Moby Dick Symbolism Analysis - 734 Words

Moby Dick Symbolism Moby Dick by Herman Melville is full of many symbols foreshadowing doom, but the one that stood out to me was the Pequod. The Pequod is the whaling ship and it helps provide a symbol of doom or failure by a couple things: Ahab directs the ship in an unorthodox way and doesnt use it for it’s main intended purpose, the way that the boat is decorated and portrayed in the painting at the Spouter Inn makes it seem dark and gloomy, and the place that the name of the boat doesn’t come from good history. All these contribute to the theme and help define the characters as the story goes on. The ship’s captain Ahab doesn’t conduct the ship in the way that most whaling ships ought to. While he should be focused on†¦show more content†¦The appearance of the ship is not of uplifting image. It’s dark and gloomy and decorated with bones, and a sperm whale and a right whale head hanging off of the side, quite literally symbolising dea th in the way that it’s almost a floating carcass. At the start of the book the narrator described a painting Inside of the Spouter Inn which was so dark and gloomy it was hard to tell what it was even of. The painting displayed picture of a whale ramming the side of a ship in a storm in the ocean with mountainous waves. This image showed what whales could do and created a sense of how dangerous the open waters can be. The name of the ship â€Å"Pequod† was also the name of an indian tribe which were killed off into extinction by diseases that the white settlers brought. They say not to judge a book by it’s cover but I think that in this circumstance you can. More often than not, ships are named after luxurious or majestic things, not something gone. Nowadays doing that would be like naming your cruise the The Titanic, no one would want to ride it because they know that the previous ship sunk to the bottom of the ocean, which doesn’t make it a very welcom ing name based on what happened in history. To come to a conclusion, the ship provides readers with context clues in being able toShow MoreRelatedMoby Dick By Herman Melville1098 Words   |  5 Pages Moby Dick by Herman Melville is a tale of many things, and has become perhaps one of the most widely known revenge stories ever told, wherein the mad Captain Ahab chases the titular white whale to the ends of the earth, willing to sacrifice everything for revenge. The novel is known for its extensive symbolism and abstract or open-ended meaning. 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