, for example), suggest that human knowledge is always limited and insufficient. When it comes to Moby Dick himself, this limitation takes on allegorical significance. The ways of Moby Dick, like those of the Christian God, are unknowable to man, and thus trying to interpret them, as Ahab does, is inevitably futile and often fatal.The Deceptiveness of FateIn addition to highlighting many portentous or foreshadowing events, Ishmael’s narrative contains many references to fate, creating the impression that the Pequod’s doom is inevitable. Many of the sailors believe in prophecies, and some even claim the ability to foretell the future. A number of things suggest, however, that characters are actually deluding themselves when they think that they see the work of fate and that fate either doesn’t exist or is one of the many forces about which human beings can have no distinct knowledge. Ahab, for example, clearly exploits the sailors’ belief in fate to manipulate them into thinking that the quest for Moby Dick is their common destiny. Moreover, the prophesies of Fedallah and others seem to be undercut in Chapter 99, when various individuals interpret the doubloon in different ways, demonstrating that humans project what they want to see when they try to interpret signs and portents.The Exploitative Nature of WhalingAt first glance, the Pequod seems like an island of equality and fellowship in the midst of a racist, hierarchically structured world. The ship’s crew includes men from all corners of the globe and all races who seem to get along harmoniously. Ishmael is initially uneasy upon meeting Queequeg, but he quickly realizes that it is b etter to have a “sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” for a shipmate. Additionally, the conditions of work aboard the Pequod promote a certain kind of egalitarianism, since men are promoted and paid according to their skill. However, the work of whaling parallels the other exploitative activities—buffalo hunting, gold mining, unfair trade with indigenous peoples—that characterize American and European territorial expansion. Each of the Pequod’s mates, who are white, is entirely dependenton a nonwhite harpooner, and nonwhites perform most of the dirty or dangerous jobs aboard the ship. Flask actually stands on Daggoo, his African harpooner, in order to beat the other mates to a prize whale. Ahab is depicted as walking over the black youth Pip, who listen s to Ahab’s pacing from below deck, and is thus reminded that his value as a slave is less than the value of a whale.MotifsMotifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.WhitenessWhiteness, to Ishmael, is horrible because it represents the unnatural and threatening: albinos, creatures that live in extreme and inhospitable environments, waves breaking against rocks. These examples reverse the traditional association of whiteness with purity. Whiteness conveys both a lack of meaning and an unreadable excess of meaning that confounds individuals. Moby Dick is the pinnacle of whiteness, and Melville’s characters cannot objectively understand the White Whale. Ahab, for instance, believes that Moby Dick represents evil, while Ishmael fails in his attempts to determine scientifically the whale’s fundamental nature.Surfaces and DepthsIshmael frequently bemoans the impossibility of examining anything in its entirety, noting that only the surfaces of objects and environments are available to the human observer. On a live whale, for example, only the outer layer presents itself; on a dead whale, it is impossible to determine what constitutes the whale’s skin, or which part—skeleton, blubber, head—offers the best understanding of the entire animal. Moreover, as the whale swims, it hides much of its body underwater, away from the human gaze, and no one knows where it goes or what it does. The sea itself is the greatest frustration in this regard: its depths are mysterious and inaccessible to Ishmael. This motif represents the larger problem of the limitations of human knowledge. Humankind is not all-seeing; we can only observe, and thus only acquire knowledge about, that fraction of entities—both individuals and environments—to which we have access: surfaces.SymbolsSymbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.The PequodNamed after a Native American tribe in Massachusetts that did not long survive the arrival of white men and thus memorializing an extinction, the Pequod is a symbol of doom. It is painted a gloomy black and covered in whaleteeth and bones, literally bristling with the mementos of violent death. It is, in fact, marked for death. Adorned like a primitive coffin, the Pequod becomes one.Moby DickMoby Dick possesses various symbolic meanings for various individuals. To the Pequod’s crew, the legendary White Wha le is a concept onto which they can displace their anxieties about their dangerous and often very frightening jobs. Because they have no delusions about Moby Dick acting malevolently toward men or literally embodying evil, tales about the whale allow them to confront their fear, manage it, and continue to function. Ahab, on the other hand, believes that Moby Dick is a manifestation of all that is wrong with the world, and he feels that it is his destiny to eradicate this symbolic evil.Moby Dick also bears out interpretations not tied down to specific characters. In its inscrutable silence and mysterious habits, for example, the White Whale can be read as an allegorical representation of an unknowable God. As a profitable commodity, it fits into the scheme of white economic expansion and exploitation in the nineteenth century. As a part of the natural world, it represents the destruction of the environment by such hubristic expansion.Queequeg’s CoffinQueequeg’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 com es to symbolize life, in a morbid way, when it replaces the Pequod’s life buoy. When the Pequod sinks, the coffin becomes Ishmael’s buoy, saving not only his life but the life of the narrative that he will pass on.。

moby dick白鲸【ppt】

Ahab Symbol of solipsism, revenge and thDick
1. Search for truth The story deals with the human pursuit of truth and the meaning of existence.
Queequeg’s coffin Life and death
The name 'Ishmael' stems from that of the first son of Abraham in the Old Testament.
Abraham
Hagar Sarah
Ishmael Isaac
The name has come to symbolize orphans, exiles, and social outcasts.
Captain Ahab: the Captain of the Pequod. He is reaching his sixties. He believes he is fated to kill Moby Dick and lives for this purpose alone for this whale took Ahab's leg, causing him to use a leg made of the jaw of a whale to walk and stand.
"Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick- but it was not Moby Dick that took off thy leg?" "Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck; aye, … it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heartstricken moose; …

Herman-Melville-(1819----1891)PPT课件

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1
• Chief works
Redburn (1849)
A romantic and harrowing description of Melville’s voyage to Liverpool in 1839 as cabin boyfor sea.
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7
Melville’s style
His writing is consciously literary. His rich rhythmical prose and poetic power show his high craftsmanship. He made many references to former authors in their works, the Bible and Shakespeare in particular. In Moby Dick, for example, there are many allusions to classical myths. Therefore, Moby Dick is regarded as the first American prose epic, a Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against overwhelming odds in indifferent and even hostile world. The literary quality of Melville’s style makes him extremely difficult to understand.
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2
• Moby-Dick (1851)
Melville’s masterpiece, which is regarded as the first American prose epic and one of the world classics. It gives a detailed account of the operation of the whaling industry and illustrates the tragedy of man fighting against the overwhelming odds in an indifferent and even hostile world. The novel can be interpreted in the following perspectives.

Lecture 7 Herman Melville and Moby DickPPT课件

• [,mɑnə'menɪ,æ k] • a person suffering from monomania • n. 对一事热狂的人，偏执狂者
Character Analysis & Summary
• Moby-Dick - The white bull sperm whale who is the object of all of Captain Ahab's wrath, the main antagonist in the novel.
•Rokovoko or Kokovoko is the fictional island home of the character Queequeg, as described in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick.
• Typee《泰皮》 (1846) : A Peep at Polynesian Life （波利尼西亚(人)的）
• Omoo《欧穆》 (1847): A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas
• Mardi 《玛地》 (1849): Romances of the South Sea islands From his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands
was called as “Master of Philosophical Allegory” • Two things which deserve mentioned: • 1. Going out to sea
• 2. Friendship with Hawthorne.

Moby-Dick

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According to the Bible, Ahab was the son of King Omri and one of Israel's most powerful rulers. He wanted to covet Naboth’s vineyard, which Naboth won’t give to him.
The result was just like the prophecy of Elijah,although the White Whale was stabbed to death, Ahab and the "Pequod" were also shipwrecked.
----Moby Dick .
Persuaded by his wife, he built an altar in Samaria dedicated to the false god Baal.
Many people considered Ahab the worst ruler that ancient Israel ever had. His wife Jezebel was so evil that she has come to symbolize immoral and cruel throughout history. .
2. The King Ahab of the book of Kings is a criminal representative. He is extremely arrogant.
He violates God's commandments again and again. In God's eyes, he is a heinous man. At last, he was stabbed to death by an arrow when he fought against Jehoshaphat, king of Jewish.

美国文学选读之白鲸PPT课件

6 .Character List
• Ishmael - The narrator, and a junior member of the crew of the Pequod. Ishmael doesn't play a major role in the events of the novel, but much of the narrative is taken up by his eloquent, verbose, and extravagant discourse on whales and whaling.
• --- The married life of Melville was more like that of Scott Fitzgerald than Mark Twains. Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of a wealthy judge. To support her and their growing family, he had to write for money.
• ---During the summer of 1850, Melville and Hawthorne met. They exchanged visits, meeting at least nine times, and wrote to one another often.
• ---Melville saw in Hawthorne the one American who was expressively aware of the evil at the core of American life. He found Hawthorne’s understanding of evil, that blackness of vision, unusually fascinating.

MobyDick作者 ppt课件

• In August 1843, he became a sailor on
a warship(军舰), retired in October
1844 in Boston. Then he began to write and became a novelist. Taking the experiences at sea for the factual basis, the novel Moby Dick had come into being and been considered as one of the greatest novels in America. Melville is known as the American
• His works also include short stories like Bartleby《书记员巴特子比》 and novellas (中篇小说) like Billy Budd《比利·巴德》 and so on. Many of his works are steeped in(充满着)metaphor and allegory(寓言), at times cynical（愤世嫉俗的，冷嘲的）,
Civil War poems,1866) • 《克拉瑞尔》(Clarel,1876) ——长诗 • 《约翰·玛尔和其他水手》(John Marr and Other
Sailors，1888) ——诗集 • 《梯摩里昂》(Timoleon,1Fra bibliotek91) ——诗集
• When he died in 1891, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially MobyDick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and world

Moby Dick

• Moby Dick, who has objected to be caught for many times, exhibits an “intelligent malignity”（狠毒） in his attacks on
1.What are the stories Ismael tells about Moby Dick?
1.What are the stories Ishmael tells about Moby Dick?
• Whales, for instance, have been known to travel with remarkable speed from the Atlantic to the Pacific; thus, it is possible for a whale to be caught in the Pacific with the harpoons（鱼叉） of a Greenland ship in it.
• Ishmael explains that Ahab lost his leg when he tried to attack Moby Dick with a knife after the whale destroyed his boats. • Far from land, Ahab did not have access to much in the way of medical care and thus underwent unimaginable physical and mental suffering on the ship's return to Nantucket. • Ishmael deduces that Ahab’s madness and his singleminded drive to destroy the whale must have originated during his bedridden（卧床不起） agony.