Herman Melville
Moby Dick
If you can get nothing better out of the
world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.
First Journal: Obsession
• Have you ever been obsessed about
something?
• Then define what obsession is to you
or the difference between obsession
and compulsion?
South Dakota Gem Stone
the Fairburn Agate
Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 –
September 28, 1891)
• The third of eight children of Allan and Maria Gansevoort
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Melville
His father died when Herman was 12 leaving the family
in financial hardship
He worked as a surveyor for the Eerie canal and as a
school teacher before becoming a cabin boy in 1939 and
joining the whaler Acushnet on January 3, 1841 in New
Bedford Mass.
His years at sea are the basis for the novels: Typee,
Omoo, and Moby Dick.
Melville…
• In 1847 Melville married Elisabeth Shaw, daughter of the
chief justice of Massachusetts.
• After three years in New York, he bought a farm,
"Arrowhead", near Nathaniel Hawthorne's home at
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
• One of Melville's sources was an article by Jeremiah N.
Reynolds, entitled 'Mocha Dick: Or, the White Whale of
the Pacific' (1839). It told about an albino sperm whale,
which was said to have sunk ships, drowned men, and
harpooned many times.
• Hawthorne encouraged him to change Moby Dick from a
story full of details about whaling, into an allegorical
novel.
Melville…
• Melville's Moby Dick was largely misunderstood and it
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sold only some 3,000 copies during his lifetime. Its
original title was The Whale, when it was published in
London in October 1851
In 1891, Melville died never gaining the monetary or
literary fame he thought he deserved
In the 1920’s, Melville’s writing is re-discovered by
literary scholars and he is finally recognized as one of
America’s finest writers
Examples of Conflict in Moby Dick
• Man vs. Nature
• Land vs. Sea
• Man vs. Man
• Man vs. Himself
• Man vs. Society
• Man vs. God
The Science of Conflict
• Hegelian Dialectic: Euripides and Olympus vs.
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Humanity
Science: matter vs. anti-matter proton vs.
electron
Math: positive and negative integers
Philosophy: Ying and Yang
Society: proletariat vs. bourgeois
Monetarily: hard currency vs. fiat currency
Literary: protagonist vs. antagonist
Ergo…Final Journal Question
• In our reading, Captain Ahab gives a impassioned
speech about the whale and convinces the crew to
follow him on this mad quest for revenge, why do they
go along?
• Why do rational people follow irrational leaders?
Work Citied
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http://www.melville.org/hmquotes.htm
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/melville.htm
http://www.online-literature.com
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/greatbo
oks-mobydick/