[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 16 KB, 321x500, 41RVtE3JJIL.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20979470 No.20979470 [Reply] [Original]

Moby Dick is bullshit until Ahab.
>Muh noble savage.
>Muh whaling facts.
>Muh Unitarian Universalism

>> No.20979476

>>20979470
It's pantheism not Unitarianism and it's nice to have a relatable account of a character's thoughts which also satirises them. Ahab is a more enjoyable character though, it's true.

>> No.20979479

>>20979470
Ahab is the only decent guy in the book because he isn't in it for the money.

>> No.20979509

>>20979479
Neither is Ishmael, he got offered a crappy lay and still went and loved it because he was in it for the experience--pretty sure he establishes this in paragraph 1 lol. Improve your reading comprehension anon.

>> No.20979544

>>20979476
>It's pantheism not Unitarianism
Still gay.

>> No.20979702

>>20979479
Were the harpooners or Ishmael in it for the money

>> No.20979730

>>20979470
I liked it from the beginning. Wasn't expecting all the humor.

>> No.20979756

>>20979479
>he isn't in it for the money.
Why wouldn't everyone else be in it for the money? Whaling is their jobs

>> No.20979764

>>20979470
>Muh Unitarian Universalism
What? Where did you find this in the book?

>> No.20979969

>>20979479
>It is a way I have of driving off the spleen
You clearly haven't got as far as page 1.

>> No.20981170

Saw this thread earlier today. I’m finishing Moby Dick tonight. Just stopping to say the Symphony was kino. It made me a tad emotional.
> Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?
Just awesome.
The whale facts are great. Loved the personification in the chapter documenting the history of whales attacking ships. I could feel Melville smirking as he wrote that chapter. I’ll come back to this thread when I finish tonight.

>> No.20981179

im pretty early on, just off the boat to nantucket. but im really enjoying it so, far but I do agree they leaned a little to heavily into the noble savage thing, mainly when ishmael takes part in his idol worship ritual. it kinda lost its wholesomeness for me there

>> No.20981291

>>20981179
Melville was a homosexual, liberal and a gnostic, if you don't like it you can get off now

>> No.20981304

>>20981291
Only Ahab was a gnostic, and you know what happened to him at the end.

>> No.20981315

>>20979479
lol get rekt for this stupid comment
sick of people pretending to have read the classics

>> No.20981325

>>20979509
In ch1 the joke is that he's a loser with no hope and no options stuck doing degrading work and being beaten despite his good education, and he is both coping and insecurely trying to sound less like a loser by saying he actually likes living like a salt of the earth man in between explaining his poverty humiliation and thoughts of suicide. The first chapters really nail home how much of a loser ishmael is.

>> No.20981337

>>20981179
It is going to stay very gay.

>> No.20981354

>>20981304
Ahab was Zoroastrian

>> No.20981468

>>20979470
I like how the opening part of the book before the ship really showcases Ishmael's open mindset and acceptance of ambiguity which becomes a big theme of his character especially when you read his musings as the book goes further on

>> No.20981475

>>20979764
“I don’t know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,” said I; “all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is.”

“Young man,” said Bildad sternly, “thou art skylarking with me—explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me.”

Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. “I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother’s son and soul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in that we all join hands.”

>> No.20982251

>>20979476
>It's pantheism not Unitarianism
Where do you even come up with this stuff?

>> No.20982779

>>20982251
""Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads, "we've been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Crammer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!"

>> No.20982781

haha funny whale go splash

>> No.20982784

>>20981325
Correct. But also, he doesn’t care about the money, which was the original contention.

>> No.20982804

>>20981475
>he not reading the subtext of the scene or quoting the whole one where the other captain calls Ishmeal a great oritor and accepts him because he really wants queequeg on the ship because of his abilities and doesnt give a damn about the religious topic in reality but is an oprotunist

the whole shtick with the two captians is that they are oppisites that oddly complement eqch other. one being more extremely coldly devote, with some wisps of sublime godlyness, while the other is worldly and warm, but has a hint of dark pragmatism under the welcoming facade.

not that the general idea you stated is wrong mind you, it’s definitely there, just the operative undertones of that scene in specific. there are more relivent ones like Ishmaeil pondering over queequeges ramadan that are more directly in that vein.

>> No.20983088

>>20982804
Who cares what the captains think? Ishmael is clearly where Melville's sympathies lie. Not that it matters but Melville himself was part of the Unitarian church.

>> No.20983095

>>20979470
What exactly is wrong with the noble savage? I've never understood why a person can't be noble unless they wear pants and live in a house with right angles (in the sense of character, not being of the nobility).

>> No.20983124

i am always so surprised to see that most people see what moby dick obviously is: a cry for help from melville.

melville was clearly a homosexual who had a really hard time living in a white, heterosexual society. he wanted to be free. he wanted to love men. he wanted to suck dicks...

i mean come on... even the dumbest sob cant oversee the homosexual tension between ishmael and that savage on bord. also ahab was melville self incarnated.

the tough, mysterical leader looking for a big white... whale called moby DICK lmao.

but yeah sure it was about fishing and revenge and so on... whatever let you sleep, chuds.

>> No.20983185

>>20983124
it was about all of it at once because that's how Melville wrote, most demonstrable in The Confidence-Man where it's layer upon layer upon layer and each layer has its own philosophy that gets utterly subverted when you get deeper

>> No.20983283

>>20982784
he clearly cares about the money, he accepts the lay he is given because he doesn't have much room to negotiate

>> No.20983288

>>20981325
he literally compares sailing to throwing himself on a sword

>> No.20984372

wtf stubb is literally me