《白鲸》的论文

Abstract

Moby-Dick is regarded as the masterpiece of Herman Melville. It contains plenty of symbolism. Understanding the symbolic meanings of the characters and subjects in the novel is important. This paper analyses the symbolic meanings of different individuals in order to make a better understanding of the novel. Moby Dick represents God owing to his godlike characters and his awfully severe beauty. Ahab symbolizes the league human with evil. In the whaling trip, we can see his bravery and patience, as well as his madness and stubbornness. The third symbolic element is the idea of the “counterpane” that is woven throughout the story as a symbol of the world’s multiculturalism. Melville develops the symbol proving that the world is indeed a counterpane of diverse cultures, races, and environment, in which we are always connected by our humanity.

Key words:symbolism; Moby Dick; Arab; counterpane

摘要

《白鲸》被看作是赫尔曼·麦尔维尔的杰作。它包含了大量的象征主义。在这部小说中，理解人物事物的象征意义是非常重要的。为了更好的理解这部小说，这篇论文将分析不同个体的象征意义。其中的白鲸被描写成无处不在，无所不能的万能的上帝。埃哈布船长为复仇远涉重洋捕捉白鲸，最后自己，同伴与白鲸同归于尽的事迹，既表现了人类的勇敢与忍耐，也反映了他们的偏执与疯狂。另一个贯穿全文的象征就是“床单”，它象征世界不同文化的混合与交织，世界就像一块由多种布拼凑而成的床单，由不同的文化、种族、背景交织而成，人们在一起相互依靠，相互依存，小说中来自不同国家的船员就是最生动形象的体现。

关键词：象征主义；白鲸；埃哈布; 床单

Introduction

1851, Herman Melville had his novel Moby Dick published, which was not a stir at that time. However, a half century later, in 1920s, this book has been recognized as one of the most significant works in American literature.Moby-Dick is regarded as the first American prose epic. It is a naturalistic story of whale-hunting. The story tells that a captain named Ahab led his crews to hunt a white whale who sheared off his leg on a previous voyage. Finally all people on board drown, except Ishmael, who survives to tell the story. Moby-dick is so popular not only because of the exciting whale-hunting scenes and the exploration of the internal world of human beings, but also the skillful use of symbolism. What does make him become a master of symbolism? It relates to his life experience and culture background.

Herman Melville began working on his epic novel Moby Dick in 1850, writing it primarily as a report on the whaling voyages he undertook in the 1830s and early 1840s. Many critics think that his initial book didn’t contain characters such as Ahab, Starbuck, or even Moby Dick, but the summer of 1850 c hanged Melville’s wri ting and his masterpiece. He became friend, with author Nathaniel Hawthorne and was greatly influenced by him. He also read Shakespeare and Mil ton’s Paradise Lost. Their influences lead to the novel Moby Dick completed and published in 1851. Although ignored by critics after its release, Moby Dick took an important place in the world literature.

In Moby Dick, Melville’s imagination has achieved its great peak through employing every means and technique he can reach, among which symbolism is the most thought-provoking and well-studied one. The symbolism of the white whale can be interpreted in many ways. The paper concerns that Moby Dick is the symbol of God. Ahab, the captain of the ship, represents the league human with evil. He questions the fate that God sends upon him and wants to challenge him. The idea of “counterpane” is the third symbolic element, which is woven throughout the story as a symbol of the world’s multiculturalism.

I. The Symbolic Meanings of Moby Dick

The white whale is one of the best known symbols in the novel. What it represents depends entirely on who is noticing. To Starbuck, it is just another whale while is more dangerous. To Ishmael, it suggests the demonism in the world. To others, the white whale symbolizes mysterious and powerful nature. But one significant question is what the white whale to Ahab is? According to the captain Ahab’s comments in Chapter 36, there, he says he sees Moby Dick as a “mask”, behind which lies a great power. It can be concluded, to Ahab, the white whale represents that power which limits and controls man. Ahab sees it as evil. Melville uses many other symbols to make the white whale a symbol of divine power. Moby Dick is thought to be immortal. He is the collective whale soul, the essential, eternal whale of which all other whales are only ephemeral manifestations. The sacred, special character of Moby Dick is indicated by his whiteness. His awfully severe beauty is godlike, as is his titanic power and his pyramid-like white hump. His color, white, has signified a special sanctify: Melville portrays Moby Dick in nearly human terms, endowing the great whale a sense of intelligence, strategy and grandeur. The whale is more than a match for Ahab, despite his dogged persistence, and in fact appears altogether unconquerable. From the beginning of the novel, we are confronted with the image of the whale as the personification of power and strength.

II. The Symbolic Meanings of Captain Ahab

Ahab is the central character and the primary focus of the novel, despite his mysterious and long-delayed appearance. Long before Ahab actually interacts with Ishmael and the other characters, Melville establishes him as an impressive and tragic figure, deserving of sympathy. Ahab is a very complicated man with heroic and evil qualities at the same time. What does he stand for? A hero fights against evil? Or an evil himself takes revenge on the nature or god? He starts with a noble intention to crush malignance of the universe. But he is out of control as he rants about attacking the force behind the mask of the white whale. He wants to kill the whale in order to

reach that force. He seems to want to be God. He is, unfortunately, consumed by his consuming desire to destroy evil and finally turned evil himself.

Unlike the heroes of older tragic works, however, Ahab suffers from a fatal flaw that is not necessarily inborn but instead stems from damage, in his case psychological and physical, inflicted by life in a harsh world. He is as much a victim as he is an aggressor, and the symbolic opposition that he constructs between himself and Moby Dick propels him toward what he considers a destined end.

III. The Symbolic Meanings of Counterpane

In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a symbolic element that makes the novel clearer a nd more real to his reader is the idea of the “counterpane”, or tapestry, of humanity which is woven through out the story as the symbol of the world’s multiculturalism. Melville develops the symbolism on at least three levels, proving that the world is indeed a counterpane of diverse cultures, races and environment.

On a great scale, Melville uses the sea as a metaphor for the world and mankind. There are many creatures that depend on the water and others who depend on the creatures that depend on the water. In order for everything to be balanced, people must learn to coexist peacefully when they try to meet all of the different needs they may have. The multiple ships that the Pequod meets at the travel represent different cultures of people. For instance, the Jungfrau [or virgin] is a ship from Germany, while the Rosebud is from France, and the Town Ho comes from Nantucket. Not only are the different ships different in style and accent, but also their views on whaling and life are all greatly varied as well. There is also a great irony in the meetings of the Pequod with other ships. “Another homeward bound whale man, the Town Ho, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians.’ Whales are not running the ship that comes from one of the most “white” places in the whaling world! The multiculturalism of all the different ships proves that we as humans are all connected by the idea that sometimes we will have to rely on people we would never expect.

IV. Analyzed from the Relationship between Human and Nature

Captain Ahab, is the emblem and embodiment of the pioneers engaging in the exploration of the great nature. He represents those challenging the mysterious nature fearlessly despite all the obstacles and hardship. Though confronted with many unforeseeable difficulties, Ahab never drawn back or ceased his expedition. As

described in chapter 120, Pequod is caught in a terrible storm. Starbuck wants permission to furl a sail. But Ahab refuses, saying only cowards take down sails or back down on the purpose in bad weather. Ahab steadfastly continues to battle nature. He even mocks it, suggesting that the fury of the storm is nothing majestic, but a kind of gassy stomachache.

Moby Dick, however, is a complicated symbol. It is depicted as an unexplainable and powerful force of nature. It is the combination of wisdom, beauty, strength, cruelty, malignity and annihilation. It is the awful mystery of the universe. Melville tries to convey to us such a faith: in the battle between man and nature we are inevitably confronted with such obstacles as Moby Dick, but in the long run, man will be the final winner. At the same time, man must follow certain principle, rather than doing irrational things like Ahab, who is obsessed with revenge. Ahab has no chance of killing Moby Dick, yet he engaged in his suicide plan to stab at the whale. His plan to kill Moby Dick seals the tragic fate for himself and the crew of the Pequod. He is responsible for the death of the crew.

On the other hand, Moby Dick represents the artistic beauty man’s tragic struggle against nature. The adventure reveals the tragic spirit of the ancient epics in western literature. Ahab, the veteran captain who has been whaling for more than 40 years, is assaulted by a white whale and left one-legged. Confronted with such a fearful monster, Ahab acts like an epic hero in the Greek mythology. Yet, as in the epics, there is always a pervasive influence of fate in life.

Moby Dick in particular suggests hidden terrors and incomprehensible tragedy and fatalism in life. Symbolically, the actions are important on a national level, for the story can be read as an allegory of the risks involved in trying to subjugate nature to the will of man—a danger quite obvious to American in a century in which the annihilation of humanity has become a possibility.