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Ahab's Evil Quest:

Melville's Symbols in Moby-Dick

Herman Melville began working on his epic novel Moby-Dick in 1850, writing it

primarily as a report on the whaling voyages he undertook in the 1830s and early 1840s.

Many critics suppose that his initial book did not contain characters such as Ahab,

Starbuck, or even Moby Dick, but the summer of 1850 changed Melville's writing and

his masterpiece. He became friends with author Nathaniel Hawthorne and was greatly

influenced by him. He also read Shakespeare and Milton's Paradise Lost (Murray 41).

These influences lead to the novel Melville completed and published in 1851. Although

shunned by critics after its release, Moby-Dick enjoyed a critical renaissance in the 1920s

and as assumed its rightful place in the canons of American and world literature as a

great classic. Through the symbols employed by Melville, Moby-Dick studies man's

relationship with his universe, his fate, and his God. Ahab represents the league......

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Approximate Word Count: 1856
Approximate Pages: 8 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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