Herman Melville: His Life And Works

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

his mother
Maria Melville.  “Apparently the older son Gansevoort who carried the
mother's maiden name was distinctly her favorite.” (Edinger 7) This was a
sense of alienation the Herman Melville felt from his mother.  This was one
of the first symbolists to the Biblical Ishamel. 

In 1837 he shipped to Liverpool as a cabin boy. Upon returning to the U.S.
he taught school and then sailed for the South Seas in 1841 on the whaler
Acushnet. After an 18 month voyage he deserted the ship in the Marquesas
Islands and with a companion lived for a month among the natives, who were
cannibals. He escaped aboard an Australian trader, leaving it at Papeete,
Tahiti, where he was imprisoned temporarily. He worked as a field laborer
and then shipped to Honolulu, Hawaii, where in 1843 he enlisted as a seaman
on the U.S. Navy frigate United States. After his discharge in 1844 he
began to create novels out of his experiences and to take part in the
literary life of Boston and New York ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

as the chapter about whales; and the more purely ornamental passages,
such as the tale of the Tally-Ho, which can stand by themselves as short
stories of merit. The work is invested with Ishmael's sense of profound
wonder at his story, but nonetheless conveys full awareness that Ahab's
quest can have but one end. And so it proves to be: Moby-Dick destroys the
Pequod and all its crew save Ishmael. There is a certain streak of the
supernatural being projected in the writings of Melville, as is amply
obvious in Moby Dick. The story revolves around the idea of an awesome sea
mammal, which drives the passions of revenge in one man and forces him to
pursue a course of action which ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: