Essay on Moby Dick Premonitions
Moby Dick Premonitions Term Papers
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Herman Melville employs numerous motifs in the novel Moby Dick that all serve some purpose, though that purpose is oftentimes somewhat ambiguous. One of the more peculiar motifs that I traced throughout the novel was Melville s strange tendency to foreshadow events to come. Normally, most novels attempt to maintain a certain amount of suspense until the climax, which usually contains some sort of surprise for the reader. But before getting even halfway through Moby Dick, the reader knows that when Ahab encounters Moby Dick, he will die. One would think that knowing the end to a novel would spoil it, but the methodology behind Melville s hints and the fashion in which they are presented only contribute to the excitement of the climax, and ultimately to the purpose of the novel itself.
The hints are absolutely everywhere in the novel; they are sometimes hidden, sometimes blatant, and sometimes confusing. And with every sign that Melville drops for the reader, the excitement builds up until the hopeless battle with Moby Dick. One of the first signs in the novel of the impending doom Ishmael will face is the name of the owner of the Spouter Inn: Coffin? Spouter? Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought I (18). The chapel where people were worshipping the dead, and the two trees that looked like a gallows near the Try-Pots Inn add to the mounting number of signs telling Ishmael to back away. However, Ishmael is an educated man; despite these rather peculiar premonitions, he will not be deterred from his course. When the prophet Elijah warns them about Ahab, saying ..some sailors or other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity em! (89) Ishmael tries to wave off the man s words as the ramblings of a trickster. But in truth he is worried about the upcoming voyage.
As the chase for Moby Dick progresses, the signs become more and more obvious that the mission was doomed from the start. Ishmael s authoring of his own will, the encounter with a giant squid, the warning from Gabriel, the construction of Queequeg s coffin, and many other signs all begin to accumulate. The effects of the speech that Ahab used to fire up the sailors are wearing off, and the sailors are truly beginning to fear for their lives. At one point near the end of their pursuit of Moby Dick, Starbuck, a man of morals and of God, actually seriously considers murdering Ahab: If, then, he were this instant put aside, that crime...
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