英语本科毕业论文

学校代码 14199 学号 分 类 号 密级 本科毕业论文 设计 教 学 部 专业名称 英语专业 年 级 学生姓名 指导教师 TheThe SymbolismSymbolism ofof MobyMoby DickDick 白鲸白鲸 的象征意义的象征意义 本科毕业论文 设计 摘要摘要 白鲸 是美国伟大的象征主义大师麦尔维尔的一部重要作品 发表于 1851 年 但是当时并没有引起人们的重视 直到 1919 年以后才被文学界重视 我觉得 白鲸 之所以受到如此重视 不仅在于它生动细致的描写了捕鲸的壮 观场面和过程 以及对人物内心世界的深刻挖掘 在很大意义上还取决于它的 象征意义 从而展现了作者对人类文明和命运的独特反思 小说捕鱼的过程就 是善与恶 人与自然之间无休止的战争的最好说明 本文将对各个要素的象征 意义进行探索分析 实际上 小说里的多种人和物看似是作者编纂的 其实他们 都具有一定的象征意义 都蕴含着作者对社会 对人生的独特见解 对于小说 的象征意义众说纷纭 有人认为白鲸是善的象征 有人又把它看作是恶的体现 还有人认为它代表着大自然 代表着资本主义 一千个读者就有一千个哈姆雷 特 在作者的笔下白鲸颇有神秘色彩 小说中所使用的象征手法还有很多 例 如船长 船 伊什梅尔等 这种写作手法的使用使这篇小说意义深远 令人回味 无穷 所以它被称为是一部 可以让读者任意理解的 巨著 深受读者和现代评论 家的赞美 本文将对 Moby Dick Ahab Ishmael and Pequod Queequeq and the sea 六个素材的象征意义进行探索分析 关键词关键词 莫比迪克 象征主义 自然 本科毕业论文 设计 ABSTRACT Moby Dick published in 1851 is one masterpiece of Melville who is the noticeable symbolist master of American But it failed to bring him the fame he had acquired in the 19th There is no denying that Moby Dick attracted so seriously attention not only lies in its vivid and detailed description of the spectacular process of whaling as well as the deep excavation of the inner world of characters to a great extent it also depends on its symbolism which show unique reflection of human civilization and the fate The course of whaling is the embodiment of the ceaseless conflicts between good and evil of nature s indifference to man This thesis will explore the symbol of the various elements in the novel A variety of elements in this novel appears to be made up by the author in fact they have a certain symbolic significance which contains the unique insights into life and society Melville makes this conflict live for the reader using symbols which invite various interpretations The white whale Moby Dick some think it symbolizes good the other regard it as embodiment of evil while more insist it represents the nature even the capitalism There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people s eyes in author s pen Moby Dick is quite mysterious There is a plethora of symbolic using for instance Captain Ahab the ship Ishmael and so on This writing techniques lead to a far reaching significance So it is known as a book which readers can understand arbitrarily praising by the readers and modern critics I will analyze the symbolism of Moby Dick Ahab Ishmael and Pequod Queequeq and the sea six material here Key Words Moby Dick symbolism nature 本科毕业论文 设计 Table of Contents Chapter One INTRODUCTION 1 1 1 Background of Herman Melville 1 1 2 The plot of Moby Dick 1 Chapter Two MOBY DICK AND AHAB 3 2 1The Symbolic meaning of Moby Dick 3 2 2Moby Dick s whiteness 4 2 3The Symbolic meaning of Ahab 4 Chapter Three OTHER SYMBOLIC 7 3 1The Symbolic meaning of Ishmael and Queequeq 7 3 2 The Symbolic meaning of Pequod 8 3 3Symbolic meaning of the sea 9 CONCLUSION 11 REFERENCES 12 本科毕业论文 设计 1 THETHE SYMBOLISMSYMBOLISM OFOF MOBYMOBY DICKDICK Chapter One INTRODUCTION 1 1 Background of Herman Melville Herman Melville was born in New York and his childhood was happy to the age of eleven when his father died in debt He had little education and began to work early He had be a bank clerk a salesman and a school teacher and when these all failed to offer him a decent livelihood he went to sea at about twenty He was a Whaler about the lowest of sailors In that capacity he saw life from the bottom as did Mark Twain He went to Liverpool England and the South Pacific spending most of his young manhood on the sea From his experiences and adventures on the sea would come the material for his Moby Dick 1 2 The plot of Moby Dick Moby Dick from which we can get to know the nineteenth century American mind and American itself is first a Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against overwhelming odds indifferent and even hostile universe And it is a sprawling colossus into which the author kept dumping everything he saw as necessary to prove his point The story goes roughly as follows Ishmael feeling depressed seeks escape by going out to sea on the whaling ship Pequod The captain is Ahab the man with one leg Moby Dick the white whale had sheared off his leg on a previous voyage and Ahab resolves to hunt him to the kill He hangs a doubloon on the mast as a reward for anyone who sights the whale first The Pequod makes a good catch of whales but Ahab refuses to turn back until he has killed his enemy Eventually the white whale appears and the Pequod begins its doomed fight with it On the first day the whale overturns a boat on the second it swamps another When the third day comes Ahab and his crew manage to plunge a harpoon into it but the whale carries the Pequod along with it to its doom All on board the whaler get drowned except one Ishmael who survives to tell the tale 本科毕业论文 设计 2 Moby Dick is a highly symbolic work If we only come to see the story from the surface the novel is no genius but if we can see the structure under the story deeply we can recognize the meaning is significant 本科毕业论文 设计 3 Chapter Two MOBY DICK AND AHAB 2 1The Symbolic meaning of Moby Dick Moby Dick is the White Whale the world s largest creature Moby Dick possesses various symbolic meanings for various individuals To character Ahab however the whale represents only evil Indeed in the novel the whale is described as a destructive hostile and mysterious being which is difficult to conquer But such evil is not just totally in form So to some degree the white whale is metaphor for the industrialization of the capitalism In the 19th century whaling is a very dangerous vocation which can being one into the abyss of future and time Only those impoverished and desperate would risk their life in such dangerous The author makes a mysterious atmosphere in the novel and express human s incapability in face to the fate On one hand it shows the fear and panic of Melville to the newborn capitalism and the strength of capitalist social productivity On the other hand reflects his sympathy and concerns to the fate and situations of people at this time It symbolizes nature to human beings for it is powerful complex mysterious and dangerous It swims peacefully in the sea until disturbed by humans then shows a terrible fury and anger Melville tries to convey to us such a faith man cannot triumph over nature In order to live a better life one must follow certain principles rather than doing absurd things like Ahab who is obsessed with revenge Ahab has no chance of killing Moby Dick yet he engaged in his suicide plan to kill the whale In the end the ship sank with the flag enfolding a sky hawk from its natural home among the stars indicating that if American keeps revenging on and going against nature it is ironically seeking its own destruction So when Ahab desperate to kill the white whale the white whale also strike the crew Symbolically this is punishment of the nature Ahab s plan make the tragic fate for himself and the crew of the Pequod Facts speak louder than words A series example proved that while we are disrupting the order of the nature world we are the ultimate victims for nature is seeking its revenge 本科毕业论文 设计 4 2 2Moby Dick s Whiteness To some degree it is also symbol of good and purity because of its whiteness Its whiteness is a paradoxical color too signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity innocence and youth It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing as Howard P Vincent observes The white whale has lived a happy life in the nature and never intentionally hurt man But the sailors want to conquer and kill it while at last be killed by it At the same time white symbolizes the mystery of the universe To human the secret of universe is white people could see nothing except the white This is one of the author s permissive opinions man is so little in front of the strong nature that he could never know about the secret of the nature We must realize that we are not the master of the earth Men and nature are supposed to coexist in great harmony Just as Darwin said only obey nature can conquer nature 2 3The Symbolic Meaning of Ahab Ahab the captain of the ship Pequod is the other central character and the primary focus of the novel Ahab is a typical Melvillean isolato He cuts himself off from his wife and kid to hunt Moby Dick which makes him loss his leg He hates Moby Dick which is an embodiment of nature After the wound of his pride in his encounter with the white whale he seems to hold God responsible for the presence of evil in the universe He is an opponent of the white whale He is a Symbol of solipsism In order to settle his personal avengement Ahab alternated kindness with profit ignoring the crew s interests and life persist the sailors to hunt the white whale At last the staffs except Ishmael are all buried in the sea Ahab became a devil who is more exposed than Moby Dick here He is the embodiment of the evil and darkness of human s consciousness What he doing is not in a rational and moral principle but chain by instinct and impulse this is bound to lead to tragedy The name Ahab in Moby Dick is symbolic and taken from the Bible in which Ahab is described as a king who turns vile having had someone killed so he could be 本科毕业论文 设计 5 king This suggests that the Ahab of this novel will be a similarly conflicted leader Melville many times in Moby Dick makes Ahab s association with evil forces in the world apparent He was called the Anti Christ by the church Fathers Ahab sets sail on Christmas Day leaving when Christ s life begins symbolizing Ahab s opposition to Christ like values Ahab on behalf of the evil attempts to destroy the beauty and goodness And he considers that Moby Dick bite off his leg out off a sinister motivation is deliberately against him Therefore he must fight a decisive battle with it to get the psychological balance For the sake of revenge he can go against the interests of the owner to kill whales in order to revenge he spared no expense to reward using sweet words to confuse personnel To revenge he threats the whole seaman bowing to his will absolutely To revenge he even putting all the crew s lives in danger betting all on a single throw refusing to mend his way He and his sailors crazy seek for the white whale just means people whose state is out of control When man is in such state he will be controlled by the vicious side and destroy others even himself He is like a crazy beast meeting the tragic ending step by step However he is also a man dare to against the gods against the old custom rules a man fear nothing never gives up and he is an experienced sea captain Having fight with the terrible sea for forty years He has a noble soul great and simple heart He exercises fish gun agile and accurate he was stabbed numerous large whales He suffered a contusion setbacks but he will never be defeated At this time he is a Promethean Man just like Byron s Cain rebelled against god s will risked danger in desperation Like Gerd s Faust never satisfied and explore with no end He also likes Hamilton s Samson proceeding without hesitation to perish together with the enemy In the novel the sailors spend nearly three years to complete the voyage and during this period they living in the shabby canvass in the ship are merely on stocked food and seawater They are exposed to the freezing storm from the polar areas and their life is always on the verge of death Even Ahab himself is ripped off one leg 本科毕业论文 设计 6 With the above analysis Ahab s character is multiple contradictory This image of the symbolic meanings is also complex vague difficult to grasp To him good evil coexist and beauty and ugly exist side by side 本科毕业论文 设计 7 Chapter Three OTHER SYMBOLIC 3 1The Symbolic Meaning of Ishmael and Queequeq Ishmael is schoolteacher and part time sailor a Presbyterian like Melville he projects Calvinistic thinking tempered by his background in literature and philosophy He discusses such issues as free will predestination necessity and damnation He is the sole survivor of the Pequod He was controlled by a feeling of loneliness and estrangement which is between man and man nature and soul which is one of the themes of the novel The author thought that in 19th century American was under the control of such loneliness So He escaped from his living environment and got on the Pequod just want to find a new life that could make him feel happy and fulfilled In this voyage he gradually know the importance of love and friendship which the author through is the guarantee of human life This perspective we can see from the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeq Queequeq was the first man that Ishmael met in his adventure He was the son of a chief of a tribe He represented the ancient society He learned the knowledge of civilization from those passing ship then he began to imagine and yearn for the civilized world To search for happiness and joy for his people he landed on a ship whose purpose was to search for whale When Ishmael first met Queequeq he is afraid of that this black man must eat human But with deep contracts with Queequeq the first impression is quickly replaced by the impression of noble and trustworthy friend What s more his behavior of saving a sailor established his heroic image in Ishmael s heart And he is the only man Ishmael want to sleep with Their friendship proved that man can be happy and acceptable with his peers It was a humorously perilous business for both of us For before we precede any further it must be said that the monkey rope was fast at both ends fast to Queequeg s broad canvas belt and fast to my Ishmael s narrow leather one So that for better or for worse we two for the time were wedded and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more while earnestly watching his motion I seemed distinctly to 本科毕业论文 设计 8 perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two But handle Queequeg s monkey rope heedfully as I would Nor could I possibly forget that do what I would I only had management of one end of it 魏玲玲 白鲸 的象征意义 第 16 页 To Queequeq s disappoint he has found the so called civilized man is hypocrisy and insincerity until he is died The contrast of the attitude of Queequeq towards the western world before and after he got on the ship was a bitter taunt from Melville Melville used the form of words to criticize and reconsider the western civilization which centered on materialism as novel went on when the Pequod and the crew all died Ishmael was saved by Queequeq coffin which symbolized the remains of the ancient culture On one aspect Melville showed his wish to the development of western culture On the other aspect the passage proves that Ishmael and Queequeg are close enough that we are willing to die for each other Melville emphasizes the importance of the friendship and the beauty of human s soul and also shows how the interdependency of mankind is unavoidable and how no person can control it Melville asserts that life interwoven whether it be one human connects to another human or one action connects to another action everything it ultimately interdependent 3 2 The Symbolic Meaning of Pequod Moby Dick is a description about a whale catcher named Pequod led by the Capitan Ahab hunt the whale On the surface it seems that the whole book focus on the implacable hatred between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick however in fact it is not only an odd adventure novel The whole staff of Pequod approached to the whales step by step and their ultimate demise which symbolized the fate of human beings in the society nature and even the universe And the author used symbolism to express his sense of concern for the fate of mankind 本科毕业论文 设计 9 Obviously the tragic fate of the Pequod and the crew was destined from the beginning First of all the ship s name itself is a symbol of death Pequod is the name of a tribe in American Indian After the white occupy American many local Indian tribes and ethnic were killed by the white in their conflicts and Pequod was one of them The author used it to name the ship just indicated the misery fate Thus we can move naturally to the second aspect that the narrator Ishmael of the whole story was the only survivor of this ship he just retold the disaster Just as Ishmael said The sailors have made great efforts to go through the wide sea only to run to their death They searched and pursued only to look for the thing that finally destroyed them Melville used this kind of arrangement only one survivor to tell the whole story just imply the tragedy of the ship Furthermore the voyage of Pequod in another word represents the spirit of expansion of capitalism Melville s time is in the expansion oriented era and whaling contributes to the affluence of people and the accumulation of capital Even the development of capitalism depends on the whaler s toil and blood on the expansive sea And at this time the great Westward Expansion is so hot especially the famous dictate go west young man spreads all over the American nation Industry gradually become the majority apart of American and is the key to uplift the living standards and quality of life of the people 3 3Symbolic Meaning of the Sea The author in the novel describes a fascinating and calm of the sea It is quiet magnificent and full of temptation It is a stark contrast to the thick earth It attracts people on this land with its extraordinary glamour Just like a famous people says Water is always linked with thought and the sea is the best place where Ishmael could think and explore life It gives the tender call day and night with the crew back to its bosom The sea has a charming and gorgeous scenery during the day and night Its beautiful makes them feel amazing The crew was deeply attracted by the unique charm of the sea Of course the sea is not always calm It is also turbulent Its 本科毕业论文 设计 10 indignation makes the crew feel that death comes The sea evokes the sadness of their lives and great hope for the future In the description of the sea the author no