赫尔曼梅尔维尔及《白鲸记》介绍.ppt

american novelist, essayist and poet . born in august 1, 1819 in the united states of new york best known for his novel moby-dick early life he was born into an american merchant family. his fathers bankruptcy led him a bad life. his father was died. three years later he had to drop out of school. family circumstances was worse he had to a seek job. he worked as a farmer, staff, teachers, seaman, navy. travels in the pacific (1841-1845) in 1841, he became a seaman on the whaling ship. he went to many places in the world. he and the other partners on the whaling ship , with the captains autocratic behavior to do a struggle. he had lived for a period of time at a man-eating custom tribe. later, he joined the american warship “american “. in 1845 when he landed in boston, ending his own life at sea. retiring from the army in 1845, he left the army and returned to american, started his writing life. in 1867, he had a customs job. in 1891, he died at his home in new york city when he died in 1891, he was almost completely forgotten. it was not until the “melville revival“ in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially moby- dick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both american and world literature. in 1919 the unfinished manuscript for his novella billy budd was discovered by his first biographer. he published a version in 1924 which was quickly acclaimed by notable british critics as another masterpiece of melvilles. he was the first writer to have his works collected and published by the library of america. summary the story tells the adventures of wandering sailor ishmael and his voyage on the whaling ship pequod, commanded by captain ahab. ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out moby dick . it destroyed ahabs boat and bit off his leg, which now drives ahab to take revenge. the whale eventually destroys the whaleboats and crew, and sinks the pequod. the genesis for moby-dick two actual events served as the genesis for moby- dick. one was the sinking of the nantucket ship essex in 1820 . the other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the sperm whale mocha dick. character ishmael ishmael is a seaman of the pequod. he is the narrator of the story, and the hunting is narrated by him. he is the only person who was survived at last. ishmael has a rich literary background, which he brings to bear on his shipmates and events that occur while at sea. ahab ahab is the tyrannical captain of the pequod who is driven by a monomaniacal desire to kill moby dick. moby dick he is a giant, largely white, sperm whale and arguably the main antagonist of the novel. he bit off ahabs leg, leaving ahab to swear revenge. symbolic meaning moby dick the white whale moby dick is obviously the most important symbol in the novel. everyone is searching for the symbolic meaning of the white whale. moby dick and everyone are trying to explain their own understanding of it in different ways. in ahabs eyes, moby dick is an incarnation of evil which he feels a compulsion to destroy. however, the whale holds different meanings for ishmael. for ishmael, the whale is complicated and mysterious. it represents many conflicting meanings: purity, beauty, and innocence on the one hand; evil, terror and death on the other hand. therefore, the meaning of the whale varies if we see it in different circumstances and from different perspectives. ahab the symbolic meaning contained in the image ahab is abstruse and various. a contradiction of multi-sided temperament, he is named after king ahab, a heinous king of israel in the bible. he takes his own course, disregards the safety of the crew and finally makes almost all the crew drowned in the sea. from this angle, he is the symbol of an authentic tyrant and the symbol of an evil, and also the symbol of evil and dark in human consciousness. from another angel, ahab is willing to abandon the easy life and goes to the sea for adventure. his purpose is to chase the whale for vengeance on surface, but actually is the reconstruction of himself and the pursuit of the ease and freedom of soul. pequod and the sea pequod is a name of an indian tribe that was destroyed by whites. so in the beginning the ship was doomed to be destroyed. melville uses the sea as a metaphor for the world and mankind. there are many creatures that depend on the water and others who depend on the creatures. in order for everything to be balanced, people must learn to coexist peacefully when they try to meet all of the different needs they may have. the multiple ships that the pequod meets at the travel represent different cultures of people. ahab hunt moby-dick ahab represents human beings and moby-dick represents the nature. the contradiction between ahab and moby-dick represents the contradiction between human being and represents the nature, good and evil. and the contradiction makes people go forward. comment there is no doubt that herman melvilles (1819- 1891) longest novel moby dick is one of the great masterpieces of fiction in the nineteenth- century american literature history, for it is “not only a very big book; it is also a peculiarly full and rich one, and from the very opening it conveys a sense of abundance, of high creative power, that exhilarates and enlarges the imagination. “richard chase, 1962:39) the novel is generally regarded as an encyclopedia of many things: history, religion, philosophy and so on, in addition to a detailed account of human beings encroachment on nature. my thoughts in the book lives a deep impression on me is the captain ahab. he i