Meanings of the White Whale (Herman Melville: Moby Dick)

Meanings of the White Whale (Herman Melville: Moby Dick) PDF Author: Silja Rübsamen
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638507440
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: A, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth (English Department), course: English 391 Honors: New England and the Sea, language: English, abstract: Throughout the whole novel Melville undertook great pains to provide a vast network of associations in order to amplify the image of the whale for the reader. A glance at Melville’s sources proves that he had amassed a collection of general and mythological accounts of the whale even before he began to write Moby-Dick. Becoming ever more aware of the multiplicity of possible interpretations of the whale, Melville admitted in Chapter 104 that the main theme of the book is a “mighty theme,” brought to perfection in a “mighty book” (p. 349). Every description of a different concept of the White Whale from any culture brings with it a vast body of pictures and notions, each able to incite a reaction of associations within the reader; the result being necessarily a wide range of different meanings – almost one meaning for every reader. Cloaked in different accounts of the White Whale comes an amplification process. The reader is confronted with concepts of the Whale and his whiteness, each accompanied with a series of possible associations that finally give the White Whale its immeasurable plurality of meaning. That Melville’s narrator had undoubtedly more than one meaning in mind for the whale tells Ch. 1: And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and drowned. But that same image we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. (p. 20) The notion that everybody sees something different in a mirror elucidates the amplification process the narrator has in store for the reader. Just as a mirror, the novel serves as an instrument of self-assessment: the reader looks into the book, and combines personal background with the “raw material” of concepts that enable him to develop his associations that finally form his image of the whale. [...]

The Whiteness of the Whale

The Whiteness of the Whale PDF Author: David Poyer
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250020573
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
An antiwhaling expedition to the freezing Antarctic takes a violent turn in this powerful novel from bestselling author and sailor David Poyer. After a tragic accident maims her laboratory assistant, Dr. Sara Pollard's career as a primate behaviorist lies in ruins. With nothing left to lose, Pollard – descendant of a Nantucket captain whose ship was sunk by a rogue whale – accepts an offer to join anti-whaling activists on a round-the-world racing yacht as the resident scientist. The plan is to sail from Argentina to the stormy Antarctic Sea. There they'll shadow, harass, and expose the Japanese fleet, which continues to kill and process endangered whales in internationally-declared sanctuaries. But everyone aboard Black Anemone has a secret, or something to live down. Her crew—including a beautiful but narcissistic film celebrity, an Afghan War veteran in search of the buzz of combat, and an enigmatic, obsessive captain—will confront hostile whalers, brutal weather, dangerous ice, near-mutiny, and romantic conflict. But no one aboard is prepared for what Nature herself has in store . . . when they're targeted by a massive creature with a murderous agenda of its own. Filled with violence, beauty, and magical evocations of life in the most remote waters on Earth, The Whiteness of the Whale is a powerful adventure by a master novelist.

Chasing the White Whale

Chasing the White Whale PDF Author: David Dowling
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587299062
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
"There have been a lot of crazy books about Melville and Moby-Dickiut this isn't one of them. Dowling's overarching analogy, between Ishmael's and Melville's obsessions and the annual marathon group-reading of Moby-Dick in New Bedford, makes perfect sense and generates illuminating analyses of the novel and its cultural contexts. It also lets him open his book up into a passionate exploration of how great literature can still play a vital role in people's lives today"-Damion Searls, editor, Thoreau's The Journal: 1837-1861 and Melville's; or The Whale --Book Jacket.

A Shimmer of Possibility

A Shimmer of Possibility PDF Author: Paul Graham
Publisher: Steidl
ISBN: 9783865218629
Category : Artists' books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"First published in late 2007, Paul Graham's a shimmer of possibility was quickly hailed as "one of the most important advances in contemporary photographic practice that has taken place in a long while" and marked a paradigm shift in the medium. The first edition redefined what a photobook can be. Comprising 12 individual hardback books in an edition of 1,000 copies, it sold out immediately. This second edition brings together the 12 books in one single volume at an accessible price. Loosely inspired by Chekhov's short stories, a shimmer of possibility comprises a series of photographic short stories of everyday life in today's America. Each story is a small sequence of images, such as a man smoking a cigarette while he waits for a bus in Las Vegas, or a walk down a street in Boston on an autumn afternoon. Often two, three or four sequences intertwine in a single chapter, like separate but related lives co-existing in suburban America. Sometimes the quiet narrative breaks unexpectedly into a sublime moment - while a couple carry their shopping home in Texas a small child dances with a plastic bag in a garden; as a man cuts the grass in Pittsburgh it begins to rain and the low sun breaks through to illuminate every raindrop. These filmic haikus avoid the forceful summation we usually find in photography, shunning any tidy packaging of the world into perfect images. Instead, life simply flows around and past us while we stand and stare, quietly astonished by its beauty and grace. The radical form of this work is reflected in the book's sequences, giving the flow of life precedence over conclusiveness, where nothing much happens, but nothing is foreclosed either, where everything shimmers with possibility." -- Publisher's description

Moby Dick

Moby Dick PDF Author: Eric A. Kimmel
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
ISBN: 1466820454
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
AHOY! Come with us aboard the Pequod. We search for Moby Dick, the Great White Whale! Along with Captain Ahab, you'll meet danger face to face, hunting the fiercest creature the seas have ever known! Are you brave enough— and bold enough— for the adventure of your life? The award-winning author and illustrator team of Eric A. Kimmel and Andrew Glass introduce a new generation of readers to a magnificent and memorable retelling of Herman Melville's masterpiece, Moby Dick.

Meanings of the White Whale (Herman Melville: Moby Dick)

Meanings of the White Whale (Herman Melville: Moby Dick) PDF Author: Silja Rübsamen
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638507440
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: A, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth (English Department), course: English 391 Honors: New England and the Sea, language: English, abstract: Throughout the whole novel Melville undertook great pains to provide a vast network of associations in order to amplify the image of the whale for the reader. A glance at Melville’s sources proves that he had amassed a collection of general and mythological accounts of the whale even before he began to write Moby-Dick. Becoming ever more aware of the multiplicity of possible interpretations of the whale, Melville admitted in Chapter 104 that the main theme of the book is a “mighty theme,” brought to perfection in a “mighty book” (p. 349). Every description of a different concept of the White Whale from any culture brings with it a vast body of pictures and notions, each able to incite a reaction of associations within the reader; the result being necessarily a wide range of different meanings – almost one meaning for every reader. Cloaked in different accounts of the White Whale comes an amplification process. The reader is confronted with concepts of the Whale and his whiteness, each accompanied with a series of possible associations that finally give the White Whale its immeasurable plurality of meaning. That Melville’s narrator had undoubtedly more than one meaning in mind for the whale tells Ch. 1: And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and drowned. But that same image we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. (p. 20) The notion that everybody sees something different in a mirror elucidates the amplification process the narrator has in store for the reader. Just as a mirror, the novel serves as an instrument of self-assessment: the reader looks into the book, and combines personal background with the “raw material” of concepts that enable him to develop his associations that finally form his image of the whale. [...]

Moby Dick

Moby Dick PDF Author: Herman Melville
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description


In Search of Moby Dick

In Search of Moby Dick PDF Author: Timothy Severin
Publisher: Thorndike Press
ISBN: 9780783893624
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Severin sets off to retrace Melville's travels around the South Pacific to discover if the Great White Whale is fact or myth.

Moby-Dick, Or, The White Whale

Moby-Dick, Or, The White Whale PDF Author: Herman Melville
Publisher: Everyman Chess
ISBN: 9781857150407
Category : Adventure stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 573

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Book Description
A story of the war between man and mammal, in which the author explores his obsessions with good and evil, love and solitude, speech and silence, using his technical knowledge of sailing and the sea to tell a story which is at once minutely realistic and powerfully symbolic.

Zen and the White Whale

Zen and the White Whale PDF Author: Daniel Herman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 161146157X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
In Moby-Dick’s wide philosophical musings and central narrative arch, Herman finds a philosophy very closely aligned specifically with the original teachings of Zen Buddhism. In exploring the likelihood of this hitherto undiscovered influence, Herman looks at works Melville is either known to have read or that there is a strong likelihood of his having come across, as well as offering a more expansive consideration of Moby-Dick from a Zen Buddhist perspective, as it is expressed in both ancient and modern teachings. But not only does the book delve deeply into one of the few aspects of Moby-Dick’s construction left unexplored by scholars, it also conceives of an entirely new way of reading the greatest of American books—offering critical re-considerations of many of its most crucial and contentious issues, while focusing on what Melville has to teach us about coping with adversity, respecting ideological diversity, and living skillfully in a fickle, slippery world.

Moby Dick; or, The Whale

Moby Dick; or, The Whale PDF Author: Herman Melville
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1988297575
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Desiring to go on a whaling expedition to make a bit of money, Ishmael ignorantly signs up for the crew captained by Ahab. Once out to sea, the mysterious captain emerges proclaiming his desire to seek revenge on the white sperm whale that took his leg. Ishmael protests but is put in place by the god-like Ahab. The boat veers for the Pacific Ocean to catch this whale and Ishmael must put his hunting skills to the test.