Choose one of the internet analyses from below to write a 350-700 word critical response to. Option 1: Chapter 41
All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.
Explanation for Quotation 3 >>
This quote, from Chapter 41, is the existential heart of the book; appropriately, the chapter from which it comes shares its title with the White Whale and the novel itself. While many sailors aboard the Pequod use legends about particularly large and malevolent whales as a way to manage the fear and danger inherent in whaling, they do not take these legends literally. Ahab, on the other hand, believes that Moby Dick is evil incarnate, and pits himself and humanity in an epic, timeless struggle against the White Whale. His belief that killing Moby Dick will eradicate evil evidences his inability to understand things symbolically: he is too literal a reader of the world around him. Instead of interpreting the loss of his leg as a common consequence of his occupation and perhaps as a punishment for taking excessive risks, he sees it as evidence of evil cosmic forces persecuting him.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mobydick/quotes.html#explanation3 accessed 11/1/2010]
Option 2: “The Hyena” Chapter 49
Ishmael laughs at the absurdity of the situation in which he finds himself: he has never been on a whaling voyage before, and he is surprised at the danger that attends even an ordinary whale hunt. The Pequod’s mates tell him that they have hunted whales in much more dangerous conditions than those that Ishmael has just witnessed. Ishmael decides to rewrite his will and asks Queequeg to help him do so. He feels better afterward, and comes to a morbid understanding of himself as a man already dead: any additional time that he survives at sea will be a bonus.
Moby-Dick Chapters 48–54 Summary & Analysis | SparkNotes
Option 3: “Less Erroneous Pictures” Chapter 56
Ishmael then tries to find some acceptable depictions of whales. To his mind, the only pictures that come close are two large French engravings that show the sperm and right whales in action. He wonders why the French have been best able to capture whales and whaling in art, because France is not a whaling nation.
Moby-Dick Chapters 55–65 Summary & Analysis | SparkNotes
Option 4: “Whiteness of the Whale” Chapter 42
Ishmael explains what Moby Dick meant to him at the time of the voyage: above all, it was the whiteness of the whale that appalled him. Ishmael begins his discussion of “whiteness” by noting its use as a symbol of virtue, nobility, and racial superiority. To him, the color white only multiplies the terror when it is attached to any object already “terrible” in and of itself, such as a shark or polar bear.
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