After reading Blue Humanities by John R. Gillis in the beginning of the semester, I went to the beach and reflected upon it. I thought about the privilege we have to be able to go to the beach recreationally. Prior to the 1900s, the ocean was only used commercially, and rarely gone to for fun. While some places utilized the ocean for both, in America, the switch did not happen until the last 100 years. 

I sat there and listened to the ocean crashing on the sand and the people having fun. I thought about all the times I went to the beach to surf, swim, tan, run along the beach, and roller-skated along the board walk. With this easily accessibility to use the beach, comes the high cost. I was lucky enough to be born and raised in San Diego but some people have never experienced the beach. It made me think of a memory as a kid, I went to the beach with my family, like we did every week on Monday nights and I met a girl from Iowa. She came in the water with me and we began boogie boarding. She said she had never gone boogie boarding and I had to teach her. This came to an absolute shock to me since I boogie boarded every week. I had an epiphany, some people have never experienced the beach until much later in life. I thought everyone got to experience the beach, but I was one of the lucky ones. 

Coming into this class, I was shocked we were focusing one semester on one book. I am very happy we got the opportunity to do something new. Instead of jumping around and spending a few classes on a book, it allowed us to be fully immersed in Moby-Dick. 

My close reading has improved immensely. I could focus on one section, chapter, or even passage and analyze it. Practicing this, even when it was difficult, made me a better reader overall. Our class discussions also taught me to pay attention to passages that don’t seem interesting to me. When I would read, I would skim over some parts of the book since I didn’t find them interesting. When we got into small groups, other students would talk about those sections, and I would see a totally different perspective. 

This class is one that I will never forget. I also would probably not have read Moby-Dick in its entirety. This class forced me out of my comfort zone and I am happy it did. 

Thesis: Within Moby-Dick, Melville uses Ahab to portray the obsessive nature in the American people and industrialization. Using the article, “The Blue Humanities” by John R. Gillis as an example of the over whaling that almost led to sperm whale extinction. Gillis states, “people began to come back to the sea in search for a quality they felt to be missing in the new industrial environment” with that, the sea became yet another resource of humans to destroy. The obsession of killing the white whale, it is a symbol for the over industrialization that humans caused with our obsessive nature.

I still need to figure out an argument to make my thesis. Industrialization devastated the common people and the landscape. Everyone knows this, but I still need a solid argument to go along with this.

After reading the article, “Melville Reborn, Again and Again”, Melville choosing to use whaling and the white whale to demonstrate the themes in Moby-Dick such as obsession, subjectivity, and revenge has fascinated me. He used his knowledge and the popularity (although dwindling) of whaling to write a literary masterpiece. By indulging in the popular topic of the Essex, Melville gave his readers for hundreds of years to come a glimpse into whaling. Without his novel, whaling as we know it might have been lost in history. While it never become popular during his lifetime, it is one of the most well know books in history. For it to relate to topics happening nearly 200 years later, shows the true testimony Melville was striving for. 

Within chapter 110, Queequeg in his Coffin, Queequeg seems to be coming to terms with his potential death. When he recovers from his illness, he decides his coffin should be a symbol for himself. While carving the “grotesque figures and drawings” which are similar to his own tattoos, he is bringing his home back to him. He is acting as though he is a new man or getting a new chance at life. This new life must have the tattoos or markings from his home, just as he has.