Welcome to CollegeHighway.com
Search CollegeHighway.com

Main Menu
  • Home

  • Event Calendar

  • College Critic

  • College Essays

  • New Music

  • News Topics

  • ProfessorRating

  • Recommend Us

  • Submit News

  • Top 10

  • My Account

  • FAQ


  • CollegeHighway.com Login
    Nickname

    Password

    Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As registered user you have some advantages like theme manager, comments configuration and post comments with your name.

    Free CollegeHighway WebMail
    Username:
    Password:


    Use Frames:
    Yes No

    Forgot Password URL
    Signup URL
    Help Section URL

    Toy Stores
    Looking for toy stores that sell every toy you could possibly want to buy? Check out this online toy store for cool toys like radio control cars, electric rc helicopters, and Hydro-Foam.

    Trippin?

    Book your flights and hotels online NOW!

    Check Yourself

    Aptitude, Entrepreneurship and Personality tests

    Ephemerids
    One Day like Today...


    Welcome
    You are Anonymous user. You can register for free by clicking here.

     
    Home / College Guide / Three ways to harpoon Moby Dick on its 170th anniversary
     Posted on Tuesday, October 19 @ 00:00:10 PDT
    College

    Three ways to harpoon Moby Dick on its 170th anniversary If Herman Melville were alive to witness the 170th birthday of his novel Moby Dick on Oct. 18, he would be genuinely surprised if anyone noticed. Although enshrined in the pantheon of great American novels today, during Melville’s day, the tale of the white whale did not make much of a splash. In fact, it went out of print a few years after it first appeared. The book’s failure accelerated a decline in Melville’s literary fortunes that led him eventually to give up writing for the more reliable paychecks from a job with the U.S. Customs Service. When he died in 1891, his obituary did not even mention the book he is most famous for today. Moby Dick resurfaced in the 1920s, when Melville’s reputation enjoyed a renaissance among literary critics. It was a second coming that most modern readers probably wish had never happened. Moby Dick may have attained long overdue recognition, but it also became the bane of students who had to lug around a text that seemed to weigh as much as its titular character and was even harder to pin down. Among adults who encountered Moby Dick in high school or college, the novel seems to inspire the same fond memories as cafeteria food and gym class, which is to say, none at all.

    That’s too bad, because it really is a cracking good story. The problem is that students never get enough time to read it — my college English professor gave us one week to get the job done. But reading Moby Dick is a lot like eating a whale: it should be done with patience and in small bites. Most of the book’s 135 chapters range from only a few paragraphs to a few pages in length, so anyone with the time to read a chapter or two a day can finish it within a few months. These approaches might help readers today to experience Moby Dick anew. Pick the one that best suits your interests or temperament and you will not be disappointed with what the book has to offer you. Read Moby Dick as a workplace comedy. A whaling ship certainly isn’t a cubicle-filled building, but Moby Dick is in many respects The Office, only wetter and saltier. The plot largely transpires within the cramped quarters of the Pequod, a ship on which 30 oddball crew members work under a boss so delusional in his self-confidence that he will drag everyone around him to ruin without hesitation. If you have ever felt trapped in a low-paying job with a horrible boss, then you have worked on a kind of whaling ship, and Moby Dick will ring true.

    - Read it as a nature documentary. Seemingly, we cannot get enough of shows that pit man against nature — Shark Week, Naked and Afraid, Finding Bigfoot. Moby Dick is the mother of them all, the original deadliest catch. While it may be tempting to skip all the chapters about whale anatomy, art, fossils, and folklore, they contain some of the novel’s most insightful reflections on the human condition. - Consider Melville’s description of the sperm whale’s genius as a “pyramidical silence,” a jab no doubt at the preachers, politicians, and other spouters of self-satisfied pieties of his day. Like storytellers from Aesop to Chuck Jones, Melville knew that animals could serve as effective mirrors of mankind’s best and worst qualities. Without the whales, Moby Dick strangely becomes much less human. - Read Moby Dick as a guide to better living. Poor Melville should have promoted his novel in the more bankable genre of self-help. He filled Moby Dick with enough daily affirmations to fill a refrigerator door. Feel bad about your messy desk? “There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.” Are you worn down by a seemingly insurmountable problem? “Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!” Need a quick rejoinder to a critical co-worker or family member? “I try all things; I achieve what I can.

    ” These nuggets pop up whenever Melville breaks from his narrative to address the reader directly, giving a play-by-play of the frustrations he endured as he wrote the book. =Read about his uncertainty and self-doubt and you just might become more adept at handling your own. Ultimately, Moby Dick will reverberate with readers who bring their own wisdom to it. Like any great text, it rewards multiple readings, and its meaning will shift as your own life experiences multiply and vary. So, in honor of its birthday, why not give old Herman a thrill and pick up Moby Dick again or for the first time? Timothy J. Shannon is a professor of history at Gettysburg College, where he also teaches a seminar on Moby Dick and American whaling.

     
    Related Links
  • Travel
  • Party Supplies
  • Food
  • Legal Help
  • Night Life
  • Fashion
  • Academics
  • Automotive
  • Entertainment
  • Real Estate
  • Relocation
  • More about College Guide
  • News by webhose


    Most read story about College Guide:
    A palette of school spirit


    Last news about College Guide:


    Printer Friendly Page  Send this Story to a Friend



  • All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. The comments are property of their posters, all the rest © 2001 by CollegeHighway.com