Topics in Moby Dick - IES Pedro Floriani 2011-12 - 1º Bacharelato

MOBY DICK

TOPICS

IES Pedro Floriani, 2011/12

Life and death Tolerance Fate Whiteness and blackness Links on conservation

Ishmael’s point of view on life and death (Ana Ferreira, Nuria Gómez)

Ishmael thought that the sea symbolises life.

When funerals started in November, Ishmael wanted to run away to sea because funerals meant death and the sea was the source of life for him.

When he went to church he saw a lot of memorials to sailors lost at sea. He saw one dedicated to a captain who had been killed by a whale. That frightened him. He said that he didn't want to be killed by a whale. He just wanted to kill them.

When Ishmael and Queequeg enrolled the Pequod and started sailing with the rest of the crew they felt alright sailing and hunting until Ishmael saw Queequeg in a coffin. This sight symbolises death.

When Captain Ahab tried to hunt Moby Dick, all his crew died except Ishmael, who managed to survive holding on to a piece of Queequeg's coffin for a day and a night, until the Rachel saved him. This symbolises life.

After this, Ishmael realised that the sea was like death because all the crew members in the Pequod had died and he didn't want to end up like that.

Captain Ahab had a peg leg, which was made of a whale bone. It symbolises death, but also life because it was something that belonged to a living been, and it allowed Captain Ahab to walk. It replaced his own leg.

For Ahab white was a synonym of death because Moby Dick was white and things like skeletons and ghosts meant death.

Black was a synonym of death because the crew's clothes were black. Captain Ahab thought that it meant life, and that was the reason why he always wore black clothes.

When Queequeg and Ishmael enrolled the Pequod, an old man called Elijah told them that the Peqoud was doomed and he said that there was no way back for them, but Ishmael and Queequeg didn't believe him.

Moby Dick as a symbol of life and death (Sara Baati, Antonella Panebianco)

Moby Dick is a symbol of life because it's a living animal, an animal that has to be preserved. Ishmael thinks hunting whales is just a way of living.

Moby Dick is a symbol of death because everybody wants to kill him, and nobody can. Moby Dick kills people (Fedallah, Ahab...). This whale is very aggressive. Ahab is, in turn, obsessed with killing him.

Many civilisations killed whales for the food and for the oil, so they are symbols of life and death.

Queequeg's coffin (Sara Baati, Antonella Panebianco)

Queequeg's coffin was made because Queequeg thought that he would die.

He wanted the crew to put him in the coffin and throw it to the sea, like in his home island.

But Queequeg didn't die and later his coffin would save Ishmael from death.

He was found by the Rachel.

In the Middle Ages there was no tolerance. People from different religions were killed by the Church.

In the Renaissance the philosopher Thomas More published his most important work, Utopia, where he criticized the society because they were not tolerant.

John Locke wrote A Letter Concerning Toleration, where he supported tolerance too.

Fate is a power that causes and controls events that you can't change or control.

In the book we can see the representation of fate when Ishmael believes that he is called to whaling by the hand of fate.

Queequeg allows his fate to be controlled by Ishmael by telling him to choose the ship on which they will sail.

The bum, Elijah, predicts the fate: He says that she is doomed.

Ahab is driven by something he cannot understand and decides to call it his fate. One of the most puzzling questions presented by the novel is whether or not Ahab is doomed from the start to find Moby Dick and be destroyed by him or if he could have chosen to go free at any point. There is a hint of doom in the air form the very start.

What is really FATE?

Moby Dick: The whale is white; it is a symbolic colour that means death. The whale represents death because it killed a lot of people.

Captain Ahab: The captain of the Pequod always wears black clothes, which means life, but he has got a symbol of death too, his peg leg, which is white.

Moby Dick took his leg off, so he had to replace it with a peg leg. It was white and it caused a lot of pain to him.

The skeletons: In the story, skeletons are mentioned as something evil, because they are white and mean death.

Captain Ahab's peg leg has an amazing story. First, Moby Dick took off captain's leg. After that, it was replaced by a peg leg made of whale bone. The ivory leg is white because it represents evil.

Because of that, there are many special settings on the deck of the Pequod made in order to accommodate it. The first peg leg was broken and it was replaced by another one made of wood.

Some links on conservation

http://martin-puentes.blogspot.com.es/2011/09/whale-indiscriminatehunting.html

The Tundra biome: Whale indiscriminate hunting.

Lamentably, the whales were hunted in mass. More than two million whales were annihilated between 1929 and 1979. With the depletion of a species, the hunters simply were moving to another still not exploited species.

The whales were hunted by his oil and his beards. The oil was refined and was selling to be burned in lamps. The beards were in use for doing brushes, umbrella, etc. In spite of substitutes had been for all the products of whales, today the meat of whale has turned into an exquisite plate into Japan.

In 1986, the Commission International Whaler decreed the prohibition to the hunt for whales. Nevertheless, some countries, as Japan and Norway, have exploited the legal rough terrain of the moratorium with the intention of continuing hunting whales with commercial ends.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/whaling/camp aign-history/

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/whaling/camp aign-history/