This class has definitely been a roller-coaster, yet one I have enjoyed every step of the way. Not only did this class enable me to further develop my skills in close-reading and reignite the fun of annotating books, but it has also helped my to read between the lines of a story. Not everything that makes Moby Dick what it is is stated outright in the novel, and yet, thanks to group discussions, everything seems so clear.

My final take away from Moby Dick and the class as a whole is the importance of interpretation and perspective. We are all approaching the novel from different angles, different backgrounds, forms of education, and the newest historical perspective. All of these factors are important as they shape the way an individual close reads a novel, whether having read it before or not, and what they might be drawn to within the book itself. Many of the parts I found extremely boring within the novel and left mostly unannotated were caked in notes and further developed in group discussions by others. It has made me value the importance of every interpretation, whether it be a scholarly critic or my classmate across the room. These different interpretations allow for different analysis of a specific text, creating a different approach to literary development and rhetorical analysis from not only an academic approach, but a cultural one as well. We have experienced a life that never before could have been imagined by people in the 1850s, and yet for the most part, the ideals that Herman Melville portrayed in his novel still have important relevance to all of us in 2025.