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Melville’s primary focus in his classic novel Moby Dick is the evil of mankind, a point of focus consistent with his anti-Transcendental philosophical alignment. In Moby Dick, Melville shows man’s evil toward fellow man and nature through his thoroughly-developed plot and characters, and in the components of the thematic layer underlying almost every character’s personal motives.
Analysis of Melville’s own motives help to clarify the author’s reasoning behind each of the examples of man’s evil in his novel. In order to fully understand his anti-Transcendental belief, it is necessary to first comprehend the origin of anti-Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is the term linked to the Emersonian-Thoreauvian set of beliefs which incorporated the existence of an Oversoul and the benevolent disposition of man as the default one. Such writers as Melville of this time period were opposed to the Transcendental views. The natural opposition to a......

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Approximate Word Count: 568
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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