Tag Archives: “What ‘Moby-Dick’ Means to Me”

What “What ‘Moby-Dick’ Means to Me” Means to Me

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I know that this post falls after the deadline, but I’m writing it more to jot down my ideas and key takeaways from the readings and see if anyone else can relate. When Hoare wrote that “‘Moby-Dick’ is not a novel,” but “an act of transference, of ideas and evocations hung around the vast and unknowable shape of the whale, an extended musing on the strange meeting of human history and natural history,” it kind of clicked for me. It reminds me of our first day of the semester, when most of us were confessing to feeling overwhelmed before even starting the novel. Hoare’s comment connects to how Melville, as an author, didn’t write the novel as just a book, but a time capsule of the ideas of the 19th century. Emerson, whom we’ve talked about influencing Melville, urged 20th-century scholars to think for themselves and to work towards intellectual development constantly. This singular quote from this article began a domino effect on how to better approach Moby Dick as an intimidated reader. Instead of reading Moby Dick as a novel like Pride and Prejudice (where the details aren’t elaborated on too extensively and it’s very specifically plot-focused instead of detail-focused), it’s meant to be interpreted, not merely clicked off on my Goodreads “read” shelf.

Melville was a genius (and maybe a time traveler)

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After reading the article, “What ‘Moby-Dick’ Means to Me” by Philip Hoare, I’m convinced that Herman Melville was a genius who was way ahead of his time (which is why he could also be a time traveler). This article really gave me great insight into the novel and Melville himself, and learning of the influence that the novel has far after Melville passed away shows that his work has clearly reached across many different generations. It was fascinating to learn that a prow had to be built on the pulpit in the New Bedford Bethel because of how many people were expecting it to be there after reading Moby-Dick. The amount of detail that is contained within the novel is also something I’ve heard so much about, both in this article and in class, and it really shows how much effort Melville put into his piece of art.

In the article, Hoare writes, “To my mind, there are only two other works with which it bears comparison: Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ (1818), and Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847). The former, in its own witness to one man’s obsessive interference with nature, was a direct influence on Melville.” Obsession with nature and the idea of conquering it has been and always will be in human nature. I’m sure Melville’s own experiences bled through the novel, and there’s no doubt that his work in a way served somewhat as a response to his journeys on the sea.

I think what fascinated me most in this article, was learning about how Moby-Dick wasn’t truly appreciated until decades after Melville’s death. “In 1923, D. H. Lawrence published his idiosyncratic, if not faintly crazy, ‘Studies in Classic American Literature.’ Lawrence proclaimed Melville to be ‘a futurist long before futurism found paint,’ the author of “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world.” The words “a futurist long before futurism found paint,” really stick out to me as it shows how Melville was able to write a novel whose words can be reached long after it’s publishing year. To learn about his genius and his ability to create work that can be appreciated for over a century, as well as seeing themes of his novel still being prevalent in the modern world, really excites me to begin reading Moby-Dick.

American Imperialism

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“A century and a half after it first played out, Ahab’s wanton chase was evoked in the ‘war on terror,’ and the attempts to pursue an apparently uncatchable foe, even as it sourced an epic designed to reflect America’s first imperial venture – the getting of the oil that lit and lubricated the Western world.” This quote from Hoare’s “What ‘Moby-Dick’ Means to Me” immediately put into perspective the cultural relevance this novel will have on us today. It also gave me a concrete example of why this is considered The American Novel. We were just discussing in class how the whaling industry was a way for the United States to spread it’s influence in it’s conquest of the ocean; since that industry died out, we’ve used different industries (mainly the military) to perpetuate our global influence. This aspect is really interesting to me because it is one of the most American things I can think of, constantly finding reasons and/or scapegoats to maintain our influence and control across the world.

https://www.thenewscholar.nl/index.php/tns/article/download/mobydick/mobydick/385 I found this essay comparing characters and events from Moby Dick to political figures and their missions during the campaign for the War on Terror (don’t read past the second page if you don’t want to get spoiled). Another quick thing I want to add is this quote Hoare highlights: “Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish? – Will He Perish?” Taking into account the relation to American imperialism, this quote could be a questioning of whether our country’s obsession with dominance will ever go away.

What “Moby-Dick” Can Mean to Us

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In Philip Hoare’s article, “What ‘Moby-Dick’ Means to Me”, he reflects on how his relationship with “Moby-Dick” has transformed over time and explains how a “difficult” text can transform into different meanings when approached at various periods of your life; he suggests that classic literature has less of a fixed meaning but instead has an evolving relationship between the text and reader. He admits, “I didn’t know then what I do now: that ‘Moby-Dick’ can be whatever you want it to be. It took me thirty years to discover what the book was – or what it was not.” (Para. 2) That is the beauty of literature; while words remain the same, how you perceive and interpret the text can change every time you read it, since you are constantly evolving. Hoare once dismissed “Moby-Dick” as “wordy worthiness” (Para. 2) compared to John Huston’s film, but later came to describe it as“an act of transference…a sui-generis creation, one that came into the world as an unnatural, immaculate conception.” (Para. 4) His transformation shows that the perception of the book can change depending on where you are in life. This is relatable to me. If you asked me to read “Moby-Dick” 5 years ago, I probably would not have batted an eye, but I feel like a different person than I was 5 years ago. I am more open to change and welcome new experiences and perspectives on life. Our life experiences are constantly changing us; classic literature has gained its enduring relevance by being able to be rediscovered at different times, offering a fresh meaning each time we reread it. As Hoare observes, “oceanic reach and perverse digression provide endless sources of inspiration and interpretation” (Para. 10) and that “Moby-Dick” “reads like something that was written before books were invented, yet it is utterly modern.” (Para. 9) As long as we constantly evolving as individuals, we will continue to gain new experiences and inspiration. This can be from nature or from the different forms of media that we are consuming. Like him, I see that great works are not static texts but companions that grow alongside us.