Herman Melville 1819-1891

Is the sea our cradle or our grave?

Generally ignored in his own time and almost forgotten in the years after his death, Melville has since then emerged as one of the giants of American literature.

“So God created the great sea monsters…the fifth day.” ---Genesis

The creator of the first fish in American literature

Is the whale our brother?

Herman Melville, the creator of Moby Dick

• 1. Born in a New York family of Boston Calvinist and New York Dutch ancestry, into an atmosphere of security and comfort, well educated and socially happy.

• 2. His parents accustomed to a comfortable and refined way of life: his mother Maria Gansevoort and his father Allan Melville, educated in the College of New Jersey ( Princeton University)

• 3. Taught by a family governess, and went to New York Male High School

• 4. His father died early in 1832 ( overwork, nervous exhaustion, becoming insane, leaving heavy debts behind)

• 5. Tried his hand at clerking, farming, teaching and writing

Herman Melville, the Big Questioner

• 1. A common sailor on a merchant ship, and working on three whale ships to the South Seas, jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands and Hawaii

• 2. The whale ship was “ my Yale and my Harvard”• 3. Lived a life of genteel poverty as a customs inspector in

the port of New York ( earning 4 dollars a day)• 4. Married on August4, 1847 to Elizabeth Shaw. The

daughter of a chief justice turning him from a world wanderer to a respectable family man

• 5. Died in obscurity• 6. In 1924, his manuscript of the novella, Billy Budd was

discovered and published, arousing public interest in him

Typee ( 1846)

• Melville’s first novel. The narrator and his friend desert their whaling ship in the Marquesas Islands and spend three months with the Yypee cannibals. The narrator admires the easy primitive life of the islanders and especially fond of the lovely Fayaway.

Omoo (1847)

• A sequel to Typee• The narrator and the crew desert their whaler

because of an eccentric captain and bad living conditions. They are jailed in Tahiti, and later the narrator ships aboard another whaler, leaving his friend Captain Long Ghost in Tahiti.

Hula dancers

Fishermen of the South Sea

Hawaiian life

Men and the sea

His early romances: the beautiful and the ugly the civilized and the savage

Hawaiian sunset

Moby Dick (1851)

• It is the Hamlet of American literature, and Captain Ahab is one of the few characters in literature who is “ formed for noble tragedies”, as while writing Moby Dick, Melville was reading Hawthorne and Shakespeare, and found in both a great sense of evil.

What do these masters of tragedy create?

A victim of loveA victim of love

A victim of hatred

Tragic Heroes

Captain Ahab

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago---never mind how longprecisely—having little or nomoney in my purse, and nothingparticular to interest me on shore,I thought I would sail about a littleand see the watery part of the world.

And God created great sea monsters. ---Genesis

• The five conflicts man suffers from:• 1. Man and God• 2. Man and nature• 3. Man and society• 4. Man and man• 5. Man and himself

Two great archetypes in American literature1. Ahab---a tragic figure who dares to seek and challenge the supernatural power while knowing that he is doomed to die.

2. The white whale---the symbol of nature both good and evil as the color indicates.

Ahab---a man of actionIshmael---a man of thought

Pequod, theworld of mentrying theirbest to catchthe white whale

Can man conquer nature?

American literary tradition

Natty Bumppo, a civilized man going into the woods ,trying to know himself and society and nature with native Indians

Ahab, a civilized man going to the deep oceantrying to challenge a power mightier than him and his crew of different races to “realize hisDream”.

Huckleberry Finn, a white boy goingdown the Mississippi River to find hisPlace in the world.

What does the white whalesymbolize?

In what way is Moby Dicka tragedy?

Are we Ahab or Ishmael?

Questions to ponder: