A Critical Review on Herman Melville′s Moby Dick.doc
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Abstract
The novel Moby-Dick was the sixth novel published by Herman Melville, a landmark of American literature that mixed a number of literary styles including a fictional adventure story, historical detail and even scientific discussion. The story of the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, the novel draws at least partially from the experiences of its author while a sailor and a harpooner on whaling ships before settling in New England as a writer.
The studies of Moby-Dick focus mainly on its characters, theme, symbolism, myth, writing style, ect. The critical point of view is somewhat ignored. It is really important to get some further understanding of this classic novel. This is the aim of this thesis.
Through analysis, we find that, Moby-Dick is an encyclopedia novel with characteristics of modern novels and has exceeded his own time.
Key words: Herman Melville; Moby-Dick; Critical Review
Contents
Acknowledgements 2
Introduction 3
Chapter 1 Brief introduction to Moby Dick 4
Chapter 2 Analysis of Major Characters 6
Chapter 3 Discussion of the Meaning 9
3.1 The apparent meaning:An indictment of capitalism and a hymn of common people 9
3.2 The allusive meaning 10
3.2.1 A quest for racial justice 10
3.2.2 Mans rebellion against God 12
3.2.3 Mans confliction with nature 14
3.2.4 Satire on the hypocrisy of Christian and call for religion tolerance 16
3.2.5 Mans Challenging and Exploratory Spirit 19
Chapter 4 Writing Style and metaphoric 21
4.1 A style highly symbolic and metaphoric 21
4.2 Reference to Bible and myth 22
4.3 Relation between Focalizer and Narrator 24
Conclusion 27
Bibliography: 28
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to a host of people without whose assistance the accomplishment of this thesis would have been impossible.
First and foremost, I am deeply indeebted to my supervisor, Kan Huaiwei, for her patient guidance and constant encouragement during the writing of this thesis as well as in the course of my undergraduate studies
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